Why We Need Third Spaces To Put Our Wellbeing First

I’ve lived in the UK for a little under 10 years now and, while I’ve become fairly well acquainted with most things - from Britishisms, cultural pillars, traditions, and even foods - one thing I’ve found difficult to understand is the infamous pub. Firmly planted on just about every corner of London and held in esteem in towns and cities across the UK, it seemed to me quite extraordinary that these spots - many of which have been around for decades more than me - are a sort of social hub for locals in the area.

Until, suddenly, it made sense.

You’ve probably heard of the term ‘third space’ and a pub, originally known as a ‘public house’, is the UK’s original third space - a place to escape to; where one could commune with old friends, meet new people, and break the monotony of work, home, work, home that so many of us get stuck in.

While the pub is far from my personal place of comfort, it has made me wonder - have we diminished the importance of third spaces in the modern age and, if so, how can we revive them in pursuit of wellbeing?

While the concept of third spaces has existed for centuries, the term was originally coined in the early 1990s by the urban sociologist, Ray Oldenburg.

Oldenburg believed that a huge aspect of public wellbeing was to have places beyond your home and your workplace that facilitated relaxation, playfulness, leisure, social interaction and, ultimately, community.

These third spaces could look like libraries, gyms, cafes, community centres, parks, and any informal gathering place where regulars flock to and newcomers are welcomed in.

I recently (unintentionally) found my own set of third spaces in my local cafe and my Pilates studio. From once being a stranger in these environments, I can now tell you all about Tom’s comedian career and his birthday traditions, or David’s recurring knee injury and his former rugby career. I could also tell you about the challenges they’ve faced in the last few years, their family dynamics, and their goals for the future. Each week, as I chat to strangers-turned-friends in these now sacred third spaces of mine, I leave feeling energised, inspired and, most importantly, authentically connected. 

There are countless studies that prove that social connection is absolutely critical to our wellbeing. One recent study published by World Psychiatry in the National Library of Medicine stated that, “Robust evidence documents social connection factors as independent predictors of mental and physical health, with some of the strongest evidence on mortality.”

Elsewhere in this study and many others, we read about the correlation between depression and isolation, anxiety and loneliness, and even the impact of social connection on things such as our cardiovascular health and other diseases.

It’s clear that the ocean of research points to this: there is an undeniable link between our mental - even our physical - health and how connected we feel to others.

So, how do third places play a role in this?

Both our workplaces and our homes come with a set of responsibilities that must be maintained in order to function. While we may have people we live with and colleagues we work alongside, third spaces give us a chance to connect with others - obligation free. When home-life stress and work-life pressures arise - which they inevitably do when you spend so much of your time with the same people - third spaces can offer a relief where, even if you don’t have a conversation with someone, you still feel like you belong, like you’re part of a community.

They connect us to others, but they also help us connect with ourselves. For some that looks like sitting at your favourite cafe with a book, for others it’s a walk in a local park. For me, it’s my favourite workout class, a place I feel connected - even if my only conversation is a quick hello and goodbye.

How do we find them?

There are third spaces all around us. However, with such busy lives that push us into that work, home, work, home monotony, we make little time to seek them out and spend even less time in them.

A third space does not have to look a certain way nor have a certain number of people. It can be a library or a park, a workout studio or your local community centre, a book club or your neighbourhood cafe. Whether it’s one of these or somewhere else entirely, it is simply a place where we can bring ourselves, as we are, and where we can facilitate that burden-free connection that is so vital to our wellbeing - both of mind and body.

In England, at least 1 in 4 of us will experience mental health issues, and across the UK at least 1 in 7 adults describe their mental health as the worst it’s ever been. Then there’s the stress-factor that has people Googling ‘how to reduce stress’ at least once every 10 minutes. Take all of this into account and it’s no surprise that suicide rates have increased and both depression and anxiety are at an all-time high.

From research to data to clinical trials and even social experiments, the evidence is perfectly clear: we need community. And with that, we can argue that we need third spaces too.

With the new year in sight, a period when many people reflect on the year gone by, as well as one when our mental health can sometimes decline even further, perhaps it’s time we paid more attention to our need to connect beyond our homes and outside of our workplaces. Perhaps it’s time to take care of our minds and our bodies by planting ourselves within a community. Perhaps it’s time to get serious about that sacred, special, and critical third space—-after all, it might well be the very thing that helps us put our wellbeing first.