- by Lori Elliott, MSW, RSW, Grey Bruce Psychotherapist
Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, who is a psychologist in Utah, gathered a research team to carry out a meta-analysis of 148 studies. These studies involved more than 300,000 participants. She and her team worked to answer the question of whether strong social relationships reduce the risk of dying early. In 2009 her study concluded that people with strong social relationships are 50 per cent less likely to die prematurely than people with weak social relationships. Kabat-Zinn also stresses the relationship between strong social connections and mortality and notes that people who have a low degree of social connection are between two and four times more likely to die in the succeeding 10-year period than people who have a high level of social interaction, when all other factors are accounted for.
There is also a growing concern that our youth are a subsection of our society that is becoming particularly socially isolated during the pandemic- especially those who are using media devices as their primary social means or who generally spend a large amount of time on electronic devices. I was pleased to see that some of these concerns were discussed in the recent Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma.
The late Dr. John Cacioppo, who was a psychologist and researcher at the University of Chicago, outlined that loneliness is a warning signal that social needs are not being met and that it has genetic and biochemical bases. Alongside his research team, he determined that the human need for social connection is of high biological importance as it was found to be rooted in thousands of years of human evolution. He was interviewed in 2016 by the Guardian and suggested “loneliness is like an iceberg. We are conscious of the surface but there is a great deal more that is phylogenetically so deep that we cannot see it.” However, our unconscious mind can detect its presence- loneliness has been shown to cause sleep disturbance. Repeated wakefulness has been reported more frequently by those who reported that they were also experiencing loneliness.
The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging was published in May 2018 and noted that, among middle-aged and elderly Canadians, nearly one-fifth of men and one-quarter of women reported feeling lonely once a week or more. I don’t imagine these figures have diminished during the pandemic.
In his book, Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn outlines how, in the elderly population, loneliness is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease and death. Thankfully, David Creswell of UCLA has shown that one’s participation in Kabat-Zinn’s MBSR program can reduce one’s experience of loneliness. How so? Creswell’s work revealed that one’s participation in the MBSR program actually altered the participant’s genetic makeup, right down to a detectable, cellular level.
How does mindfulness help with loneliness?
There is a vast amount of studies that support the relationship between social connection statuses and health. The research team led by Drs. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and Ron Glaser of Ohio State University College of Medicine showed that the presence of loneliness is associated with reduced immune functioning. Their research also revealed that relaxation techniques, which are forms of mindfulness, help to enhance the immune system.
How does all of this work? The use of mindfulness can transform one’s relationship with time. As one learns to live in the present moment more of the time, time becomes more manageable and may even seem to be passing more slowly.
People who are already lonely can have a more difficult time with reaching out to others. Another advantage of the use of mindfulness is that it is something that anyone can do on their own, at any point in time. Furthermore, people who think that they have a lot of time on their hands, and aren’t often “doing” much, may be surprised to find that they are doing more than they realize. They may actually be “doing” quite a lot, such as reliving unhappy memories or “doing” loneliness. This can all become very draining.
The benefits of mindfulness practice are thoroughly supported in science. Dr. Matthew Lieberman, a neuroscientist at UCLA, has spent the last twenty years using functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) to show the difference in a brain’s activity when the person is interacting with others, carrying out an independent activity or doing nothing by themselves. Through his studies, he’s been able to show that our brains consist of two separate, neural networks. The first of these two networks is responsible for processing social information and it represents one’s perception of self. The second network carries out any form of non-social thinking.
Dr. Norman Farb and his team of researchers at the University of Toronto have recently been able to follow up on Dr. Lieberman’s UCLA studies. Dr. Farb’s research has shown that a person is able to activate the non-social neural network by initiating mindfulness. This can be particularly helpful to address any experience of stress because the activation of the non-social neural network will inevitably turn off any thoughts about the person’s perception of themselves and others, which will change their
experience of loneliness for the moment. Dr. Lieberman’s studies showed that we automatically shift back into our social neural network when we finish any kind of non-social thinking (such as completing a math equation or carrying out mindfulness practice). Our narrative, social neural network, which is involved in mind-wandering and the creation of the story of who we think we are, is automatically reactivated once our non-social focus is completed. Since humans have been shown to be thinking about some form of social aspect, most of the time, it’s no wonder that a sense of loneliness can be created on a periodic or chronic basis.
The relationship between substance use and loneliness
What else is important to consider? The presence of loneliness can increase the use of substances and the use of substances can increase the presence of loneliness. This is because the use of substances effects the central nervous system, as well as the brain, and can decompress unwanted emotions. Each of our society’s top four substances alter the brain (alcohol is a depressant, cannabis is a hallucinogen and nicotine and caffeine are stimulants). These substances can create a temporary, desirable effect when an individual is experiencing loneliness, thus perpetuating the use. The use of substances can enable a person to become more centered and in the moment, and, in turn, temporarily experience more desirable emotions. However, although each of our top four substances is legal, all of them are addictive because the effects of each one can only last for so long- in the brain and in the bloodstream. It’s important to note that the desirable outcomes of substance use can be achieved, substance-free, through the use of mindfulness.
Mindfulness offers a safer, natural route to achieving the same, desirable results of living in the moment and negating unwanted emotions. Plus, mindfulness can be used anytime, anywhere and it’s free. Meditation is just one of the many routes that one can take to enter a state of mindfulness more easily. For example, 10 minutes of morning meditation can make mindfulness much easier to implement at later points in the day, when one is experiencing more distractions from the moment. Kabat-Zinn has expressed that “the muscle of mindfulness grows both stronger and more supple and flexible as you use it.”