America’s ”academia” are finally figuring out what people in other parts of the world discovered a long time ago: The cure for the epidemic of loneliness is to be around other people — preferably “like-minded” people.
This article was on my agenda for a couple weeks from now, but that bastion of “news”, The Washington Post, had an article in today’s paper, about how Psychologists, Psychiatrists and Academia, are finally figuring out that loneliness can be a real challenge. So I thought it might be appropriate to write about it for this week’s message.
Now keep in mind that these academics relied on surveys that include people who are “always” lonely, or “sometimes” lonely. And they discovered that a “one-size-fits-all” approach won’t work for older adults. Duh! That’s after a study by the National Academies of Sciences, where someone decided that “we need ‘new societal institutions that bring meaning and purpose’ to older adult lives.” Mmm. Gosh. That sounds like Government and Insurance Companies getting involved in solving our loneliness problems.
All kidding aside, the reality is that social isolation among seniors can bring on depression, withdrawal, and suicidal thinking, and needs to be addressed. And the reality also is that other societies have figured it out without insurance companies and governments getting involved.
A number of years ago a National Geographic writer wrote a terrific article for that magazine about areas throughout the world where there was an abundance of people who lived to be over 100 years old. He delved into the common denominators in the lives of the people in those areas. Dan Buettner, the author of the article, wrote a subsequent book about his discoveries called Blue Zones and I highly recommend you read it.
One of the common denominators that Dan Buettner and his team found was that they all had a way of dealing with the concept of loneliness.
It seems that common to the people populating these “Blue Zones” is very strong concept of COMMUNITY. This community concept can involve family, friends, neighbors, affinity groups, spiritual or religious groups, or any number of ways they form and maintain communities of people with like minded interests.
Examples of these “Blue Zones” include Okinawa, Japan; Ikaria, Greece; Sardinia; Loma Linda, California, among others. And among the common traits in these areas are Natural Movement, including a lot of walking and carrying; a sound purpose for their life; a primarilybut not exclusively plant based diet with a lot of beans and only small amounts of meat. But important to this article, the Blue Zones team found that social groups and community were extremely important in eliminating or reducing the detrimental effects of loneliness. This contributed significantly to their longevity.
In fact Okinawans form special groups called moais, small groups of friends who are committed to each other for life. Visit any Asian oriented community today, and you will find similar associations. In my home town, there are groups within the Asian community who gather daily at the local Community Center to just interact and converse within the group.
There are many lessons to be learned from those Blue Zone Centenarianns. Dealing with loneliness is one of them. We can learn a lot from them.
Notwithstanding my sardonic view of the Washington Post article at the beginning of this article, Loneliness can be a serious problem if not addressed. I personally think it is best addressed on an individual basis and not on an Institutional basis. My father was a case in point. When my Mother passed away, my dad was extremely lonely. As a law professor at a local University, he chose to be around his students. He thrived around the young men and women in his classes and he sometimes interacted with groups of them outside of class. He passed away in his car on the way to teaching one of his classes. His last years were happy ones, being around the young students he taught.
There are meet-up groups, organizations, Church groups, and other ways of getting together with your peers and other like-minded people who aren’t part of an Institutionally formed or “planned tribe”. While there may be a place for such institutional organizations in extreme cases, I believe the Blue Zone style of natural gatherings of like-minded people is best. You may have to look for one, but they are out there.
By the way, the Washington Post article is a pretty good tutorial on loneliness and its ramifications, and I honestly recommend reading it. It’s in the Health & Science Section at www.Washingtonpost.com.
And thank you for reading this.