It is inevitable to feel lonely sometimes, whether you are third-wheeling on a date or studying alone in your room right before finals. Why do people feel alone? Well, the feeling of being alone is due to a divergence between an individual’s amount of preferred and actual social interactions. This feeling crosses all boundaries of gender, race, age, and sexual orientation and can literally affect anyone.
According to a recent study at Brigham Young University, the feeling of loneliness can actually be harmful enough to shorten a person’s lifespan, and thus kill. The negative feeling of loneliness can greatly affect any individual’s risk for many different health and psychological issues, such as depression and heart disease. However, it is not the fleeting loneliness that most people feel that is dangerous, but the chronic feeling of loneliness that one in five Americans suffer from. The study focuses on both chronically perceived loneliness, when one feels alone even within a crowd, and actual social isolation, when one has little to no contact with society. The study concluded that the feeling of loneliness can actually increase a person’s risk for early mortality by 26%. Social isolation, on the other hand, can increase the risk of early mortality by 29% to 32%.
Image Source: RolandRegidor
Loneliness is primed to be the next big public health issue in the United States due to overall society trends, such as the increased use of technology and the growing number of single person households. Health education and popular media place a large emphasis on other risks of early mortality, such as smoking and the lack of exercise, but loneliness is the next issue that needs to be publicized and improved upon. Public awareness is key because being aware of the consequences of being lonely can entice people to make more social connections or to reach out to individuals who they think are lonely.
In another study from the University of Chicago, researchers studied the effectiveness of different treatments for loneliness. They identified three separate treatments: individual treatments involving a therapist, community interventions, and group therapy. The study also states that there is increasing evidence for the efficacy of treatments involving a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and pharmaceuticals. In the future, mass distributed pharmaceutical treatments and policy interventions may be very viable options for treating loneliness.
Loneliness is definitely a very new health concern, and in time, more research may be done to combat it. But for now, there are steps that can be taken to help those who are in need.
Feature Image Source: Pascal Maramis
