July Is Social Wellness Month: Move Your Body & Strengthen Your Circle

July’s long days and open calendars make it the perfect time to celebrate Social Wellness Month: a 31-day reminder that your health is a team sport. Social wellness is basically the ability to build nurturing, supportive relationships and to feel you belong. And the idea has been around for decades (popularised by Words of Wellness in the early 1990s) but it hits differently in an era when half of adults report feeling lonely on a regular basis.

We all know exercising with others improves aerobic fitness, but studies keep showing extra benefits you don’t get from solo workouts: lower stress hormones, better mood, and higher adherence rates. A 2024 Baylor College of Medicine review noted that people in exercise classes reported greater reductions in anxiety and depression than people following identical programmes alone.

In research published earlier this year, participants who met physical-activity guidelines in just one or two “weekend-warrior” group sessions cut their risk of all-cause mortality by up to 32 percent compared with inactive peers. Knowing friends are waiting at 8 a.m. makes the duvet a less persuasive negotiator.

The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory warned that chronic social disconnection carries the same mortality risk as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, while regular physical activity slashes the risk of more than 250 diseases. Group workouts tackle both problems at once.

• Anchor it to something you already do. Meet your running buddy right after the school drop-off or before your regular Tuesday coffee. Habit stacking beats willpower.
• Keep the barrier to entry laughably low. Agree that “showing up in any mood for 10 minutes” counts. Most people stay once they start moving.
• Rotate roles. Let different people pick the workout or playlist each week. Shared ownership is stronger than any single person’s motivation.
• Mix offline with online. A WhatsApp or Strava group lets you celebrate micro-wins (first un-assisted pull-up!) in real time, even when holiday schedules scatter the crew.

• Comparison creep. Celebrate effort, not just numbers. Your training partner’s PR is a win for the whole crew.
• Over-booking. Social butterflies burn out too. One to three anchor sessions a week beat seven drop-ins that fade by August.
• Echo chambers. Diversity (stuff like age, background, fitness level) keeps conversations fresh and exposes you to new training methods.

The CDC reported last year that people who lack emotional support are three times more likely to experience frequent mental distress. That shows up in the gym as low energy, missed sessions, and plateaus. The antidote isn’t a perfect programme, it’s people.

There’s also another way you can signal to fellow badasses. Your PROMiXX protein shaker doubles as a social shorthand. See, if you spot someone else mixing a great shake at the gym or rinsing out a bottle after a spin class, that’s an unwritten code for “we’re in the same tribe, we've got what it takes!”

So this July, when you refill your PROMiXX shaker bottle and head out to train, remember:

• You’re fuelling your body.
• You’re strengthening your social safety net.
• You’re representing a global crew that believes excellence is a team pursuit.

So raise that bottle like a badge of honour, and if you catch another PROMiXX user's eye, give a nod. One connection at a time, we’ll all keep moving together.