Posted on 02/17/2014 8:51:58 PM PST by Innovative
Obesity comes with a number of life threatening risks. The condition, for instance, is linked to cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and even cancer. However, loneliness is a more threatening killer than obesity, at least among elderly people.
The researchers also found that extreme loneliness increases an older person's risks of early death by 14 percent which means that loneliness has a double the impact on early death as obesity.
Cacioppo explained that chronic loneliness is associated with higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which raises risks of strokes and heart attacks. It is also linked with high blood pressure and weakening of the body's immune system.
(Excerpt) Read more at techtimes.com ...
I suppose I’ll have to watch my grammar too! ;-)
What is loneliness? ‘Tis thirst. ‘Tis a flower dying in the desert. It’s the human condition, actually. We’re not very well trained to handle it because all our lives are usually spent in the company of others, equally desperate to avoid it. But inevitably, irrecoverably, one must come to terms with it.
“I wonder whether it is isolation or a negative perception of solitude that is the issue”
I am glad you are asking this question.
However, I think there is a better question to ask.
The question is.
Do people who are more isolated have something wrong with them that makes them isolated and they die (suppose they have a disease that causes fatigue, or they have no money and can’t dress or act properly).
Or is it that People who are otherwise healthy, happy, and have money and clothes but choose to be alone are unhealthy and die of choosing to be alone.
Put it another way. If you have no money and can’t go out much do you die of no money or do you die of being more alone.
“I have had one of my dogs certified as a therapy dog and we visit assisted living homes. The old people who are stuck there appear bored out of their minds. “
My dog likes to run a lot. She eats twice what her sister did and weighs half as much. So I took her to the old folks home and they petted her and later the next day one of them called Animal control on me for starving my dog because she looks skinny.
So, how exactly do they measure “lonliness”? No indication of that in the article. Is it self professed, or do they automatically call single folks lonely?
Living by yourself can be dangerous simply because there’s no one else there to call 911. That’s a matter of logistics, not psychology.
Leaving people alone is an anglo-saxon cultural thing. Get over it.
I wonder whether it is isolation or a negative perception of solitude that is the issue. In other words, if you don’t mind being alone and aren’t miserable and depressed, is it still dangerous to the health to be alone?
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Good observation!
I’m 71, been divorced for 19 years and live in my mortgage paid house with no medical problems or prescription meds. Daughter and grandkids live 15 miles away, (while now estranged sister and BIL) are 30 miles away.
I’m sorta a ‘recluse’, since none of my family has been in my house for 12 years. I enjoy being alone. I can read, do TV, do internet, eat, wear whatever clothing I want, sleep whenever I choose, etc., without having to make the place look nice and clean to accommodate visitors.
I’m not depressed in any way. I enjoy the privacy and freedom to do what I want, when I want. I enjoy interacting with others, as I did for decades of participation in my career, the Navy and golfing.
I guess I just don’t understand the point of the study/article that seems to indicate that being alone is depressing.
I think part of the issue is that if you’re alone there’s no one to make you take your pills or call 911 or make a doctor appointment for you when you’re sick, which is the sort of thing wives do. But I also think there is a healing effect in the contact with other people. Even physical touching, like a hug, has a healing effect.
It’s funny how being in a nursing home or assisted living place takes people differently. You can be bored or you can be like an elderly cousin of mine. She had to go into a nursing home after a stroke left her unable to walk at 92. She was there for about ten minutes before she rolled her wheelchair to the elevator, rolled two blocks down the street to the offices of a tiny nearby private college, and told them that she was going to commandeer their little radio station to broadcast a 30-minute Bible study every day. And she did. She did not give those kids an alternative. Bless her heart, she must have been a terror when she was young and mobile. She also maintained a voluminous correspondence (written by hand since she did not have a computer despite my efforts to talk her into it).
She kept all of this up until two weeks before she died, at 97, in 2001. She also devoted time to genealogy research and to amiably terrorizing me and other “young” people. And because she was so sharp she did not lack for visitors. I visited her even though it was a three hour drive. This just shows that if you don’t want to be bored you don’t have to be.
My husband is a voracious reader and likes real books, not Kindle so we have lots to give away. Giving them to these places is not an option because the people do not read for the most part. A few seem to be engaged with their laptops but most just sit and stare.
I recognized loneliness and depression in my Mom 12 years ago as she was living in Fla and we were all up here in GA. I got her to sell her house and buy a house across the street from us. Now she has an active social life, church friends and sees me everyday.
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