This time of year is usually when families and friends get together to celebrate but Australians are feeling more lonely coming into the festive season, new data from the Australian Red Cross has found. According to the annual survey of 1000 people, 33 percent of people feel lonely in the lead-up, and during, the festive…
A History of Loneliness
Is loneliness our modern malaise? Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says the most common pathology he saw during his years of service “was not heart disease or diabetes; it was loneliness.” Chronic loneliness, some say, is like “smoking 15 cigarettes a day.” It “kills more people than obesity.” Because loneliness is now considered a public health issue—and even an epidemic—people…
How Pandemic Fatigue Made Us Antisocial
On a Thursday morning in mid-February, writer Donna Ashworth woke up in lockdown in Scotland, and something felt different. “You could feel the collective quiet,” she said. At night, her neighborhood no longer came to life with raucous cheers and clapping for health care workers. Her phone was no longer buzzing with messages from group…
Loneliness Is Killing You (Yes, Even You!)
Commentary Loneliness is poison. It is deadly. Loneliness is literally killing us. And if you just rolled your eyes, I’m especially talking to you. Over the past couple of decades, researchers have repeatedly found a direct link between loneliness and a host of physical and psychological problems, like heart disease and mental illness. Loneliness slowly dissolves us…
Getting Through the Pandemic Stronger
In late 2019, Dennis Gillan gave a TEDx talk about the loneliness epidemic, and right before February 2020, it was published online. “It was so bizarre,” said Gillan, a public speaker, suicide prevention advocate, and executive director of the Half A Sorrow Foundation, as in the Swedish proverb he likes to share: “A shared joy is…
Joy Redoubled: Men, Loneliness, and Friendship
In the movie “Saving Private Ryan,” a detachment of American soldiers is sent behind German lines to rescue a Private Ryan, whose three brothers have all died that week in combat. After fighting different skirmishes and suffering casualties, these men finally find the missing private and demand he return home with them to rejoin his…
Homeless but Dying With Dignity
Commentary CUMBERLAND, Maryland—Had it not been for the kindness of strangers, Henry McCain would have died the way he led much of his adult life: cold, alone, and without a blanket to cover his feet at night. Instead, McCain left this world not a nameless drifter but with dignity, a sense of belonging, and a…
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