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Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#261

Post by mancerayder »

remar wrote: post #260
mancerayder wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work out at a gym, and my workout takes about 1h15 to 1.5 hours, and then I have a shower and a commute. But if you have time to socialize during a workout, you either have a lot of free time or you're doing it all wrong.

I've never really understood how people seem to socialize between work sets. I've tried and it just completely kills my focus and momentum between sets. I've noticed the people at my gym who seem to talk the most are the ones who don't really come to train, but to just casually exercise. They don't seem to be following a particular program, or even know what they're doing when it comes to performing certain lifts etc…

At my gym, a big chain in my city, there's the word Club constantly used, and it does attract certain types who just like to meet people or chat up people.

I can understand maybe being a small group doing circuits, but for strength training there's no time in between sets to have a conversation. I set a timer of between 2 and 3 minutes if I'm not supersetting, I'm not the best conversationalist during that interval.

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#262

Post by [deleted] »

mancerayder wrote: post #253
DenisM wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, my gym instructor proposed that the gym could be the new church - a place for people to come together. I don't feel it works out (he he), but it might be an interesting place to start thinking. I posted this list of suggestions earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16425522

I work out at a gym, and my workout takes about 1h15 to 1.5 hours, and then I have a shower and a commute. But if you have time to socialize during a workout, you either have a lot of free time or you're doing it all wrong.

[deleted]

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#263

Post by pacificleo11 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #239
stcredzero wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has yet mentioned today's lack of community...We rarely share an emotional connection and sense of place with our neighbours that our grandparents would have known. A big part of this is the degree to which people in their 20's and 30's are willing to unperson someone in public spaces -- even in person -- just for the suspicion of holding to the wrong ideological viewpoint, or even just for being from the "wro…

I came out of academic circles in California in my young adulthood, and I see the snap judgements you refer to quite often in myself. I think I was on a track where I valued learning and inference above everything, and that gave me a kind of a weird cognitive bias. Things I could rationalize that weren’t obvious got ++points in my head. The result being I overtrained towards using “scant” information, to use your nom…

"It’s been hard reorienting myself out of that. " I am very keen to know how you did that . I suffer from same habit

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#264

Post by _m8fo »

cpsempek wrote: post #38
_m8fo wrote: post #9

Loneliness might be the logical conclusion to a society going more and more towards metrics. Likes, dislikes, upvotes, downvotes. Dissenters are punished, perfection is idolized. Research is pretty conclusive that to have tight friendships you need vulnerability to some degree, yet if people want perfection that implies invulnerability . If you accept these premises to be true, then it seems loneliness is inevitable.…

Research is pretty conclusive that to have tight friendships you need vulnerability to some degree I have to admit I don't quite understand this sentence, especially how research might define a "tight friendship" and "vulnerability". Can you provide some information about said research? This topic interests me.

Generally things like "self disclosure", "trust" and "commitment" are things that are highly correlated with strong friendship quality. I loosely put all of those under the umbrella of vulnerability as self disclosure and trust in particular generally mean you allow someone to use the information given for bad reasons potentially.

Here's a good starting point.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/146144804044331

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#265

Post by Jemmeh »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #249
Jemmeh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could try using a productivity app like StayFocusd[1] to set it up so you can only access the website once or twice a day. If it's truly an emergency people will call you. You can also try logging out of Facebook/Email and only checking it once a day. Or just plain making time to turn off your phone for a few hours on the weekend. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankej...

The problem is more that I am forced to sit in an office all day. As I said I already minimise social contact, so I don't have a Facebook account (never had one) and while I do have a Twitter account I don't use it to follow or interact with anyone I know personally, mainly following some companies. Regardless, I am forced to interact with people in a social setting way too much. For example, my brother had his birth…

Ah. You had mentioned social media and IM so I figured you'd be using them.

Look for remote work and make your cabin dreams come true? You still have to interact with people, but a lot less?

Re: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?

#266

Post by drukenemo »

dlevine wrote: post #104

As a man in his 30's who has dealt with loneliness and mild depression on a fairly Two things that I have found to be extremely helpful are: 1) See a therapist (when needed). Therapists have helped me to get out of some of my roughest patches. Even in our society, there can be a lot of shame associated with seeing a therapist, and I'll admit that I've avoided seeing one in the past due to that shame. But it has defin…

Any examples of organizations you could share?
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