COMBATING LONELINESS

I listened to a Podcast from "OnBeing" guided by Krista Tippet as she interviewed Vivek Murthy who is the Surgeon General of the United States. The focus of the podcast was on how to "Be A Healer." It was very moving as Dr. Murthy's compassion and love for others came through as he discussed healing others which involves supporting them to become "whole." To be healers, we first need to observe and experience life and receive the joy that is all around us. This also requires that we not allow ourselves to be distracted by all the messages that promote money, winning, taking sides and the "us against them" mentality, as a way of defining who we are. Dr. Murthy says that being whole is not connected with being wealthy. He also states that to heal ourselves and our relationship to others we must listen, learn and love.

I have repeatedly seen that listening to others is critical to having healthy relationships. This also includes listening to ourselves. We can't listen to others or ourselves if we are caught up in the divisiveness and blaming others. This stress will keep us from being confident and being connected to others and from being happy. So, we must choose to let go of stress and blaming others and then choose to listen to others and actually be with others and not feel lonely.

IT IS SO SAD...THAT WE ARE SO SEPARATED FROM EACH OTHER

Recently I have been having moments of intense sadness that I realized were connected to hearing about conflicts between people that ends up reinforcing them being separate and even feeling against each other. Sad, because it is sad when people feel separated from each other. It does not need to be this way. 

I believe that this separateness is fueled by fear of not having enough as if everything that we need is in limited supply and if others have things we will not have enough. This is not true but if someone believes this then they will be anxious and see others as taking from them. This will inevitably separate these people from others and result in loneliness. 

We can help ourselves by refusing to judge others and listening to others without our own reactions. This will help us to feel and be connected to others and feel less alone. It really willl.

WE REALLY DO NEED EACH OTHER

The recent Beta Theta Pi magazine has an article about preventing suicide and refers to a Harvard study [The Harvard Study of Adult Development] and comments from the study's fourth director Robert Waldinger, M.D. [who is  a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School] who concludes that friendships and relationships in general are highly correlated with happiness and contentment with one's life. Since 1938 Harvard researchers have studied 724 men for 79 years. They found that if one is to do well in their life they need to have close ties to their family, friends and community. These close relationships also seem to have significant impact on overall health. With close relationships there was more happiness and these men were healthier and even lived longer. The researchers concluded that lonliness was toxic. Unfortunately, frequently more than one in five Americans say that they are lonely. This self-report of lonliness is what is coorelated with poor health as well as feeling unhappy. Further emphazing the importance of close relationships is the fact that the quality of relationships at age 50 is what predicted health at age 80. Also, having a close relationship in your 80's will protect you from cognitive decline. The ability to count on your partner was what seemed to be very important and this applied to work relationships between employees and their supervisors as well. So, prioritize relationships and seek close connections to others. It could be the answer to long life and happiness.

What do you think?

IS LONELINESS AT THE HEART OF ADDICTION?

Recently I listened to a TED talk by Rachel Wurzman entitled: "How isolation fuels opioid addiction." She discribes her experience of having tics [Tourettes Disorder] that she calls "unvoluntary." Dr. Wurzman experiences her involuntary tics as unvoluntary meaning that she feels like she is doing the tic movement and not an external force. However, Dr. Wurzman recognizes that her tics are not related to her conscious intentions or attention. Dr. Wurzman then makes the point that we all have things that we do in healthy ways and other things that are not healthy and this can help us to understand what others are experiencing, including those with tic disorders and addiction. So, why is it important that we can understand each other? Dr. Wurzman goes on to talk about the opioid epidemic and it's connection to being lonely. She states that this epidemic is killing 91 people every day and it is getting worse. Dr. Wurzman understands that addiction is a medical, neurobiological problem and yet she feels that we can help people with addictions by changing how we respond to them. To change how we respond to people with addictions she feels that it is helpful if we understand how and why our brains cause behaviors like urges to use substances. Dr. Wurzman's research suggests that loneliness may be reinforcing the brains of addicts to seek comfort from substances as their striatum's are seeking things that have most frequently been associated with reducing their feelings of loneliness. These responses [seeking things] are like they are on autopilot, so that when there is a stimulus there is then a very rapid and automatic response from their brains. 

Importantly, according to Dr. Wurzman, feeling socially connected to others is part of what the striatum does. The experience of feeling pleasure in social interactions is modulated by opioid receptors in the striatum. If some one is experiencing intense loneliness the opioid receptors are sensitized so that anything that reduces this sense of loneliness, such as taking opioids, is intensely and very rapidly sought. Therefore, loneliness may keep people addicted and social connections may help people not be addicted. However, those social connections need to be strong enough to convince the striatum that it is safe to let go of the immediate and reliable relief that taking opioids [and other drugs] represents. Dr. Wurzman also believes that to establish powerful social connections, it is better to connect with each other not focused on one aspect of ourselves/others [like addictive behavors] but recognize how we all have unvoluntary or automatic type behaviors. This helps us to realize that we are connected to people who happen to have different unvoluntary or automatic type behaviors. 

After listening to Dr. Wurzman, I wondered about a connection between the social isolation experiences of people with addictions and those who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD]. If so, then does the isolation theory apply to people who have PTSD? And how would this influence treatment of PTSD?

What do you think?