How to Talk to Strangers
The life-changing art of talking to strangers.
Key points
You always have something in common with a stranger because you're in the same place at the same time.
A conversation that goes nowhere beyond that moment is still meaningful.
Not every stranger will turn into a friend, and that's OK.
Recently, I was asked to blurb a book called Once Upon a Stranger. In it, I learned fascinating insights on why talking to strangers can benefit you in ways that even your most intimate relationships can’t. I interviewed the author, Gillian Sandstrom, who is also an associate professor at The University of Sussex.
Gillian Sandstrom: So the QUICK framework on how to talk to strangers:
QU = Question
IC = In Common
K = Kindness
The one I use most often is asking a question—particularly tapping into genuine curiosity. I'll see someone doing something interesting and just ask, "What are you doing?" in a playful tone. I saw someone photographing a fence in a park and just said, "What are you doing?" It gets you past small talk immediately and into something real. And if you're observant, there are endless opportunities. I walk a lot, so if I see someone with binoculars, I'll say, "Oh, what are you looking for?"
The IC stands for "in common.” You always have something in common with a stranger because you're in the same place at the same time. You might be waiting for the same bus or sitting in the same waiting room. That shared context is an easy starting point. You can also draw someone's attention to something in your environment—I've pointed out spring flowers in the park, or dogs playing nearby. It's also why we talk about the weather. And a small trick I use when I want to say "How are you" but don't want it to sound hollow: I insert the time of day. At the end of the day, I'll say, "Long day? Heading home?" It's the same sentiment, just slightly customized.
K is for kindness. Compliments are an easy opener—comment on someone's tattoo, their earrings, what they're wearing. Those are all signals of who they are and what they want to show the world. You can compliment a parent on their polite children or a neighbor on their garden. And other small acts of kindness work, too — offering directions, or sharing a table.
Marisa G. Franco: I notice a tension when I talk to strangers. If I ask something functional—like "How does the steam room work?"—it feels less vulnerable, because it seems like I just need information. But when I try to genuinely connect—like saying "Long day, huh?" on the bus—that feels much more exposed, because I'm signaling that my goal is connection. The functional question is easier, but it can fall flat. The vulnerable one is harder but richer.
GS: I write about that in the book. Asking a question feels less risky because there's a clear reason you're talking—it removes the awkwardness of "Why is this person talking to me?"
MF: Since I'm all about friendship—how do you turn a stranger into a friend?
GS: First: You don't have to. Strangers can just be strangers, and that's still valuable. A conversation that goes nowhere beyond that moment is still meaningful. But if there's a spark—the key is not to just walk away. Convert the moment into something concrete. Someone once gave me great advice: Never get off a call without scheduling the next one. The analog here is the same—if you've just met someone and liked them, put an offer out right then. The worst they can say is no.
Just last week, I chatted with someone at a bus stop and on the bus for maybe seven or eight minutes. We exchanged enough to find each other online. Before I could even reach out, he emailed me. We're having lunch in a couple of weeks.
MF: Sometimes a stranger encounter is just a beautiful moment. But sometimes it triggers a whole chain of events. I talked to a neighbor, and now she's my best friend—we just went to Guatemala together. Another neighbor and I meet twice a month to work on our mental health. Such a long chain of lovely things.
GS: And sometimes it's even simpler—my husband just signed up for pottery classes because I mentioned a studio I'd heard about from someone on a train. Small conversations open doors to things you'd never have thought of.
Start Strong But Never Finish? 4 Causes and 4 Solutions
Quitting isn't the problem, but it's a bad solution to other unresolved ones.
Key points
Starting strong and then quittting is a common problem.
Often the underlying drivers are managing the tedium of the middle stages, poor plannig, getting discouraged.
The keys are recognizing your pattern, learning skills, having realistic expectations, getting support.
You’ve probably met people like Anne. If she looks back on her life, she sees it littered with hobbies—knitting, painting—that ran out of steam, house projects—planting a garden, building a bookcase—that were never finished. Others might have a great idea for a new business, or date someone new, but like Anne, it all fizzles out after a few weeks or months.
Quitting often makes sense for a lot of good reasons, but if you have a pattern of starting strong, then sputtering and eventually stopping, never gaining momentum or reaching your goals, maybe it's time to take a closer look at what might be going on. Here are the most common culprits:
#1: The excitement wears off.
Newness is often its own reward, a dopamine hit—the thrill of the novelty, the fantasies of what the doing will be like, what the finished product will look like. But excitement is hard to sustain; eventually, you slump into the more tedious middle. The oxytocin-fueled chemistry of those first dates naturally begins to wane; the digging in the garden and the hammering of boards become mindless chores, or a better business idea bubbles to the surface, pushing the other to the side.
#2: Poor planning at the start.
Creating that magical garden costs more than expected, or you never considered how to maintain the watering when you’re away; the business venture entails a lot of legal hassles that you never expected. Often, the driver here is impulsiveness: a let’s-go, why-not attitude takes over, but the details and potential challenges are lost in the enthusiastic dust
#3: You hit a roadblock and feel overwhelmed or discouraged.
You and your new date had a big argument on Saturday night, and instead of circling back and working through it, you decided this is way too much drama and trouble. You start a new painting but realize you don’t have the skills to bring your vision to life. You feel disappointed and discouraged, or overwhelmed, and unsure of what to do next. Under the weight of these reactions, you quit.
#4: You tend to be self-critical and perfectionistic.
The bookcase looks like something a third grader would build, the garden appears scraggly, and you should have used a different stitch or yarn for the sweater you’re knitting. You beat yourself up, decide you’ll never be a gardener, builder, or knitter, and then move on to something else.
Or, you’re a perfectionist. Your self-criticism keeps you from finishing because you think completion must mean perfection; finishing without perfection feels like failure, and failure isn’t acceptable. And so you never finish because you're keeping the door open for endless tweaks. You tell yourself you’ll eventually circle back and get it done, but your anxiety about it all and new distractions create endless excuses.
There’s an emotional thread running through all of these scenarios in which quitting is a behavioral solution for coping with uncomfortable feelings of boredom, disappointment, self-criticism, frustration, or feeling overwhelmed. The solution is to address these underlying problems. Here’s how to get started:
Step back, drill down, and recognize your pattern.
When you're in the thick of it all, your mind tends to focus on the cost, watering, legal issues, and arguments, but this is a classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees. The real issues are deeper—impulsiveness and lack of planning, unrealistic expectations, struggles with boredom, difficulty tolerating conflict, or self-criticism and perfectionism. These are about you—your personality, how you handle emotions, or how you see yourself and your goals. The first step is to recognize and acknowledge this pattern.
See these underlying drivers as a challenge; develop the skills you need.
If you have AD/HD, it may be driving your impulsivity or need for excitement; if so, tackle it directly by getting evaluated, considering medication, and learning organizational skills. Or, maybe it's about that scolding parent in your head, or your struggle with conflict or disappointment that you need to push back against or manage. Time to tackle these problems directly, or seek counseling to help you handle them.
Get support.
Counseling is one form of support, but there are less formal sources to tap into. Here, you brainstorm with a friend about your latest business idea before you start, and let them play devil’s advocate, or be the counter to the impulsiveness as you map out the garden design. Or, you go to the local knitting shop or sign up for community art classes to help you solve problems with the sweater or painting. Or, you simply enlist a friend to help you stay on track—someone you check in with once a week to report your progress or to give you a pep talk when you feel like quitting.
Take the bigger challenge.
While your current challenge seems to be a relationship or a project, ultimately it’s about cultivating discipline and perseverance, and changing how you talk to yourself and run your life.
Ready to accept the challenge?
If not now, when?
April is Stress Awareness Month
How to Get Better Sleep: CBT techniques you probably don't know can improve sleep.
Key points
Sleep is dictated by two biological processes: sleep drive and wake drive.
Sleep compression involves involves manipulating your sleep drive.
Waking at the same time each day is critical for regulating wake drive.
Drugs are also an important consider.
Research demonstrates a clear relationship between better sleep quantity and quality and improved mood. Due to its importance, seven to nine hours of quality sleep are recommended for adults each night.
How Does Sleep Work?
There are two processes that regulate sleep: circadian wake drive and sleep drive:
Wake drive is stimulated by light entering your eyes (particularly blue light). So, wake drive usually increases through the morning with exposure to light and decreases into the evening, as it gets dark.
Sleep drive gradually increases as the neurotransmitter adenosine accumulates and binds to adenosine receptors in the brain. As you sleep, adenosine breaks down, resetting to baseline by the next morning. So, sleep drive increases slowly for every hour you're awake and resets overnight.
Ideally, by the end of the day, sleep drive is high as wake drive declines, and by morning, wake drive increases as sleep drive returns to baseline.
Where Sleep Goes Wrong
Problems with sleep include taking too long to fall asleep, or waking up too frequently during the night or too early in the morning.
Thankfully, you can correct these problems by aligning the peak of your sleep drive and the trough of your wake drive at the time you want to sleep (you can see this in the following diagram). In doing this, you will train yourself to fall asleep faster and to sleep more solidly through the night.
Improve Sleep Through Sleep Compression
One technique is to compress your sleep.
Set a standard wake time that you will get up every day of the week. Let’s say 7:00 am.
Figure out how much time you are sleeping currently. Let’s say you’re only getting five hours.
Go to bed the amount you are currently sleeping + 30 minutes before your set wake time. In this case, it would be 1:30 am.
After one night, estimate how long you spent awake in bed (including time before sleep onset, awakenings during the night, and time awake before getting up).
If you lie awake in bed for 30+ minutes, go to bed 30 minutes later the next night. If you lie in bed for < 30 minutes, go to bed 30 minutes earlier the next night.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 until your sleep stabilises or until you hit your sleep goal.
This may seem crazy, as you may temporarily incur a sleep debt, but it will eventually train your body to sleep soon after getting into bed and solidly until morning.
Improve Sleep Through Circadian Rhythm
You may also find that you have problems with your circadian wake drive.
Circadian wake drive is often referred to as circadian rhythm because of its clock-like capacity to bring us out of sleep. You might sometimes have the eerie experience of your body waking you a minute before your alarm is set to go off. This is a sign that your circadian rhythm is working well. However, you may also have had the experience of your alarm tearing you from sleep, leaving you wanting to snooze or groggy. This is a sign that your body has been woken during a deeper stage of sleep (e.g., deep sleep) instead of a lighter sleep stage (e.g., REM sleep).
For those who have inconsistent wake times, it can make it difficult for your body to plan when you enter deep sleep. The result may be that your body slates you for a deep sleep cycle at the time you need to wake. However, if you establish a regular wake time, your body will ensure you’re in a lighter sleep stage when you need to wake.
So, the best thing you can do for your sleep is to wake up at the same time every day to help establish a consistent circadian rhythm. Unfortunately, this means no sleep-in days, even on weekends.
Lifestyle and Sleep
If you find your body naturally doesn't get tired until late into the evening, consider using blue light filters on screens in the evening, avoiding eating or alcohol intoxication within a few hours of bedtime, and engaging in relaxation meditation or controlled breathing to induce sleep. Also, it’s important to exercise and avoid napping during the day to maximise your sleep drive for when you need it at night.
Sleep Drugs
You can also consider speaking to a medical professional about melatonin, which can be used to wind down your circadian wake drive at the time you need. Alternatively, valerian and magnesium are evidence-based sleep supplements4 you can grab off the shelf to help increase sleep drive.
Caffeine and Sleep
Caffeine increases our wakefulness by blocking adenosine from binding to the adenosine receptors. So, if caffeine is in our bloodstream when we sleep, it can significantly impair sleep.
It takes about six hours for half of the caffeine you consume to leave your bloodstream. For example, if you have a cup of coffee at midday, you'll have the equivalent of half a cup of coffee in your system at 6 pm and around a quarter of a cup of coffee in your system at midnight. So, if you think that having a quarter of a cup of coffee at midnight might affect your sleep, you may want to reconsider your lunchtime latte.
St. Patrick's Day
On St. Patrick’s Day, we talk a lot about luck. 🍀
Mental health tends to improve through support, skills, connection, and self-compassion. Feeling steadier often reflects the effort you’ve put into coping, learning, surviving, and growing.
Healing is built in small, consistent moments:
• Choosing rest
• Reaching out
• Challenging a negative thought
• Saying no when needed
Celebrate Women’s History Month by Prioritizing Your Mental Health
As we celebrate Women’s History Month, we want to take time to celebrate the diverse, brilliant women across this nation who keep everything going at home and work, within community organizations and faith institutions, and in every aspect of life. We celebrate the women from our history who have helped to shape us as individuals and as a nation. We hope this note speaks in a positive way to every woman who reads or is served by this message.
During this month, celebrate the women in your life and ask them to prioritize their own mental health. Acknowledge and support women at whatever age or stage they are in life. Check on the women in your life to make sure they are doing okay. Let them know that it is okay to not always be okay. Make sure they know that they have a safe place to go if they are struggling with their mental health and offer your help in connecting them to a behavioral health professional. If you are a woman, consider taking the time to celebrate your own accomplishments and do a mental health self-care check-up this month. If you find that you need additional help, reach out to your physician or a behavioral health provider. SAMHSA offers a Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator that can help you identify providers in your area.
Women are often the caregivers to their families and friends, yet often overlook giving themselves the care they need. Mental health is essential to well-being and women must prioritize their own mental health to ensure that they remain healthy. Being mentally healthy has an impact on the legacies and history of women. Ensure the women in your life have the tools to be mentally and physically healthy starting with these tips below.
Take time for yourself to do something you want or nothing at all
Get a good night's rest every night, 7-9 hours per night is recommended for adults
Participate in regular exercise, 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity is recommended for adults
Get outside and get some sunshine whenever possible
Try relaxation techniques like meditation, mindfulness, or prayer
Tell a trusted family member or friend if you are struggling with your mental health
Consider talking to a mental health professional
If you or someone you know is in a crisis please use the resource provided below for help
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
Ayuda en español: 1-888-628-9454
If you know someone who needs immediate crisis counseling related to disasters
Disaster Distress Helpline
1-800-985-5990
For free and confidential treatment referral and information about mental health and/or substance use disorders in English and Spanish, 24/7
SAMHSA’s National Helpline
1-800-662-HELP (4357)
For more resources about mental health, visit Store.SAMHSA.gov