Loneliness Is More Dangerous Than We Thought

by Beth Greenfield 

Feeling like you might die of loneliness is one thing. But could it actually happen? Apparently, as researchers have found that leading an extremely lonely existence could increase an older person's chance of premature death by 14 percent — providing good reason for everyone to make sure to maintain connections with others as they age.
“We looked at perceived loneliness versus objective isolation, and how it leads the brain’s biology to change over time,” John Cacioppo, University of Chicago psychology professor and the study's lead researcher, tells Yahoo Shine. “There are toxic effects.” Even after taking into account lifestyle behaviors, like diet and exercise, he adds, the impact of simply feeling isolated — disrupted sleep, elevated blood pressure, surges in the stress hormone cortisol, compromised immunity, and increased depression overall — is profound. “When you are isolated from companionship, then the brain goes into self-preservation mode,” Cacioppo notes.
For his findings — shared Feb. 16 at a scholarly seminar on aging at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Chicago — Cacioppo, one of the nation’s leading experts on loneliness, examined data from a 2010 meta-analysis.
For seniors, loneliness can be particularly threatening. “This study makes sense to me,” Paul Kirwin, an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale University and past president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, tells Yahoo Shine. “There are so many losses that happen in this stage of life — of partners, friends, the loss of one’s role or sense of purpose — and it has a huge impact on people psychologically.”
Previous studies on loneliness have found that it can have myriad impacts on people’s health. In 2012, for example, University of San Francisco geriatrician Carla Perissinotto found that 24.8 percent of seniors who felt lonely reported declines in their ability to perform daily-life activities — bathing, dressing, eating, or getting up from a chair on their own; among those not feeling lonely, only 12.5 percent reported such declines.
“Lonely older adults also were 45 percent more likely to die [earlier] than seniors who felt meaningfully connected with others, even after results were adjusted for factors like depression, socioeconomic status and existing health conditions,” the New York Times noted about Perssinotto’s study. But that research, Cacioppo suggests, did not strip out the added effects of lifestyle choices (diet, exercise, etc.) as his new study did.
He stresses that loneliness is an equal-opportunity emotion and can strike people whether or not they are in a relationship. “You can feel connected when not with someone, so loneliness is not a solitary experience,” he says. He also suggests staving off feelings of isolation before they start, especially for older adults.
“Retiring to Florida to live in a warmer climate among strangers isn’t necessarily a good idea if it means you are disconnected from the people who mean the most to you,” Cacioppo noted in a press release about the findings. “We are experiencing a silver tsunami demographically. The baby boomers are reaching retirement age. Each day between 2011 and 2030, an average of 10,000 people will turn 65,” he added. “People have to think about how to protect themselves from depression, low subjective well-being and early mortality.”
Psychologist Guy Winch, based in New York, dedicates a chapter of his book “Emotional First Aid” to loneliness. To fight it, he tells Yahoo Shine, “realize that there are more opportunities to connect than you might realize.” This, he notes, requires a “leap of faith,” and should be viewed as a process of connecting gradually. Therapy, he adds, can help lonely people to identify what he calls “self-defeating patterns” that might be getting in the way of making meaningful connections.
“Loneliness is defined as a subjective experience, and as social or emotional isolation or both,” he notes. “And what it does, psychologically speaking, is to make us feel so emotionally raw and averse to rejection that it changes how people respond socially — often pushing away the people who can alleviate their loneliness.”