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Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

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Re: Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

#91

Post by Wonnk13 »

nothing more than a n=1 anecdote, but I'm noticeably more depressed when my wife is in the office and I don't go in to a coworking space and/or do something with my friends after work.

Even as an introvert I can easily see if I didn't have a partner and access to friends and socialization I'd be significantly more likely to kill myself.

Before my mother started joining more retiree clubs I could literally see on her face how much more weathered and haggard she was. The isolation was physically visible on her face.

Re: Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

#92

Post by arandr0x »

smithkl42 wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Honest question: for women, are there any churches or other religious or spiritual traditions that do not limit them or afford them a second-class status relative to other members? (This can be in terms of church elders/leadership positions or just importance in activities, speeches giving women good role models, etc). For instance Catholic traditions usually provide quite a few female role models (not least Mary) but heavily sideline women in actual church operations, whereas Protestant traditions have more equitable leadership ranks, but don't give as much space to women who are not in leadership. I am not clueful enough to discuss other traditions sadly.

Re: Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

#93

Post by flipnotyk »

GratiaTerra wrote: post #43
smithkl42 wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Attending church can have negative consequences because religion promotes belief in unprovable claims, building life on a false premise: since the central claim isn’t true, the practices and rules around it may seem hollow or misleading. Religion discourages critical thinking, consumes time and money, enforces conformity through social pressure, and expose individuals to guilt, shame, or manipulation by institutions…

Not every church is associated with a large international community. My girlfriend is an avid churchgoer and her church has 46 members I believe. They aren't Catholic and not associated with a broader group. They're called "Primitive Methodist" so I guess there's a broader denominational link to other churches, but they don't get orders from anyplace above them or anything.

It sounds nice to someone like me who doesn't do any organized religious stuff, because the money and things donated there go back to their little community or for maintaining the building and things like that. I see firsthand how that kind of church drastically helps her have a sense of community in an increasingly digital-first world.

Re: Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

#94

Post by jimkleiber »

al_borland wrote: post #25

Mindfullness as a treatment for loneliness is strange to me. This doesn't actually help with the problem of being alone, it could just make someone be more OK with it. As someone who spends a lot of time alone, one of my big fears is having a medical emergency, even just choking on food, and dying from something that would be easily avoided had another person been in the house. I've gone and looked up how to give mys…

I think so much of it is our fear of dealing with conflicts and running away. Mindfulness, if it helps us have the courage to talk with people, apologize, forgive, and reconcile relationships with ourselves and others, can probably be super helpful. However, I think a lot of it has us actually move farther away from others, retreating into ourselves and then yeah, if you need someone to take you to the hospital, the relationships aren't there or aren't so immediate to help with that.

I think I feel you and I hope that if something like that were to happen, you would have people willing to offer and give that help and you'd be willing to ask for and receive that help.

Re: Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

#95

Post by lynx97 »

bjourne wrote: post #27
paraknight wrote: post #16

I haven't dug into all the sources, but I think there's a potential confounder here, or maybe even reverse causality. The author seems to assume causation when the studies only indicate correlation. E.g. the first link says "chronic loneliness increases mortality risk" but the actual source says "actual and perceived social isolation are both associated with increased risk for early mortality". So for example, it's p…

Of course there is no direct causation between loneliness and death. You don't directly die from lack of social interaction, but you do directly die from lack of food. However, there is a clear causal link between loneliness and habits that increase mortality.

> Of course there is no direct causation between loneliness and death.

Of course there is. If you are alone at home, who calls an ambulance if you have a heart attack or similar condition? If you are living together with someone, the chance they are arund while it happens is all thats needed to skew the statistics.

Re: Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

#96

Post by e_y_ »

Y_Y wrote: post #69
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By these statistics there aren’t enough healthy people to provide care for those that are less healthy The challenge here is that healthy people don’t desire to be around unhealthy people. Society provides no incentive or social benefit for otherwise healthy people to be around the unwell to call the ambulances. Even as a nurse, hospice worker or caregiver, the pay/benefits are non existent for the amount of emotiona…

You don't have to be that healthy to call an ambulance! As long as not everyone in the sick-and-poor commune has a heart attack at the same time this should be a safe enough system.

Ambulances are expensive enough that people are hesitant to call them, sometimes even in life threatening situations.

And if the person is unsure whether the situation is critical, they might try to "sleep it off" rather than driving or getting a ride, because ER is also kind of expensive and you could be stuck there all day.

Re: Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

#97

Post by al_borland »

SirHumphrey wrote: post #87
Herring wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite a rare thing to die by choking. It just doesn't feel like it, which is where mindfulness can help. You do more dangerous things every day like walking (falls) and driving, eating (obesity), and brushing your teeth (gum disease), so if you want to work on prevention it's better to have a head that correctly assesses risk and spends your limited time/money/effort optimally.

But then choking is not the only health emergency when having people around is a plus. Even active people sometimes suffer from heart attacks and having someone being there doing chest compressions or at least calling for help leads to quite difficult health outcomes versus being found hours later. Same goes for strokes…

Exactly. Many of the statistically more dangerous things are either chronic issues (obesity) or inherently in public (driving). Choking, a heart attack, etc are acute issues happening in private, which is where the fear lies. Some of those acute issues could be made more likely by the chronic issue, but not always. And if the chronic issues are known, a person can proactively get tests to hopefully avoid an acute issue. My dad just had a quadruple bypass, identified as a need based on a proactive calcium scan, rather than waiting for a heart attack.

Re: Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

#98

Post by eastbound »

deadbabe wrote: post #24

Mortality risk is already 100% isn’t it? We’re going to die, guaranteed, so what’s another 23% increase on 100%? I think a good study would be the effects of likes, upvotes and karma on overall lifespan. I’d bet that people who gain more upvotes and positive engagement in general probably live much longer than people who are chronically downvoted or ignored.

That is a very clever null hypothesis to check whether disliked people tilt the balance, or whether lack of human interactions do.

The ones who should do this study would be the CIA. They could remotely kill people by giving them negative social feedback all the time. It would also give weight to online harassment complaints.

Re: Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

#99

Post by Herring »

SirHumphrey wrote: post #87
Herring wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite a rare thing to die by choking. It just doesn't feel like it, which is where mindfulness can help. You do more dangerous things every day like walking (falls) and driving, eating (obesity), and brushing your teeth (gum disease), so if you want to work on prevention it's better to have a head that correctly assesses risk and spends your limited time/money/effort optimally.

But then choking is not the only health emergency when having people around is a plus. Even active people sometimes suffer from heart attacks and having someone being there doing chest compressions or at least calling for help leads to quite difficult health outcomes versus being found hours later. Same goes for strokes…

Yes, roughly speaking meditation is inner work. You are still gonna have things to do out in the world.

It's like someone advises you to go to the gym and you say but I drive everywhere. Yes they're not conflicting. In fact unless you live in a place like NYC or London, you need to be good at both.

Re: Meta-analysis of 2.2M people: Loneliness increases mortality risk by 32%

#100

Post by magneticnorth »

hhmc wrote: post #84
vasco wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dismissive but practical take is "well yeah there's nobody in the room to call an ambulance when you have the heart attack you'll most likely have", which mindfulness classes and support groups don't help with. There's practical benefits to having people around.

I once did a course with a paramedic on basic aid. We were discussing choking, which is a condition that really needs a 2nd party to intervene. Someone asked what to do if you live alone (with no close neighbours) - the answer was essentially ‘good luck’

The idea of the heimlich is to put sudden force on the diaphragm and force air upward. You can do that alone by pushing your upper abdomen against a chair back, counter, railing, whatever. Not something I've ever tried, but good to know about in case.
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