Loneliness a different perspective 1

I read an interesting article called “Loneliness can kill you.” The article looks at the neurological effects of loneliness. This is a perspective that I had not thought that much about, but the article and the research is interesting to those who are concerned about loneliness in seniors. I have taken some of the ideas from this report and hopefully, you find them interesting as well.

Among the many consequences of loneliness on body and mind, the lack of social contact encourages drug compensation and substance-use behaviour, such as alcoholism.

As people grow older, the social network typically becomes smaller – naturally diminishing the cognitive stimulation through frequent and intense social interaction daily, thus potentially reducing the neural reserve. Over the past century, the average human lifespan in developed nations has increased by nearly three decades. However, older people are also reported to show a decline in their capacity to take other people’s point of view, as demonstrated in three separate mentalizing tasks.

These authors of these studies showed that social cognition deficits were related to decreased neural activity responses. This capacity is likely to be particularly important when seniors are thinking about other people who are not physically present – where social cues such as facial expressions, mimics, and gestures are missing.

Both limited social stimulation and weakening social reflection capacities relate to the sense of loneliness in complex and important ways. Once lonely, bias for negative information processing of cues from others hinders social rehabilitation in a downward cycle. Many recent studies have corroborated the evidence that feelings of loneliness escalate the risk of certain neurological diseases in later life, especially Alzheimer’s disease.

We are social creatures. Social interplay and cooperation have fuelled the rapid ascent of human culture and civilization. However, we struggle when forced to live in isolation. The expansion of loneliness has accelerated in the past decade. As one consequence, the UK has launched the ‘Campaign to End Loneliness’ – a network of over 600 national, regional, and local organizations that aim to create the right conditions for reducing loneliness in later life. Such efforts speak to the growing public recognition and political will to confront this evolving societal challenge. These concerns are likely to be exacerbated if there are prolonged periods of social isolation imposed by national policy responses to extraordinary crises such as COVID-19.