Loneliness Kills

A critical public health issue that Former US surgeon general Dr Vivek Murthy is now focusing on might surprise you. And the toll this particular issue takes on our health is as great as smoking cigarettes. Too rarely do we value and focus on our emotional well-being and our health overall. But if we want to look at the underlying roots of the opioid crisis and addiction, violence, and cardiovascular illness, there is one key issue in common: loneliness.

In an interview published January 18, 2018 in the Boston Globe, Murthy reflects, "Loneliness and emotional-well being are connected to the issues we're reading about in the papers every day....Loneliness can contribute to addiction and can be a consequence of struggling with addiction." Much like the chicken and the egg.

The article notes that "there is a growing body of data and science that's telling us that loneliness is more prevalent than we thought and it's also growing over the last several decades." Being in as state of chronic stress contributes to serious health issues, including cardiovascular illness. "Loneliness places the body in a chronic stress state and increases inflammation levels." But even more sobering, loneliness can have the same life-shortening effect as smoking 15 cigarettes per day! This is the data Murthy presents that "is telling us that loneliness kills."

In a world where cyberconnection possibilities are seemingly endless, we can lose touch with the importance of connecting with one another face to face. Our cyberculture can isolate us. Working at home from our computers may have its conveniences, but it can also reduce our sense of actual connection. I notice that when I serve on committees or boards, not only do we stay more focused on our collective goals when we meet face to face, but we also nourish our common bond and our sense of team. I have found that conference calls and video calls can be done without the time needed to drive to a meeting, but they can not sustain spirit and creativity without sufficient face to face contact. When people are within 8 - 10 feet of one another, their heart fields connect without words. We lose the full benefit of this kind of heart connection when we have virtual meetings.

Work consumes a huge amount of our time and life energy. But with a transient work culture, where people move from job to job or organization to organization frequently, instead of staying at one company for a career, it is hard to establish or maintain close connections. In addition to it being lonely at the top (the article notes that "even half of CEOs admit to feeling lonely I their jobs"), it can be lonely throughout the organization. We live in a time where work follows us 24-7, since we can send and receive e-mails and send texts from the dinner table, on vacation or even in bed at night. This can eat into our tie for face to face connections and self-care, and can keep us from being fully present with the people we are with when we are actually with them.

Murthy advocates for making emotional well-being more of a priority in the United States is critical. Growing awareness that loneliness is a serious health issue is a critical task. Finding ways to live and work that consider and encourage emotional well-being is a worthy pursuit.