After 85 years of research, scientists have reached a clear and surprisingly consistent conclusion: staying socially connected is one of the
The "loneliness factor," he explains, has evolutionary routes. Natural selection chooses those ancestors who lived in groups. Whenever these socially connected ancestors found themselves alone, they went into hyper-stimulated mode, looking for danger and trying to get back to their tribe. It was hard-wired into them. And it is still hard-wired into us.
That hyper-stimulation of the brain and body when we are chronically alone is what causes not just bad mental health outcomes (suicide), or death by addiction (OD or just destruction of the body over time), but pretty much every other major disease category from cancer to heart disease. Many other important risk factors are highly correlated with these diseases.
But chronic isolation, when examined head-to-head with every other risk factor, is the most important according to Waldinger when looking at this 85 years of data.
Vulnerability is the answer
Every time I read something like this I'm like "did you ask an anthropologist? You should have asked an anthropologist. This is like anth 101". I read so many papers in undergrad from other fields that ended with "we know this is a thing but we don't know why" because they refuse to believe that anth has valuable information. Like yes. Obviously the species that literally cannot have proper brain development in juveniles without interaction with other humans is going to have some issues with being solitary. Like there's a reason the vast majority of human evolution research is done by bio/physical anth and not by biologists. It's because you have to understand both sides of the coin - the behavioral and biological - to actually get any of it right. Now, I don't resent that they do this because when fields outside of anthropology do research like this and come to the same conclusions anthropologists do it's validating. Also sometimes anthropologists do this to prove a point so maybe the authors are anths. Idk. I just think it's kinda funny when a other field comes to a conclusion that is taught really early on in anth and then it's spoken about like it's a revelation.
I feel like there is a balance to be held
between
stressed from being alone
and stressed by the kind of person you have to settle for
Sometimes being alone is less stressfull ...
Sure, it's not ideal ...
But neither is having to stay away from medical personal until the person is healthy enough to advocate for themselfes becasue otherwise it can get realy dangerous -> Something I have heard from multiple disabled and/or chronically sick people
Life Ain't No Pony Farm
And sometimes hell IS other people ...
The article actually covers that as well. The people with the highest health benefits were the ones that registered satisfaction with their social relationships. The point is not to plop yourself with random humans, it's to form functional communities and social relationships. It's all covered in the article itself.
