Relationships as Recovery - The Social Dimension of Self-Care

When I began researching self-care, I expected to spend most of my time studying individual strategies such as sleep, mindfulness, boundaries, recovery routines. But as I’ve listened to coaches, physicians, and leaders describe how they sustain themselves, one theme keeps emerging: we recover in connection, not in isolation.

Self-care, it turns out, isn’t purely a solo pursuit.
It’s deeply social.

The Myth of the Independent Leader

Many of the environments I study, elite sport, medicine, and business celebrate independence. The capable coach, the resilient surgeon, the decisive executive. Leadership narratives often revolve around strength, composure, and autonomy.

But behind those stories, there’s often loneliness.
Coaches talk about feeling “on” all the time.
Doctors describe compassion fatigue from constantly giving.
Leaders speak of the quiet isolation that comes from holding responsibility for others.

It’s a paradox: we’re surrounded by people, yet disconnected in our care.

In leadership research, Kahn (1993) described psychological presence as the sense of being fully seen and supported in relationships as fundamental to engagement and vitality. Without it, emotional exhaustion accelerates.

So while self-care may begin with the self, it is sustained through belonging.

What the Research Shows

In the medical field, studies on burnout consistently identify social support as one of the strongest protective factors. Doctors who have access to collegial dialogue, mentorship, or peer reflection groups report significantly lower rates of emotional exhaustion.

In sports coaching, relational support functions much the same way. Coaches who share reflective conversations with peers, not about tactics, but about the experience of leading, demonstrate higher resilience and job satisfaction (Fletcher & Scott, 2010).

And in leadership studies, relational energy is the feeling of being uplifted or depleted after an interaction (Owens et al., 2016) predicts not only individual wellbeing but also organisational performance. Leaders who energise others, and who have access to energising relationships themselves, are more innovative and engaged.

These findings converge around a simple truth: connection restores.

Relationships as Recovery

When we think about recovery, we often picture solitude — the quiet walk, the day off, the closed door. Those are important. But recovery also happens in conversation, laughter, shared vulnerability, and moments of genuine empathy.

After a long day of emotional labor, a five-minute talk with a trusted colleague can be more restorative than an hour alone.

Why? Because connection regulates physiology.
Social neuroscientists like Stephen Porges (2011) describe how the vagus nerve is a key component of our parasympathetic nervous system activates during safe social contact. When we feel seen and supported, our bodies shift from defence to recovery.

This means that healthy relationships are literally healing. They lower heart rate, reduce cortisol, and calm the nervous system, the same outcomes we seek through other self-care practices.

Building Relational Cultures of Care

If relationships are central to self-care, then leadership has a collective responsibility: to build cultures where care is not only permitted but practiced.

In sport, this might mean coaches modelling openness, admitting fatigue, sharing reflective space with staff, or celebrating rest as much as effort.
In medicine, it could mean peer debriefs after intense cases, designed not just for clinical review but emotional integration.
In business, it might be leaders who ask not only “How are results?” but “How are you?”, and wait long enough for a real answer.

These gestures may seem small, but culturally they redefine what leadership strength looks like.
It becomes relational strength, not stoic endurance.

Connection as Boundary

Interestingly, relationships also help us set boundaries.
When trusted peers or mentors mirror back our fatigue, they give us permission to rest. When teams value wellbeing collectively, individuals no longer feel guilty for prioritising it.

In one study I conducted with high-performance coaches, several described “holding space” for one another, a kind of informal peer care. They’d text after a tough game, check in before a stressful week, or share reminders to switch off. They described it not as therapy, but as maintenance.

It struck me that this is what sustainable leadership really looks like: not heroic independence, but interdependence, a web of relationships strong enough to catch you when you falter.

What I’m Learning

The more I study this, the clearer it becomes that self-care is relational care.

We can’t regulate what we don’t feel, and we can’t feel safely without trust. The body and mind need connection to downshift from vigilance into recovery.

I’m learning to ask myself not only How am I caring for myself? but also Who helps me do that?
And in turn, Whose recovery do I support through my presence?

Because every relationship in a system contributes to, or drains, the collective energy available.

Closing Thought

Leadership often asks us to hold space for others. But we can’t hold space effectively if we have nowhere to rest ourselves.

Relationships, honest, supportive, restorative ones, are not distractions from performance. They are the infrastructure of sustainable performance.

We recover best not alone, but together.

Next in the series: “The Reflective Leader’s Toolkit.” We’ll gather practical strategies drawn from sport, medicine, and leadership research, to help you integrate self-care and reflection into daily leadership practice.