Jesus taught us much about the importance of companionship and community. Yet we don’t often include friends and extended family in our times of relaxation. We are neglecting an important factor that provides a longer and healthier life for others and for ourselves.

Loneliness Surrounds Us

Loneliness is all around us. While we may think of loneliness as an issue reserved for isolated older people, a 2018 study found that Gen Z (18- to 22-year-olds) were the loneliest generation. Whether you are alone in your room or surrounded by others who are each isolated by their attention to the screen in front of them, loneliness is a defining element of life today.

Loneliness is Killing Us

Loneliness is killing us slowly. A growing body of research points to the effects of loneliness as a stressor that affects morbidity in alarming ways. Effects of chronic loneliness on morbidity are the same as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Other studies have ranked the health effects of chronic loneliness ahead of known killers like obesity and diabetes.

The late John Caccioppo’s master work on the topic explains the evolutionary biology behind the damage caused by the stresses of loneliness and nurturing face-to-face contact. He argued that loneliness is a survival impulse like hunger or thirst, a trigger pushing us toward the nourishment of human companionship. Loneliness disrupts not only our ability to think and use will power, but also our immune systems. As a US social neuroscientist, Caccioppo studied the effects and causes of loneliness for more than 20 years. He concludes that loneliness is contagious, heritable, affects 1 in 4 people, and increases the chances of early death by 20%. 

Loneliness Galvanizes Mass Shootings

Loneliness is killing us quickly and loudly, too, it seems. High school students, for whom active shooter drills are a monthly occurrence, have a whole raft of social pathologies facing them today that trace their roots to various combinations of loneliness, hopelessness, and unaddressed early trauma. We can harden targets all we want, we ought to recognize, though, that building more fear and less trust between each other strengthens the environment of despair from which these pathologies emerge.

Loneliness Annuls Community

Loneliness is also killing our community. When we measure civic engagement, from volunteering to philanthropy to political participation to knowing your neighbor, we find that older people who statistically would seem more likely to be civically engaged, are not. They are setting the stage for their own loneliness when, say a spouse passes away, and are also leaving the rest of us without the benefits of their civic energy.

What You Can Do About Loneliness

Fighting loneliness is hard, but not complicated. Here are two things you can do:

1.  be a neighbor and not a stranger to those around you. While deep friendships are key to disrupting loneliness, the loose ties of casual acquaintances are important as well.
2.  find a cause and volunteer. Volunteering reduces loneliness—not just for those served, but for the volunteers themselves.

There is more to fighting loneliness than these two steps. But they are a good start.

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Relevant Scripture

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. (Psalm 25:16)

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Genesis 2:18)

I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ (Matthew 25:26)

Reference

You Can Help Fight Loneliness by Jeff Johnson (Florida director of the American Assoc. of Retired Persons)