Curate Your Circle, Protect Your Peace: A Woman’s Guide to Dunbar’s 148 for Mental Wellness
- Jacqueline May
- Oct 8
- 4 min read
In our journey toward elevated living, relationships can be both a source of nourishment and a drain. The concept behind Dunbar’s number—sometimes referred to as the “148 principle” or ~150 meaningful connections—is not just about networking or social capital. It carries profound implications for mental wellness, especially for women striving to grow in life with intention.
In this article, we’ll explore how keeping your social sphere within this cognitive limit can protect our emotional energy, reduce overwhelm, and foster deeper, more sustaining connections.
We’ll also connect this to our earlier piece “Pruning for Power: Leveraging Dunbar’s 148 for Networking.” (You can read it here for reference.) The Ambition Atelier
What Is Dunbar’s Number — and Why “148”?
Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary anthropologist, proposed that humans have a cognitive limit to how many stable social relationships they can maintain. He estimates it’s around roughly 150. Wikipedia+2Royal Society Publishing+2
Over time, scholars have refined the figure; “148” is sometimes used as a more precise estimate tied to how many people we can meaningfully keep in our social circle.
These relationships aren’t all equal. Dunbar’s model describes layers of intimacy:
1.5 / Intimates – the closest confidants
5 / Close friends – those you rely on in crisis or for deep emotional support
15 / Best friends / core social circle
50 / Good friends / regular social interactions
150 / Meaningful acquaintances / stable relationships
Understanding this layered structure helps us think not just about how many people we “know,” but how deeply we are willing and able to invest in relationships.
Why This Matters for Mental Wellness
Emotional Bandwidth Is Finite
Every relationship we maintain costs us something: time, energy, cognitive load. When our social circle becomes too large or diffuse, the quality of many relationships suffers. This may also cause us to feel pulled, scattered, fatigued.
By honoring Dunbar’s principle and curating a social sphere that doesn’t exceed our capacity we can protect our emotional bandwidth.
This allows us to show up more fully for a smaller number of relationships, instead of being spread too thin.
Social Overload and Anxiety
In today’s digital world, we are bombarded with invitations, social media connections, group chats, networking demands, and more. It’s easy to overcommit or feel like we need to “engage” everywhere. But this can exacerbate anxiety, imposter feelings, or the fear of missing out.
By pruning beyond our core 148, we create breathing room. This enables us to step back from superficial connections that do not serve our well-being, and instead channel energy into relationships that nourish our heart and mind.
Depth Over Breadth Supports Resilience
When we have a well-functioning core network of meaningful relationships, we build resilience.
Those intimate, emotionally safe connections become the ones that catch us when life shifts—relationships we can lean on in struggle and celebrate with in triumph.
Multiple studies show that close friendships and social support protect mental health and reduce rates of depression, stress, and loneliness.
In other words, it’s not how many “friends” we have, but how trusted and available those friends are in our lives.
Pruning as Self-Care
Just as we declutter our physical spaces and digital lives, pruning our social networks is an act of self-care. It signals that your mental energy matters.
Letting go of connections that drain us isn’t unkind—it’s necessary. It clears space for growth, for new relationships, and for deeper alignment with who we are becoming.
How Women Can Use Dunbar’s 148 to Care for Their Mental Health
Here are practical steps to apply this principle intentionally and compassionately:
Audit Your Social Energy
Make a map or list of your current relationships across the Dunbar layers (intimates, close, good, acquaintances).
Notice which relationships feel fluid, supportive, and reciprocal, and which feel more demanding or emotionally taxing.
Recognize that some relationships naturally fade, and that’s okay.
Be Intentional about “Pruning”
Pruning doesn’t mean abrupt cuts or ghosting. It means gently reducing the energy you invest in relationships that no longer align with your growth, values, or mental health.
Lower frequency of contact (e.g., monthly instead of weekly)
Shift from emotional heavy lift to lighter check-ins
Openly communicate changed boundaries, when appropriate
Recognize that pruning is a dynamic process—not a one-time purge
Reinvest in Your Inner Circles
Once you free up energy, reinvest it into the relationships in your 1.5, 5, and 15 layers.
Schedule weekly calls or meetups with your closest confidants
Organize small rituals—book chats, walks, journaling prompts
Lean into vulnerability and depth—ask big questions, share fears, dreams
Celebrate together, support each other’s growth
Set Boundaries with Broader Connections
You can maintain broader professional or social relationships, but with safeguards:
Limit time on group chats, social media groups, or networking events
Use structured touchpoints (quarterly check-ins) instead of ad hoc
Delegate or minimize emotional labor in peripheral relationships
Recognize when a connection is transactional rather than reciprocal—and reduce emotional investment accordingly
Monitor and Adjust
Your capacity changes over time—seasonally, with life events, stress levels.
Revisit your network map every few months
Notice when any relationship is sliding into regret or exhaustion
Introduce new connections that feel energizing and aligned
Be flexible: prune, expand, tighten — it’s evolutionary, not fixed
How We Can Prune for Power AND Wellbeing
In “Pruning for Power,” we explored how we can optimize your professional and personal network by removing clutter and doubling down on high-leverage relationships.
From a mental wellness perspective, the same pruning principles apply—but with an additional lens: emotional capacity. The goal is not just influence or advantage, but sustainable well-being. When our inner connections are healthy and supportive, they become our foundation for growth in work, life, and purpose.
By intentionally aligning our network size (≈ 148) with our mental load, you transform relationships from a potential source of stress into a tapestry of support, authenticity, and elevation.
The Atelier Perspective
In pursuit of an elevated life, relationships are indispensable—but only when they are sustainable, reciprocally nourishing, and aligned with our inner world.
Adopting Dunbar’s 148 principle is not about constraining connection: it’s about curating space for deeper intimacy, authentic support, and mindful growth. As we prune with grace and intention, we reclaim our mental bandwidth, protect our emotional energy, and set the stage for more meaningful, resilient relational ecosystems.
When we care for our relationships this way, we care for our minds, our hearts, and our journey toward a more elevated life.
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