Over one-third of US adults over 45 report feeling lonely and among those over 65, one-quarter feel socially isolated.
Loneliness and social isolation are just as threatening to health, if not more so, than obesity.
The emotion causes consistent stress to the body, which may hasten the onset of diabetes.
The emotion causes consistent stress to the body, which may hasten the onset of diabetes.
Prolonged loneliness can lead to type-2 diabetes, research suggests.
An absence of deep, positive relationships is the key factor, rather than a simple lack of contact.
In other words, one can still be lonely in a crowd.
One-third of adults in the US report that they feel lonely at least some of the time.
The same figure for the UK is one-in-five.
It is not known exactly why loneliness is linked to type-2 diabetes.
One possible explanation is that loneliness causes consistent stress to the body, which hastens the onset of the disease.
Dr Ruth Hackett, the study’s first author, said:
“The study shows a strong relationship between loneliness and the later onset of type 2 diabetes.
What is particularly striking is that this relationship is robust even when factors that are important in diabetes development are taken into account such as smoking, alcohol intake and blood glucose as well as mental health factors such as depression.
The study also demonstrates a clear distinction between loneliness and social isolation in that isolation or living alone does not predict type 2 diabetes whereas loneliness, which is defined by a person’s quality of relationships, does.”
The study included 4,112 people aged over 50 who were tracked over 15 years.
During this period, 264 people developed type 2 diabetes, with lonely people at a higher risk.
Diabetes is a chronic disease that affects how the body turns food into energy.
It means that the body finds it difficult to keep blood sugar at normal levels.
Diabetes can cause serious health problems, such as heart and kidney disease as well as vision loss.
Dr Hackett said:
“I came up with the idea for the research during UK lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic as I became increasingly aware and interested in how loneliness may affect our health, especially as it is likely that many more people were experiencing this difficult emotion during this period.”
Stress linked to loneliness may be causing diabetes, said Dr Hackett:
“If the feeling of loneliness becomes chronic.
Then everyday you’re stimulating the stress system and over time that leads to wear and tear on your body and those negative changes in stress-related biology may be linked to type 2 diabetes development.”
The study was published in the journal Diabetologia (Hackett et al., 2020).
Why lonely people feel different and may find it hard to connect with their peers.
When cut off from other people we develop a craving for them that is similar to hunger.
One reason loneliness is so hard to overcome.
One reason loneliness is so hard to overcome.
Sitting or standing further away from friends and family is a symptom of loneliness, research finds.
Lonely people people prefer a larger interpersonal distance between themselves and those with whom they have the closest relationships.
The reason lonely people keep their distance is that they are more wary of social threats.
Although they want to reconnect with others, lonely people are anxious about being rejected or facing hostility.
Naturally, this makes loneliness harder to overcome.
Mr Elliot Layden, the study’s first author, said:
“To our knowledge, this is the first direct evidence for a link between interpersonal distance preferences and loneliness.
This finding may be important to consider in the context of loneliness interventions—such as client-therapist interactions and community programs seeking to combat loneliness.”
The study included 580 people who were surveyed about their loneliness and their preference for interpersonal space.
The results showed that being lonely doubled the chance that someone would prefer to stand or sit further away from their friends and family.
However, lonely people do not stand or sit any further away from strangers, the research also showed.
Some people felt lonely despite having a high degree of social interaction, for example at work.
Dr Stephanie Cacioppo, study co-author, said:
“You can feel alone even in a crowd or in a marriage—loneliness is really a discrepancy between what you want and what you have.”
Lonely people go into a kind of ‘survival mode’ that helps protect them from social threats.
Dr Cacioppo said:
“This ‘survival mode’ means that even though a lonely person wants more social interaction, they may still unconsciously keep their distance.
The hope is that by bringing this to conscious attention, we can reduce the incidence of divorce as a byproduct of loneliness and increase meaningful connections among people.”
The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Layden et al., 2018).
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, a study suggests.
People high in two particular components of wisdom — empathy and compassion — were especially unlikely to become lonely, the researchers found.
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).
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, research finds.
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.”
The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Schermer & Martin, 2019).
When people reach later life they are more motivated to ‘give back’ — they want to engage meaningfully in what remains of their lives.
The shocking loneliness statistics show that 75% of people suffer.
The shocking loneliness statistics show that 75% of people suffer.
Being wise protects against loneliness, research finds.
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.
The conclusions come from a study of 340 people in the US.
They were asked about any loneliness they experienced and their wisdom was assessed.
The results showed that loneliness tended to peak at particular times in life.
People experienced most loneliness in their late-20s, mid-50s and late-80s.
Three-quarters of study participants experienced moderate to severe loneliness.
Professor Dilip Jeste, study author, said this was surprisingly high:
“They didn’t have major physical disorders.
Nor did they suffer from significant mental illnesses such as depression or schizophrenia, in which you might expect loneliness to be problematic.”
Unfortunately, loneliness is very damaging, explained Dr Ellen Lee, the study’s first author:
“…loneliness seems to be associated with everything bad.
It’s linked to poor mental health, substance abuse, cognitive impairment, and worse physical health, including malnutrition, hypertension and disrupted sleep.
High levels of wisdom, though, seemed to have a protective effect against loneliness:
“That may be due to the fact that behaviors which define wisdom, such as empathy, compassion, emotional regulation, self-reflection, effectively counter or prevent serious loneliness.”
Professor Jeste said:
“…these findings suggest we need to think about loneliness differently.
It’s not about social isolation.
A person can be alone and not feel lonely, while a person can be in a crowd and feel alone.
We need to find solutions and interventions that help connect people that help them to become wiser.
A wiser society would be a happier, more connected, and less lonely society.”
The study was published in the journal International Psychogeriatrics (Lee et al., 2019).
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