FEATURE I LONELINESS
Loneliness – is it killing us? Loneliness and social isolation not only impact our emotional wellbeing. Research is now showing that they are also harmful to our physical health. In fact, one research study has shown that a lack of social connections may be as damaging to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day*. By Jocelyn Biddle.
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he corollary to this is that friends and strong social connections can help you live longer and better. Professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Brigham Young University in Utah. Her research has looked at the associations between social relationships and long-term health outcomes. In a research paper entitled Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Metaanalytic Review, Professor Holt-Lunstad said the effect of loneliness and social isolation is as great a risk factor as obesity and poses a threat to public health. “Social isolation significantly predicts risk for premature mortality comparable to other well-established risk factors. Thus, we need to take our social relationships as seriously for our health as we do these other factors.” Reverend Graham Long AM is Pastor and CEO of Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross. In July, Graham is coming to Lane Cove to speak about loneliness and how we can help to guard ourselves against it. “The truth is that loneliness isn’t defined by the number of bodies around you. It’s about connecting and meeting one another. By enlarge, we tend to relate to one another as problems to be fixed, rather than people to be met, which is very unsatisfying. ‘We’re surrounded by ‘awesome’ all the time, but often we can’t see it. Being in the presence of another human being and maximising opportunities for this to happen is so important.” Graham says that although loneliness has been a theme for the past 20 years, it is growing at an alarming rate. “There can be a million steps that lead to loneliness and it often ends in addiction of one form or another – whether it’s a poor man or rich man’s addiction.” 4 I THE VILLAGE OBSERVER I NO. 264 I JULY 2017
Reverend Graham Long, Pastor and CEO of Wayside Chapel believes that our ‘one upmanship culture’ is partly to blame for the increase in loneliness being experienced in the Western world.
“It’s not about surrounding yourself with things, but with people.” Graham joined Wayside in 2004. An oracle of Kings Cross, he has been instrumental in creating a community of no ‘us and them’ at The Wayside Chapel. Each year, thousands of people visit Wayside for assistance. In an average week, Wayside provides 517 community meals, 319 changes of clothing, 741 instances of health-related support including mental health, and 36 social and recreational activities for the whole community to participate in. So why is loneliness becoming such an important social issue? Graham believes that our ‘one upmanship culture’ is partly to blame. “Today it’s increasingly about ‘I’, ‘my’ and ‘me’. ‘My achievement, ‘my success’, ‘my life’ defines disconnection. We have become so busy achieving our own goals, often at the expense of others. “People are judging themselves by a bunch of criteria that renders loneliness. Getting satisfied with the
‘Power of One’, rather than defining oneself as part of something much bigger, comes at a high price and we’ve now found ourselves on a path where many people are desperately disconnected. “We’re born social, but we’re then conditioned to treat everyone as a competitor, so we can end up becoming more and more alone.” Research undertaken in the US by Professor Holt-Lunstad indicated that individuals with adequate social relationships have a 50% greater likelihood of survival compared to those with poor or insufficient social relationships. It showed that the magnitude of this effect is comparable with quitting smoking. Interestingly, it remained consistent across a number of factors, including age, sex and health status. Lifeline Australia conducted a Loneliness Survey in September 2016 which showed that more than 80 per cent of Australians believe our society is becoming a lonelier place, highlighting the lifesaving importance of caring realworld relationships. “For a society that is more technologically connected than we have ever been, these results suggest we’re overlooking good old-fashioned care and compassion when it comes to our mental health and wellbeing,” said Lifeline Australia CEO Pete Shmigel. Graham Long agrees that life is passing people by with the hours spent on technology. “It’s almost reached the stage where people need to employ their own PR person. We’re in a culture of constantly advertising ourselves, hoping that we will be ‘liked’. We’re not toothpaste we’re people.” Graham says that lifestyle choices being made in the Western world seem to be enforcing the loneliness that is being experienced by increasing numbers of people.
