Tag Archives: loneliness

Paragraph To Ponder

Posted on by
3

From The Other Significant Others by Rhaina Cohen.

“Having fewer close friends is associated with loneliness, and loneliness is linked to a variety pack of negative health outcomes, from high blood pressure to depression to cognitive decline. Compared to women who lose their husbands, men who lose their spouses experience a much more pronounced and long-lasting spike in loneliness and depression; they’re more likely than women to die by suicide. Researchers attribute these differences to women having more diverse systems of social support.”

Pro Proximity

Posted on by
Reply

I’m sorry, but as a professor I have to sporadically use unnecessarily complex words. Like “sporadically” in place of “once in awhile”.

More illustrative of this professional obligation is the term “dialectical dilemma” which is when two seemingly conflicting things are true at the same time. Por exemplar, I annoy people*, you annoy people, people inevitably annoy one another, a little or a lot, some of the time, or nearly all of the time. It’s just baked into our daily lives. We give and we get.

Social scientists keep learning about all the ways close interpersonal relationships, or more plainly friendships, are essential to our well-being. Especially as we get closer to senior discounts.

So what are we to do? We annoy each other, but need each other.

Some people choose to live in remote settings where they’re way less likely to interact with others. Thus, they’re way less likely to be annoyed, while simultaneously giving up the substantial benefits of social interaction.

To each is own of course, but I’m convinced we should embrace the risks of being annoyed by living in closer proximity to others. Put differently, we should design our lives so we have to interact with others on a regular basis. Knowing our feathers are going to get ruffled.

Zillow has a cool feature called the “Walk Score” for residences. Our old home had a Walk Score of 0. Our new one has a Walk Score of 65. From the country to the city we go.

One day last week, the Good Wife tricked me bigly. “Do you want to weed the front together?” she asked. I knew I was looking especially fetching, but that was a shameless come-on if I ever heard one. I pictured us rolling around in the dirt. Maybe? Instead, once I got into full tree trimming and power weeding mode, she announced she was going inside.

Then. It. Happened. It turns out we live on a major bike route. Someday, if you bike from downtown Olympia to the Westside, you will go right by our house. In an hour, 15-20 cyclists went by. Of all sizes and shapes. After a kitted-out BTorian passed on his mountain bike, he turned back and said, “Is that Ron Byrnes?!”

A little later Suzie, the owner of a downtown art gallery stopped on her ginormous Specialized e-bike. And we talked and talked and talked. She asked me when I’m getting an e-bike, which in hindsight, prob shoulda prepared me for the Burgerville bullshit.

And then Burke, from two houses down came over, and we talked. About how middle schoolers care about one thing, peer relations, and therefore will say ANYTHING to preserve them.

Long story short, in one hour I spontaneously interacted with more people than I did in eight years at our Nature Park residence. Which is good for me, because I’m an introvert.

So six miles and 65 points later, I’m damn near a social butterfly. A slight exaggeration, but don’t hate me because you ain’t me.

*Last week, when I was in too big of a hurry, I may have left my Costco cart against a curb in the parking lot instead of returning it to the cart stand. A women in a minivan slow rolled right by me, GLARED at me and then WAGGED her finger at me as if I had just run over a kitten and a puppy. It was so over the top, it didn’t have the intended effect. Instead of feeling shamed, I felt amused and amazed that I could annoy her that easily.

‘You Are Not Alone’

Posted on by
Reply

Check out our YMCA’s “You Are Not Alone” mural. Because I’m so outgoing, I chatted up the artist while she was outlining it. Turns out, there’s a movement of “You Are Not Alone” artists who want to use wall murals to instill hope and connection while fostering more discussion of mental health.

I suspect their murals are more likely to accomplish the later than the former. I’m just not clear on how the murals might spark social connection which social science increasingly suggests is as close as there is to a loneliness panacea.

Do not mistake my lack of clarity, or even skepticism, as criticism. These are kind and caring people with the best of intentions.

Monday Required Reading

Posted on by
Reply

1A. QAnon’s ‘Meme Queen’ Marches On. Loneliness is a scourge.

“What attracts Ms. Gilbert and many other people to QAnon isn’t just the content of the conspiracy theory itself. It’s the community and sense of mission it provides. New QAnon believers are invited to chat rooms and group texts, and their posts are showered with likes and retweets. They make friends, and are told that they are not lonely Facebook addicts squinting at zoomed-in paparazzi photos, but patriots gathering “intel” for a righteous revolution.

This social element also means that QAnon followers aren’t likely to be persuaded out of their beliefs with logic and reason alone.”

1B. The Unlikely Connection Between Wellness Influencers and the Pro-Trump Rioters. Sigh.

2. Why Chamberlain Built a $3,000 Automatic Garage Door For Your Dog.

3. The Golf World Hardly Deserves Praise for “Breaking” With Trump. News Alert: Not everyone is impressed by my newly woke sport.

4. He Just Wanted To Play Catch. La ultima feel good story.

“I think people want to reconnect a little bit right now.”

5. Electric Cars Are Better for the Planet – and Often Your Budget, Too.

“The federal government offers a tax credit for some new electric vehicle purchases, but that does nothing to reduce the initial purchase price and does not apply to used cars. That means it disproportionately benefits wealthier Americans. Some states, like California, offer additional incentives. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has pledged to offer rebates that help consumers swap inefficient, old cars for cleaner new ones, and to create 500,000 more electric vehicle charging stations, too.”

All of today’s QAnon reading necessitated at least one President-elect Biden reference. I don’t want any PressingPausers losing touch with reality.

The Antidote To Loneliness

Posted on by
Reply

Every day, the Good Wife loads her car with buckets of garden tools and drives 8 miles to the church garden. Where she picks weeds, waters, and harvests the veggies and fruit of her labor. Beforehand, some days, she kayaks north along the edge of the Salish Sea before dipping into Gull Harbor to watch birds, admire sand dollars and other underwater life, and occasionally swim.

Newish neighbors with deep pockets recently clear-cutted their lot to build a very large sport court where I’ve never seen them or their children play tennis, basketball, or anything else.

Compared to the private Sport Courters, the Gal Pal is living life in public. Which means she meets people. And talks to them. From a safe distance these days.

Yesterday it was a school-aged boy on a bike. Well, she’s pretty sure it was a boy. Hair halfway down his back, his opening line was, “Cool garden.” They were off and running from there. A few weeks ago it was a random neighbor who left with some healthy food. 

The other night, at dusk, she cajoled me into dipping into the Salish with her. “WHY IS THERE SO MUCH STUFF IN THE WATER?!” She yelled at her native fishing friend who, because he’s native, is permitted to use large nets. When kayaking, she’s taken her time to get to know him. “I’M NOT SURE. THERE’S NO CURRENT EITHER AND THERE SHOULD BE!” Tonight’s salmon dinner will be compliments of him.

The church garden is what Eric Klinenberg calls “social infrastructure”, public places where people talk to one another. Same with our beach. The Gal Pal’s conversations with long-haired boys on bikes and fishermen is church. If church is about social connection.

If you’re lonely, know many others are too. Instead of a radical transformation, put a mask on, and at least once a day, leave the comfort of your private world and talk to someone, no matter how briefly. They’ll be a touch less lonely and so will you.   

The Lonely Majority

Posted on by
Reply

How loneliness could be changing your brain and body.

“A  2018 study. . . found that 54% of 20,000 Americans surveyed reported feeling lonely. In the span of a bit more than a year, the number rose to 61%. Generation Z adults 18-22 years old are supposedly the loneliest generation, outpacing Boomers, Gen X and Millennials, despite being more connected than ever.”

Wowza. The silent, underreported epidemic.

“Loneliness might conjure images of being apart from friends and family, but the feeling runs much deeper than not having plans on a Friday night or than going stag to a wedding. Evolutionarily, being part of a group has meant protection, sharing the workload and increased odds of survival. After all, humans take a long time to mature. We need our tribes.

‘It’s very distressing when we are not a part of a group,’ said Julianne Holt-Lundstad, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University. ‘We have to deal with our environment entirely on our own, without the help of others, which puts our brain in a state of alert, but that also signals the rest of our body to be in a state of alert.’

Staying in that state of alert, that high state of stress, means wear and tear on the body. Stress hormones like cortisol and norepinephrine can contribute to sleeplessness, weight gain and anxiety over extended periods of exposure, according to the Mayo Clinic.”

What to do? Doug Nemecek, chief medical officer at Cigna:

“‘We need to reach out to some friends and make sure we maintain those connections and have meaningful conversations. It’s important for all of us to be comfortable asking other people how they feel.”

And for the lonely majority to risk being vulnerable when asked.

Is There a Loneliness Epidemic?

Posted on by
Reply

Sporadic small signs rim the perimeter of our our local high school with the message, “You are not alone.”

Are high schoolers and people more generally lonelier today than than in the past?

From “Is there a loneliness epidemic?”

“Surveys from rich countries do not suggest there has been an increase in loneliness over time. Today’s adolescents in the US do not seem to be more likely to report feeling lonely than adolescents from a couple of decades ago; and similarly, today’s older adults in the US do not report higher loneliness than did adults of their age in the past.

That’s of course not to say we should not pay attention to these topics.

It’s important to provide support to people who suffer from loneliness, just as it is important to pay attention to the policy challenges that come from large societal changes such as the rise of living alone. However, inaccurate, over-simplified narratives are unhelpful to really understand these complex challenges.”

Unless we improve math education, we’ll continue to be susceptible to “inaccurate, over-simplified narratives” of this nature.