(Johanna Cheek/ Healthy Debate) — With the second wave forcing more people into isolation, we are now facing another public health crisis with deadly consequences: loneliness.
During this pandemic, we have stayed physically apart to keep our tribe alive. But it is staying in the tribe that has kept us safe as we have evolved. We’re wired to focus not only on physical threats – like COVID-19 – but also the danger of social disconnection.
“Togetherness is the most defining feature of human beings,” says UCLA professor and researcher Steve Cole. “This is the reason we don’t get eaten by all kinds of things bigger, better and stronger than us. The thing to know about loneliness is it’s a surprisingly strong danger signal for the human brain and togetherness is a strong safety signal.”
Loneliness is not just an uncomfortable emotion; it has profound public health implications. Cole describes how loneliness triggers a fight or flight stress signal that not only impacts our mental health but also gets interpreted by every tissue in our bodies, sacrificing immune function and favouring inflammation and worsening our risk of heart disease, Alzheimer’s, cancer and many other diseases. (…)