You tell your doctor you are feeling down.  Or, you are diagnosed with a chronic condition.  Your prescription?  Spend two hours a week working in your neighborhood community garden.  Or, sign up for a twice-weekly art class.

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) has had a formal "social prescribing" program since 2014, though its informal roots go back to the mid-1980s.  The NHS recognized that patients are embedded in communities and that social prescribing can be an important aspect of care. To facilitate this, primary care clinics have associated  neighborhood members who are “link social workers” and receive training to address the social, emotional, and logistical determinants of health.  These include helping patients combat loneliness, obtaining advice to deal with financial struggles, and helping resolve housing instability. While still a small program with approximately 3,600 social workers, this is budgeted to ramp up in 2025 and beyond because it both serves the broader needs of patients and is cost-effective.  

The US and many other health systems include social workers as support for patients.  But, the NHS's differences are that social support is prescribed by primary care clinicians and uses members of patients' communities. This may be why it is so effective.  Neighbors helping neighbors has deep evolutionary roots and draws on the desire to help those near us.  The NHS data show that interactions from social link workers improved outcomes for those with chronic conditions, eased mental health disorders, and reduced the number return clinical visits.  The latter issue is vitally important for the chronically under-staffed NHS which has 18% fewer physicians per capita than the EU average and 41% fewer than Germany.  

Should the US and other countries follow this model?  Neighborhood volunteers have been a staple of the informal support system for those in need, but letting neighbors know one needs help can be embarrassing or uncomfortable.  Indeed, to receive informal help, one has to invest in social relationships before the need occurs.  My father passed away recently at age 93 and was relatively healthy for most of his life, but as he aged, neighbors and friends, many retired, would show up and offer help.  At first he demurred but eventually he gladly accepted this help.  He also benefited from the deeply subsidized Meals on Wheels program in which volunteers bring daily meals to shut-ins.  My father paid under $6 a day for this service and, besides the food, also got a visit from a friendly volunteer--a double win.  Meals-on-Wheels and related services are the US's version of link social workers but these are seldom prescribed by physicians; rather clinic-based social workers and patient liaisons can connect patients with these resources, but not all patients get this help. 

The data show that nearly everyone is willing to help a neighbor in need.  To do this, we need to build relationships with our neighbors and know when they need our help and vice-versa. The team at Immersion Neuroscience created a free app called SIX that does both of these things.  Here's how it works.  

First, click on the hyperlink now to download the free SIX app from the Apple App store or Google Play store.  SIX measures the value the brain gets from social-emotional experiences and automatically builds a catalog of where and when these Key Moments occur.  My colleagues and I discovered and named the brain network that values social-emotional experiences "Immersion" and it is driven by the actions of two interacting neurochemicals, dopamine and oxytocin.  Immersion was discovered over 20 years of published science from my academic lab and very accurately predicts individual and population behaviors. Our peer-reviewed published research shows that people who have six or more high-Immersion Key Moments a day are thriving--they are present and emotionally open and are fully-engaged in life.  

The SIX app captures Key Moments from the brain's "output file," the cranial nerves.  It does this by applying algorithms to signals we pull from smartwatches, fitness wearables, and Oura rings.  SIX is software, not hardware, and supports about 20 popular wearable devices.

Next, share SIX with your neighbor.   The next time you run into your neighbor, invite him or her to to join your SIX Inner Circle. You do this using the SIX app to send an invite to your neighbor's mobile phone. The invite will have a link so your neighbor can directly download SIX.  Those in your Inner Circle are people you care about and want to remain connected to every day. The SIX app will share the number of Key Moments people in your Inner Circle are having and they will see how many Key Moments you are having. All other information in SIX stays private to each individual user.   

You can stay in touch with your neighbors by checking your Inner Circle in SIX.  The number of Key Moment shows objectively if your friends and neighbors are thriving (six or more Key Moments) or struggling (three or less).  Once you have an Inner Circle, use SIX to strengthen your relationship with them.   If your neighbor has only had one or two Key Moments, you can send a "flourish" to him or her in the app--an icon reminding your neighbor someone cares about him or her.  If, for several days in row, someone in your Inner Circle has had very few Key Moments, give them a call or stop by and say hello.  You have now become their trusted and caring support person and they have empowered you to check in on their emotional state in a nonintrusive way.   Besides the social component, SIX has a trained AI assistant that offers personalized advice based on your data for how to get more Key Moments. 

The third way to use SIX to connect is for you and your neighbor to both open SIX when you are together.  SIX shows the real-time value of the experience you two are sharing and how in-sync your brains are second-by-second.  It is so much fun to see neural synchronization and to discuss which person is enjoying the experience more!  Watching your screens together can produce a Key Moment, but even if it doesn't, it is an effective way to see how another person is really doing in the moment.  If your friend's real-time Immersion is low, they are having a tough day.  This is your cue to ask if they are OK or invite the other person for coffee to chat.  

To reiterate, the sequence to build your social support network of neighbors is: Download SIX, Share, and Compare.   Seeing your own Key Moments will reveal what is most important in your life so you can do more of it, and open meaningful conversations with friends and neighbors about their emotional lives so that together we can all thrive.  

Years ago, FastCompany magazine gave me the title "Dr. Love" because of my research on the brain basis for love, connection, and care as I discussed in my popular TED Talk.  As your Dr. Love, I would like to prescribe the daily use of SIX so you can live a happier, healthier, and longer life.  And, when you share SIX with your neighbors, you are building a community of care that benefits everyone.  Download SIX today to get started.