Loneliness Can Be Treated: 280 Studies Reveal What Really Works (M)
A massive review reveals which loneliness interventions actually work.
Category: Loneliness
The Modern Sign of Loneliness And Depression
This modern trend could be causing mental health problems.
This modern trend could be causing mental health problems.
Being hooked on smartphone use can be a sign of depression and loneliness.
While smartphones are useful modern devices, dependency can lead to poor mental health.
People who are dependent on their smartphones tend to strongly agree with statements like “I panic when I cannot use my smartphone.”
Dr Matthew Lapierre, the study’s first author, said:
“The main takeaway is that smartphone dependency directly predicts later depressive symptoms.
There’s an issue where people are entirely too reliant on the device, in terms of feeling anxious if they don’t have it accessible, and they’re using it to the detriment of their day-to-day life.”
The study included 346 young adults who were surveyed about their smartphone use and followed up three to four months later.
The results showed that smartphone dependency, not just use, predicted higher levels of depression and loneliness.
The reverse, though, was not true: depression and loneliness did not lead to smartphone dependency.
It is critical to know if smartphone use is causing psychological problems or not, said Ms Pengfei Zhao, study co-author:
“If depression and loneliness lead to smartphone dependency, we could reduce dependency by adjusting people’s mental health.
But if smartphone dependency (precedes depression and loneliness), which is what we found, we can reduce smartphone dependency to maintain or improve wellbeing.”
Young adults are at a higher risk of mental health problems because they are at a transitional stage in life, said Ms Zhao:
“It might be easier for late adolescents to become dependent on smartphones, and smartphones may have a bigger negative influence on them because they are already very vulnerable to depression or loneliness.”
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The study was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health (Lapierre et al., 2019).
The Social Key To Reversing Physical Frailty (M)
Frailness can start around the age of 40, brought on by negative attitudes to aging, loneliness and simply feeling older.
This Empathetic Personality Trait Protects Against Loneliness
People like this enjoy being exposed to diverse viewpoints and others look to them for advice.
People like this enjoy being exposed to diverse viewpoints and others look to them for advice.
Wisdom protects people against loneliness.
People high in two particular components of wisdom — empathy and compassion — are especially unlikely to become lonely.
Wisdom is a personality trait: typically, wise people enjoy being exposed to diverse viewpoints and other people look to them for advice.
Wise people are also skilled at filtering negative emotions and do not postpone major decisions.
Professor Dilip Jeste, the study’s first author, said:
“An important finding from our study was a significant inverse correlation between loneliness and wisdom.
People with higher scores on a measure of wisdom were less lonely and vice versa.
Loneliness was consistently associated with poor general health, worse quality of sleep and less happiness, whereas the reverse was generally true for wisdom.”
The study included older adults in a relatively isolated, rural area of Italy.
The researchers also surveyed people living in San Diego, an urban/suburban area in the US.
All were asked about various components of wisdom, including compassion, empathy, emotional regulation and self-reflection.
The results showed that people who were high in empathy and compassion were particularly unlikely to feel lonely.
Professor Jeste said:
“Both loneliness and wisdom are personality traits.
Most personality traits are partially inherited and partially determined by environment.”
Like many other personality traits, wisdom can be difficult to change, but not impossible.
Dr David Brenner, study co-author, said:
“If we can increase someone’s compassion, wisdom is likely to go up and loneliness is likely to go down.
At UC San Diego, we have considerable interest in enhancing empathy and compassion to reduce levels of stress and improve happiness and well-being.”
Professor Jeste said:
“So how do you increase compassion? Utilizing approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy or writing in a gratitude diary can help someone become more compassionate.”
The study was published in the journal Aging and Mental Health (Jeste et al., 2020).
The Personality Trait Linked To Loneliness
Feeling lonely is a part of some people’s genetic makeup.
Feeling lonely is a part of some people’s genetic makeup.
People who are neurotic have a genetic tendency towards loneliness.
Neuroticism is a personality trait that indicates a tendency to experience stress and insecurity.
However, loneliness is not just genetic, it is also a result of life circumstances.
In fact, the environment plays a bigger part than genetics — which is good news, because that means it can change.
Lonely people do not have to stay that way, whatever their genetic makeup.
Professor Julie Aitken Schermer, the study’s first author, said:
“If you have rich interactions with people, that’s an environmental component that would combat the genetic impact of loneliness.”
The conclusions come from research on 764 pairs of twins in Australia.
Twins enable researchers to separate out the influence of genetics and the environment on a person.
All were asked about their personality and any loneliness they experienced.
The results showed that people who were neurotic reported feeling more lonely.
In contrast, those who were high in extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness were less likely to experience loneliness.
The authors write:
“The results suggest common genetic and unique environmental factors play a role in personality and loneliness.”
Professor Schermer is worried about the spread of loneliness across society:
“It does concern be me because we’re getting lonelier as a society.
We’re not having the same richness of interaction.”
Professor Schermer sees it in her students:
“They’re all looking at their devices and not interacting with each other.
I always tell my students, ‘Put your stuff down and talk to each other.’
This is the key time to make friends – they already have things in common.”
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- 8 Shocking Ways Loneliness Rewires Your Brain (P)
The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Schermer & Martin, 2019).
The Social Emotion That Doubles The Chances Of Experiencing Physical Pain (M)
What if your backache, headaches, and joint pain are not just physical — but emotional wounds in disguise?
Why Sleep-Deprived People Push Everyone Away (And It’s Contagious)
Almost half of all Americans report feeling lonely or left out.
Almost half of all Americans report feeling lonely or left out.
Sleep deprivation makes people feel more lonely.
Not only that, but lack of sleep makes people less likely to engage with others, so compounding the problem of loneliness.
The reason is that people feel socially unattractive when they don’t get enough sleep.
And others spot this: loneliness is spread, almost virally, from sleepy people to the well-rested after only a short encounter.
The study’s findings show that lack of sleep and loneliness interact with each other to make the problem worse.
Professor Matthew Walker, study co-author, said:
“We humans are a social species.
Yet sleep deprivation can turn us into social lepers.”
Sleep’s social cost
For one study, the researchers scanned people’s brains while they watched videos of strangers walking towards them.
Brain activity in the sleep deprived showed they would rather avoid social contact.
Professor Walker said:
“The less sleep you get, the less you want to socially interact.
In turn, other people perceive you as more socially repulsive, further increasing the grave social-isolation impact of sleep loss.
That vicious cycle may be a significant contributing factor to the public health crisis that is loneliness.”
Dr Eti Ben Simon, the study’s first author, said:
“It’s perhaps no coincidence that the past few decades have seen a marked increase in loneliness and an equally dramatic decrease in sleep duration.
Without sufficient sleep we become a social turn-off, and loneliness soon kicks in.”
Professor Walker thinks the lack of a safety net is why sleep deprivation can be so harmful:
“There’s no biological or social safety net for sleep deprivation as there is for, say, starvation.
That’s why our physical and mental health implode so quickly even after the loss of just one or two hours of sleep.
On a positive note, just one night of good sleep makes you feel more outgoing and socially confident, and furthermore, will attract others to you.”
Related
- 8 Shocking Ways Loneliness Rewires Your Brain (P)
- Banish Loneliness: 10 Simple Techniques To Feel More Connected (P)
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications (Simon & Walker, 2018).
The Deadly Truth About Loneliness Most People Still Ignore (M)
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Listening to the right songs is a powerful tool for social connection.
