Loneliness is Harmful to Our Nation's Health
Thanks to remarkable new technologies and the widespread use of social media, we are more “connected” than ever before. Yet as a nation, we are also more lonely. In fact, a recent study found that a staggering 47% of Americans often feel alone, left out and lacking meaningful connection with others. This is true for all ages, from teenagers to older adults.
The number of people who perceive themselves to be alone, isolated or distant from others has reached epidemic levels around the world. In Japan, for example, an estimated half million (known as hikikomori - (derived from the Japanese words hiki “to withdraw” and komori “to be inside”) shut themselves away for months on end. In the United Kingdom, 4 in 10 people report feelings of chronic, profound loneliness, prompting the creation of a new cabinet-level position (the Minister for Loneliness) to combat the problem.
While this “epidemic” of loneliness is increasingly recognised as a social issue, what’s less well recognised is the role loneliness plays as a critical determinant of health. Loneliness has been estimated to shorten a person’s life by 15 years, equivalent in impact to being obese or smoking 15 cigarettes per day. A recent study revealed a surprising association between loneliness and cancer mortality risk, pointing to the role loneliness plays in cancer’s course, including responsiveness to treatments.
Biologists have shown that feelings of loneliness trigger the release of stress hormones that in turn are associated with higher blood pressure, decreased resistance to infection and increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. There’s even evidence that this perceived sense of social isolation accelerates cognitive and functional decline and can serve as a warning sign for Alzheimer’s disease.
It has long been recognised that social support—through the availability of nutritious food, safe housing and job opportunities—positively influences mental and physical health. Studies have repeatedly shown that those with fewer social connections have the highest mortality rates, highlighting that social isolation can threaten health through lack of access to healthcare, social services or needed support.
However, how the personal sense of loneliness (experienced by many even while surrounded by others) is a threat to health, may be less black and white as we might hope, thus, less able to put our finger on the problem. It is important to recognise that feelings of social cohesion, mutual trust and respect, within one’s community and among different sections of society, are all crucial to well-being. These new statistics underscore the urgent need to address this “epidemic” of alienation and despair and to increase social support. In some countries, for the first time, life expectancy is declining, while the numbers of “deaths of despair” (from suicide, drugs and alcohol abuse), especially among males, is on the rise. The chances of dying from an opioid overdose or suicide are now higher than the odds of dying in a motor vehicle accident.
So what can be done to combat widespread loneliness and default standards of living that we took for granted? Well aside from the well established Meals on Wheels, community engagement programs such as food banks and befriending help-lines that arrange phone calls between volunteers and the lonely, we ourselves can take personal action to make meaningful connections.
Each of us can reach out to someone who may be lonely: the elderly next door who never has visitors, the homeless person who feels invisible, or the mother overwhelmed with the responsibility of a new baby. By making a simple human connection, we can save a life. Health and well-being are profoundly social. Ironically, in today’s hyperconnected world, we must tackle head-on the growing public health crisis of loneliness if we’re to become a healthier nation.
Extracts taken from Claire Pomeroy from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com