Fighting the Loneliness Epidemic (E41)

Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week, Marie and Pete discuss the global rise in loneliness levels, what is contributing to the increase and what we can all do to build stronger relationships.

Site discussed during the podcast: Examining Emotional Literacy Development Using a Brief On-Line Positive Psychology Intervention with Primary School Children  Jacqueline Francis *, Tan-Chyuan Chin and Dianne Vella-Brodrick Centre for Positive Psychology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia; tanchyuan.chin@unimelb.edu.au (T.-C.C.); dianne.Vella-Brodrick@unimelb.edu.au (D.V.-B.) * Correspondence: jacqui.francis@unimelb.edu.au Received: 14 September 2020; Accepted: 15 October 2020; Published: 19 October 2020 

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast Happiness for Cynics. I’m Marie Skelton, a writer and speaker on change and resilience.

P: And I’m Peter Furness, a pop up cycle user, smartphone and techno abuser and generic loose cannon on a Sunday boozer. Each week we will bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

M: So if you’re feeling low.

P: Or if you’re only satisfied with life but not truly happy with it.

M: Or maybe you just want more.

P: Then this is the place to be!

M: And to take us one step further on our happiness journey, today’s episode is all about the loneliness epidemic.

[Happy Intro Music]

M: What is does Eeyore say?

P: I’m depressed?

M: Woe is me.

P: Oh well, oh well.

M: [Laugh]

P: I’ll just take another walk.

M: Someone like that. I feel like that’s what sums up my idea what our episode today should be about. [Laugh]

P: All right, let’s go with that. So we’re doing, we’re doing a Winnie the Pooh thing?

M: [Laugh]

P: Okay, so Marie the loneliness epidemic, is it all about Eeyore?

M: I think that’s a result of being lonely. And it is an epidemic, isn’t it, Pete?

P: Yes. Now I’ve got to admit, when I first heard about this, I was the cynical one my cynical hat went on. I was like ‘what, people aren’t lonely, how can they be lonely? Everything’s grand, everything’s wonderful and all this stuff about teenagers being lonely, oh pish posh, pish posh. But, turns out I was wrong.

M: Ha, ha. You’re wrong.

[Laughter]

P: No, There’s definitely a loneliness epidemic, definitely something that is becoming more important. And I think one of the one of the big indicators for me from the research that I did was that loneliness is actually a higher indicator of mortality than obesity and smoking right now.

M: What?

P: Yeah, according.

M: For real?

P: Yeah, according to a study done by the Australian Psychology Society in collaboration with Swinburne University in Victoria, the loneliness epidemic is becoming a bigger indicator of mortality than obesity and smoking in Australia as of 2018.

M: Wow. Well, I knew it was a problem. It’s really been, it’s been a hot topic. So burnout was big, loneliness just before that. This is a global problem, like many of the things that we talk about that crosses all demographics. There are some differences, though, right Pete?

P: Yeah, I’m finding with some of the studies that you’ve mentioned, Marie. I’ve got a couple of different figures and statistics down in here, and I do think, but I think the overall message is the same is that this’s a big indicator of what’s going on not only affects our mortality it affects our health, it affects our physical being as well as our mental well-being and the way that we live and the way that we interact. So this is all pre-pandemic Covid. Pandemic Covid has actually; I don’t know why I’m saying pandemic Covid, it should actually be Covid pandemic but anyway, we’re going reverse today.

[Laughter]

P: Pandemic Covid has changed the ball game a lot on brought this perhaps a little bit more to the floor. But we’re talking 2018 and 2017 and ‘15 in the UK they’ve been clocking the fact that loneliness isn’t big social problem and it’s causing a lot problems in terms of our health and the way that we work and who we are.

M: Yeah, and so the stereotype that it’s only in quotes “old people” is, is really false. It’s not just the elderly who are lonely. In fact, young Australians are reporting such a huge uptick in their loneliness, and it’s not necessarily that they don’t have people around them and that they don’t have family and they don’t have friends-

P: Yes.

M: -at school. It might just be that they’re not getting what they need or their relationships they have aren’t meeting their needs, and that could be because they’re too superficial, which is a another whole episode as well. But we have a lot of Facebook friends nowadays and social media friends that are very superficial, and you can feel that you’re connecting and you’re just not, right?

P: Yes.

M: And what that does is that it leaves a lot of people feeling unsupported and disconnected, and they feel lonely, even though they might have a lot of people around them. So I think that in particular really applies to the younger generations vs the older generations, who we’ve known for quite a while have a higher incidence of mobility issues and at times lose their licences and their ability to get out and into society and have those strong relationships.

P: I do agree, to a certain point. There’s some interesting stats in the study that I found though that are saying that in Australia in 2018 the over 65 were dealing really well. The two brackets that Swinburne University in the Australian Psychological Society clocked as the most lonely are the 18 to 26 year old’s and the 56 to 64 year old’s. The 65 year old’s and up are doing really well. [Laugh]

M: Well, they were until Covid, Yes.

P: Ah well that might be the changing.

M: Yeah, yeah. And then everything has just gotten really bad, social isolation says it all right? and social distancing. And I know there’s been a lot of discussion about terminology and being really clear that social distancing doesn’t mean not having relationships and connection. But the long and the short of the isolation is that we’re having to rely on technology to have relationships a lot more often, and that’s just nowhere near as good as face to face communication for a sense of connection.

P: And we’re not as good at it. Yeah, we’re not as good at it, apparently. So some of the things that have come out in terms of dealing with loneliness from some of the studies that I’ve done are talking about the way that we use social skills and this will apply definitely 18 to 25 year old age bracket is that we’re not developing our social skills sufficiently in our teenage years to take us through to that next stage where we get off the devices we get off the zoom calls on, and we actually interact on a one on one or a group basis on. And I think that that is where went falling short slightly for our young people and we’re not giving them the social skills to deal with going out there and making those true friendships that you talked about earlier Marie.

M: And it’s also about having a level of emotional maturity and understanding and an ability to reflect and to have tough conversations with people and to be uncomfortable.

P: Yeah.

M: And there’s a whole lot in there. And there’s research that came out today actually, in Victoria, I have to go find the study, and I’ll post it in our show notes. But they have done some research with some schools and Victoria to help kids with positive psychology interventions. And it was all focused around giving them the language to talk about their emotions and their well-being.

P: Aah, interesting.

M: And they’ve found that being able to vocalise what’s going on really helps people to- sorry – helps kids, to have better mental health outcomes. So it’s impacting their relationships, their connection with others. So I will put that in the show notes. But I think that if you’re spending all your time on social media in your teens, back to your point, in your, your younger years and you’re connecting with a device rather than a person, you can quite easily miss the lessons that we used to learn in the playground.

P: Very true, very true.

M: You know, if you don’t keep Sally’s secret, then you’ll be ostracised from the group for sharing, you know?

P: [Laugh]

M: That kind of thing, so you learned to keep secrets.

P: Good old Sally.

[Laughter]

P: All right, so one of the things that I found with the research that I did was that loneliness actually affects our health. And I guess this relates to regular what we’re talking to here in terms of the happiness. Loneliness, we know is not good for us, but it actually affects our physical health. And some of the points that have come up with the studies from big health that I saw and from the Australian Psychological Society is that loneliness affects our physical health.

Now there’s a lot of research out there about how it affects our mental health and how we have less social interaction, fewer positive emotions, we’re less likely to be resilient. But there’s a physical impact, things like headaches, stomach problems and one of the most interesting, we have a worsening sensation of physical pain if we’re lonely, that goes a lot back to our central nervous system and the way that our body and our brain interprets pain. But even things like greater difficulty with vision and communication. These are, these are real physical factors, these physical symptoms from an emotional condition.

M: Again going back to, you teaching me about these old Eastern philosophies and theories of mind and body.

P: [Laugh]

M: It is yet another example of how so intertwined our mind and bodies are. And I think you’re fooling yourself if you think-

P: That’s not very cynical today, Marie.

M: [Laugh] You’re fooling yourself if you think that they’re not connected nowadays, and there is centuries of Eastern thinking and research into this. But there is also Western science that now packs it up well for the cynics out there.

[Laughter]

P: Ok, so if we’re going to move on a little bit more about loneliness and how loneliness relates to us. I do want to talk about the ways the we can avoid loneliness. And if we’re talking about the kind of contacts that we have between relationships, we’ve got maybe three main ones.

One of them is:

The Family contact.

One of them is:

Our Friends.

And the other one that I want to talk about it is:

Our Neighbours.

P: Now Marie, as an Australian do you think Australians have good neighbour contact?

M: Our neighbour let us jump his fence the other day when we got locked out of our own home.

[Laughter]

P: Okay, now I like this. I like this idea. I want to ask what you were doing to be locked out?

M: No, we… I said have you got the keys? And he said yes. And he said, Have you got the keys? And I said yes. And this is what happens when you have been married and together for 15 years. You don’t actually listen to what your partner is saying to you. You just say yes.

[Laughter]

M: So we both left the house without keys. Just pulled the door shut behind us. So back to that relationship advice you’re about to give us Pete, listening is so important.

P: Contact between neighbours is a form of actually combating Loneliness and in Australia, our neighbour contact is not good. We have been shown to have less neighbour contact amongst our society than ever before and it depends on how many neighbours we do have. And the odd thing is that in the survey, the people who listed that they have no immediate neighbours actually have more contact with their neighbours than anybody. So if you live in the middle of the Outback and the nearest neighbour is 24 K’s away, you’ve got more contact with that neighbour than people in the city do.

M: Wow, I think the thing is though, that neighbour is also the closest possible friend that you could have. Whereas if you’re in the city, you’ve got thousands of people who could be friends in your immediate area.

P: Very true. This is fair, when we look at the big health study. It does talk about that in terms of proximity of people.

[Laughter]

M: I will say, though, having moved from Sydney to Tamworth recently that people in country towns are just that much friendlier and that much more open to new relationships, that much more welcoming and gracious of new people into their community. And I don’t know how to solve that because, having lived overseas, and I’m sure you’ve found it too coming from the country and living in many large cities Pete.

P: Mm, Hmm.

M: That cities are just so much harder to find a foothold in when it comes to friends and friendships and close relationships.

P: It is, and I think that the proximity of people to your living space makes you react in a certain way. Having lived in big cities and moved into smaller cities as well. In my time when you’ve got space around you, you’re more likely to reach out to the person that is closest to you. I think if you’re in a densely populated area, you’re more inclined to bunker down and hunker in and not necessarily connect with your neighbours because your space is private.

M: Hhmm. Maybe.

P: The science supports this Marie. I come back this up with figures. [Laugh]

M: It’s not the figures I’m doubting it’s your rationale for why.

P: Ok, all right. So if we look at the rates of how many neighbours you have, so people who list that they’ve got two neighbours or three to four or five to eight. The proportion of Australians with neighbours that they hear from at least once a month goes down after you list two neighbours, so if you’ve got three to four neighbours.

If you live in an apartment block, the figure is 15.9%. If you live with two neighbours, one on either side of you in a suburban house, 21. 1% if you have no neighbours, 30.4%. So that’s telling that living in an apartment doesn’t give you contact with your neighbours.

M: I agree but not because I want to hunker down. So having now, living in a house, I see my neighbours more often and I’ve had conversations with them and I’ve popped over the road to go say hi and introduce myself. Whereas I went an entire three years in my apartment block and only saw two of my neighbours on the floor so there’s ten apartments, I only saw two of them in that three year period, I only crossed paths with them twice.

And that’s the difference to me and both times I stopped and had a chat and actually with one of the people, they ended up looking after our cat when we went on holidays. But we had to have that crossing of paths in order for that relationship to start developing, and it just wasn’t happening. And I think that that is one of the downsides to the way that we live nowadays that has changed. That is leading to this loneliness epidemic. More and more people are living alone, but also more and more people are living in cities around the world, and there’s going to be a huge increase in mega cities over the next 20 to 30 years, so between now and 2050 and that means you’ve got to have high density housing.

And there’s been some really good work, again in the Scandinavian countries that they’ve got their xxxx together, where they’re designing different types of apartment buildings so that you have your personal space, your bedroom and a small receiving area like a small lounge room and then in the middle of the floor you’ve got big, open communal congregating and cooking spaces so you can sit and eat.

P: And I think this is the way forward it’s the design of our cities it’s the design of the way we live that is going to encourage the decrease in loneliness. And the stuff that I’ve come across as well talks about that in terms of the building of the community relationships. How to effectively manage loneliness to make people feel connected to their community. And this is where the big health study he talks about that in creating shared common interests and meaningful connections, walkable suburbs, community interaction and gardens and recreational parks, access to public transport, all those sorts of things. And that brings me back to my earlier point about apartment living faces more challenges for loneliness rather than those who live in suburban areas.

M: Mmm.

P: So if you live in an apartment block, you actually have to do a little bit more work to make sure that that loneliness endemic-epidemic doesn’t affect you in the same way. I think it’s, I think you’re right, it’s easier to make those connections in the country where you don’t have the density of population. A walk across the road does happen. You see your neighbour’s a little bit more because you might be in the backyard together. In the apartment buildings that doesn’t happen because they don’t have that structure of communal gathering or proximity that allows that private/public space. I’m getting a little bit confused there with my, um, with my references. So that might be another episode.

M: [Laugh] Another really cute story and I think that there’s so much negativity out there in the news, so I’m always really keen to share lovely positive news stories. There’s a great story from the UK from, from Frome in the UK, whether they connected an old folks home with a primary school and each group is getting ready to exchange happiness boxes and they’re going to come and share what makes them happy. So they’ve partnered on elderly person with a young person and they’re preparing their stuff. So they’re preparing little boxes and they’ll all meet and exchange boxes with their assigned person and share what makes them happy. And so one of the ladies has actually knitted a garment for every single kid in the class.

P: [Laugh]

M: And she said she loves knitting, but she loves it more when she can actually knit for someone else. But again, this is making those connections and they’re going to be solid connections. So these types the projects I just love, love this news story. [Laugh]

P: It’s great. I’ve got a similar one that’s actually a bit more local in Australia. It’s an Australian initiative called the Men’s Shed.

M: Yes.

P: It was a. You heard about this?

M: So my grandfather did Man Shed until he unfortunately, had dementia. So until it was just too much for him. Dementia and heavy machinery don’t go well together, sidebar for you kids. So he used to go with his brother every Tuesday morning and it is such a great Mental Health resource for older men.

P: Yes.

M: And also, the local Tamworth Men’s Shed were having a sale, their annual sale to raise money when we moved out here to Tamworth. So we went out there and they got me. I bought a whole bunch of stuff I didn’t need. But they were so lovely.

[Laughter]

P: The CEO David Helmers talks about this and saying that whilst they’re repairing items for the community and having sales, I’ll quote in here. “The most important thing is the men getting together, building those relationships, that brotherhood that exists in the sheds. They’re finding new friendships, but most importantly they’re finding meaningful purpose.”

M: Yes, friendship and purpose, two things that we’ve discussed many times.

P: The two really important aspects of that [quote].

M: Yes. Well, I think on that note we are over time again. We finish every episode with the same sentence of me saying “we’re over time again Pete.”

[Laughter]

M: But we might wrap it up on that beautiful quote. But Men Shed. If you do have some elderly man in your family and you’re worried about their loneliness levels, it is a great initiative, and I’m glad you brought it up Pete. So it might be worth checking it out. They’re all around Australia.

P: Excellent. That’s a good indicator for all of us to get out there and find that kind of community groups that might foster that sort of relationship building and it’s hard when you’re feeling lonely, I think, to drag yourself out and put yourself in the in the non, non comfort space. If I have one tip for listeners, I would say ‘say yes’ and follow up with action.

M: I’m going to add one tip in there, too, because I always have to have the last word.

[Laughter]

M: I will say if you’re not feeling particularly social because you are feeling lonely, then one of the best ways to get yourself out there and develop friendships coincidentally, is to put yourself at the service of others. So go spend a couple of hours a week volunteering.

P: Yes.

M: And there’s so many organisations that could use your, your time right now if you’ve got two hours; and you’ll be surprised how much giving others comes back to you.

P: Can’t agree more, can’t agree more. I would never have found you Marie if I hadn’t volunteered at the Volleyball Club, look at that.

M: [Laugh] It sucks you in doesn’t it?

P: Yeah [Laugh]

M: Anyway, thank you for joining us today if you want to hear more please subscribe and like this podcast as always, you can find us at marieskelton.com and you can send in questions or proposed topics there if you’d like.

P: If you like our tiny little show, Happiness for Cynics Podcast, we’d love a comment or a rating to helps us out.

M: Yes, that would make us happy.

P: [Laugh] Until next time.

M & P: Choose Happiness

[Happy Exit Music]

Related content: Read Happiness for Cynics article How To Make Friends As An Adult, listen to our Podcast The Importance of Being Social (E14)