How Loneliness Shortens Your Life - And How To Fix It

The fifteenth century British poet John Donne wrote, “No man is an island, Entire of itself," alluding to the need of humans for contact with each other. People are interdependent, and no human can live in isolation without being diminished.

Research indicates social isolation produces dire consequences. Loneliness is more than a disagreeable emotional reaction to a lack of companionship. Loneliness can, in fact, be deadly.

Controversial experiments at the University of Wisconsin in the mid-twentieth century proved infants need a close relationship with their mothers or a substitute caretaker from birth in order to thrive. Without it, they are likely to decline and even die.

Subsequent research substantiated the need of humans at all ages for social attachment. Recent studies indicate that extended loneliness can be detrimental to physical and mental health, weaken the immune system and increase the risk of premature death. Loneliness is more hazardous to longevity than smoking or obesity.

In 2002, Dr. John Cacioppo, University of Chicago neuroscientist, began a study tracking the habits and health of middle-aged and older Americans around Chicago. Preliminary results showed a link between loneliness and depression. The ongoing study provides evidence that loneliness predicts physical health problems down to the cellular level and alteration of gene activity. Prolonged loneliness increases stress, raises blood pressure, interferes with restful sleep and promotes unhealthy behaviors. Lonely people are more likely to suffer from chronic disease and face a shortened lifespan.

There are many reasons for the increase in social isolation: a more mobile society that causes less contact with extended family and friends, high divorce rates, more single-parent households, and an increasing number of people who live alone.

The impact of social media in the Digital Age is a major factor. The power Facebook and Twitter exert over social interaction is complex. Social networking may seem a benefit to a disabled individual or shy introvert. Yet, when online connections substitute entirely for face-to-face interactions, loneliness and depression increase. Individuals who depend on “virtual friends" for contact tend to grow more isolated, lonely and depressed.

Dr. Cacioppo explains,“Lonely people are likely to use the Internet as a crutch, the non-lonely as…leverage. So, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

TV and video games used to extremes also decrease human connections. In addition, watching TV daily for hours causes comparison of personal resources with the fictional or celebrity situations seen on the screen, creating unrealistic expectations and disappointment.

A UK government study reported in mid-2014 referred to Britain as “the loneliness capital of Europe," characterizing Britons as less likely than other Europeans to have close friends or know their neighbors.

In a subsequent scathing essay in The Guardian, journalist George Monbiot refers to television as “…the one-eyed god…." that lonely people turn to for their main companionship—a form of self-medication that augments symptoms of loneliness.3 Anxiety, depression, accidents and suicides increase when social connections are severed. Additionally, there is a greater probability of dementia.

Loneliness may affect all age groups in varying degrees, with the elderly, women, the middle-aged, and post-secondary students most at risk. The aging population in Western cultures is more likely to live alone or in a nursing home than in other societies where elderly grandparents live with extended family until their deaths. The rush of modern living, the economic need of many families for two paychecks, a mobile society with relocation the rule rather than the exception, and inattention by the young to aging relatives leaves many aging people alone in later years.

Loneliness doesn't always mean being alone. It is often more of a feeling that one doesn't belong. Feelings of isolation and disconnection from family, friends or the community can exist even for a person who is married or lives in a family or other group.

Abraham Maslow, MD, PhD, in his Hierarchy of Human Needs, ranked belonging as the most important necessity to human survival after food, water, shelter and immediate safety. Belonging, establishing and maintaining relationships is also the most difficult need for most humans to fulfill.

Being in a dysfunctional relationship feels bad, unhealthy as well as unhappy, yet not being in relationships with others can also feel bad and be unhealthy. This is why many people, especially women, remain in emotionally dysfunctional situations. They choose unhappiness over loneliness.

How can loneliness be overcome? Personal strategies may include volunteering for a meaningful cause, participating in group activities, and—for introverts—acquiring social skills training. Social skills workshops are available in every city. Pets provide life-enhancing companionship. Amazingly, even caring for plants may bestow a sense of purpose and relationship, thereby helping to assuage loneliness.

As a civilization, we should each make the effort to connect with those who may be feeling the pinch of social isolation and loneliness. Spending time with a lonely person could save a life.

Selected resources

“Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection," Blum, Deborah. Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA, 2002.
University of Chicago Magazine: The Nature of Loneliness

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