The Lethality of Loneliness
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The Lethality of Loneliness
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Re: The Lethality of Loneliness
#2In a very good sociology course I took in college the professor drew an upside down bell curve on the board. The y axis was risk for suicide and the x axis was social interaction. The extremes of social interactions, very low or very high amounts, led to being at greater risk for suicide according to research quoted by the professor. Average amounts of social interactions had the lowest risk for suicide. I don't remember the specific studies or evidence, but it still resonates with me today.
Re: The Lethality of Loneliness
#3In a very good sociology course I took in college the professor drew an upside down bell curve on the board. The y axis was risk for suicide and the x axis was social interaction. The extremes of social interactions, very low or very high amounts, led to being at greater risk for suicide according to research quoted by the professor. Average amounts of social interactions had the lowest risk for suicide. I don't reme…
Interesting. This makes sense from a layman's reasoning perspective as well. People who spend an extreme amount of time with others don't spend enough with themselves and probably lose their identity. I guess my question is, what constitutes interaction? Does the brief conversations with my coworkers count? What about a phone call to my mother? Does all of this interaction being analysed have to in person and in depth?
Re: The Lethality of Loneliness
#4Back in the 1980s, PBS had a science program hosted by Jim Hartz (Wikipedia says it was Innovation). It had a program about how the lack of touch -- physical contact from others -- also affected health. Part of that program showed the same kind of monkey research mentioned in this article. I once had a transcript. Too bad the program isn't online for all to see.
Re: The Lethality of Loneliness
#5I liked the discussion about "'silos' in health policy, meaning that we see crime and low educational achievement as distinct from medical problems like obesity or heart disease."
It seems like medicine needs to be less short-sighted and integrate loneliness and nutrition and other non-medicinal factors into diagnoses and treatment.
Re: The Lethality of Loneliness
#6In a very good sociology course I took in college the professor drew an upside down bell curve on the board. The y axis was risk for suicide and the x axis was social interaction. The extremes of social interactions, very low or very high amounts, led to being at greater risk for suicide according to research quoted by the professor. Average amounts of social interactions had the lowest risk for suicide. I don't reme…
Interesting. This makes sense from a layman's reasoning perspective as well. People who spend an extreme amount of time with others don't spend enough with themselves and probably lose their identity. I guess my question is, what constitutes interaction? Does the brief conversations with my coworkers count? What about a phone call to my mother? Does all of this interaction being analysed have to in person and in dept…
I wonder how romantic relationships fit in. I don't have that many friends, but I have someone to talk to every day and I can be around my family.
But not having been in a relationship for many years, or rather, not ever having been in one that could be called serious has started to occupy a lot of my thinking time. It's something I'm reminded of everyday, like it was a disease.
It is often said that one has to be happy alone to be happy together. But might it be that even someone who is creating happiness for himself loses it because loneliness is its antagonist?
I smile when I walk trough the rain, I laugh when I hear a joke, I cry when I watch a touching movie. Isn't that a sign of happiness? Why does it feel so worthless if I'm not able to share it with someone I love?
Re: The Lethality of Loneliness
#7In a very good sociology course I took in college the professor drew an upside down bell curve on the board. The y axis was risk for suicide and the x axis was social interaction. The extremes of social interactions, very low or very high amounts, led to being at greater risk for suicide according to research quoted by the professor. Average amounts of social interactions had the lowest risk for suicide. I don't reme…
Interesting. This makes sense from a layman's reasoning perspective as well. People who spend an extreme amount of time with others don't spend enough with themselves and probably lose their identity. I guess my question is, what constitutes interaction? Does the brief conversations with my coworkers count? What about a phone call to my mother? Does all of this interaction being analysed have to in person and in dept…
>>>Does all of this interaction being analysed have to in person and in depth?
I'd say depth matters more. It's not sufficient to just be seen. People want to be understood, or seen fundamentally.
Related, the Principle of Psychological Visibility from Nathaniel Branden (fyi, I am not an Objectivist): http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=...
Re: The Lethality of Loneliness
#8In a very good sociology course I took in college the professor drew an upside down bell curve on the board. The y axis was risk for suicide and the x axis was social interaction. The extremes of social interactions, very low or very high amounts, led to being at greater risk for suicide according to research quoted by the professor. Average amounts of social interactions had the lowest risk for suicide. I don't reme…
Interesting. This makes sense from a layman's reasoning perspective as well. People who spend an extreme amount of time with others don't spend enough with themselves and probably lose their identity. I guess my question is, what constitutes interaction? Does the brief conversations with my coworkers count? What about a phone call to my mother? Does all of this interaction being analysed have to in person and in dept…
> People who spend an extreme amount of time with others don't spend enough with themselves and probably lose their identity.
It's a bit more nuanced than that: there is a type of person who knows so many people that they really don't know any of them. Thus, it can be desperately lonely to be so well-connected, too: a lot of depression-suicide cases are from people who were major event organizers or well-known micro-celebrities who had completely failed to actually make friends.
> I guess my question is, what constitutes interaction? Does the brief conversations with my coworkers count? What about a phone call to my mother? Does all of this interaction being analysed have to in person and in depth?
It doesn't have to be in person, but it does have to have depth or at least remind you of depth. If you and your mother are close, a phone call probably suffices. (Unless you're the type of person who thrives on physical contact, as I am.) If you never got along and the conversations are always tired retreads of "yes, I'm doing fine", then probably not.
Re: The Lethality of Loneliness
#9Back in the 1980s, PBS had a science program hosted by Jim Hartz (Wikipedia says it was Innovation). It had a program about how the lack of touch -- physical contact from others -- also affected health. Part of that program showed the same kind of monkey research mentioned in this article. I once had a transcript. Too bad the program isn't online for all to see.
My girlfriend (a psychologyst) is doing a postgraduate course on Attachment.
Among a lot of material, she saw a lot of videos of monkey experiments, like Harlow's (mentioned in the article) and I saw some too :) . It's quite striking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsA5Sec6dAI
from the article
"Harlow subjected newborn rhesus macaques to appalling isolation—months spent in cages in the company only of “surrogate mothers” made of wire with cartoonish monkey heads and bottles attached. Luckier monkeys had that and cloth-covered versions of the same thing to cuddle. (It is remarkable what a soft cloth can do to calm an anxious baby monkey down.) In the most extreme cases, the babies languished alone at the bottom of a V-shaped steel container. Cruel as these experiments were, Harlow proved that the absence of mothering destroyed the monkeys’ ability to mingle with other monkeys, though the “cloth mother” could mitigate the worst effects of isolation."
the article goes on to show how there are different gene expressions amongst the differently-raised monkeys, and even posits that medication could help with the physical expressions of loneliness:
"Cole can imagine giving people medications to treat loneliness, particularly when it exacerbates chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. These could be betablockers, which reduce the physical effects of stress; anti-inflammatory medicine; or even Tylenol—since physical and emotional pain overlap, it turns out that Tylenol can reduce the pain of heartbreak."
The ending statement is:
"One message I take away from this is, ‘Hey, it’s not just early life that counts,’ ” he says. “We have to choose our life well.” "
Re: The Lethality of Loneliness
#10I liked the discussion about "'silos' in health policy, meaning that we see crime and low educational achievement as distinct from medical problems like obesity or heart disease." It seems like medicine needs to be less short-sighted and integrate loneliness and nutrition and other non-medicinal factors into diagnoses and treatment.
There was a top article recently on how personal visits for chronic patients improves health A LOT:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/28/i...
it's clearly linked to the problems of loneliness - if patients form a bond with their nurse and know that someone cares, they're more likely to follow through with treatment.