David:   Do you sometimes feel lonely? Often? Well, a lot of people do, and the truth be told that number keeps getting bigger here in America no less.

Intro:    Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:   Loneliness Karen, what’s that like?

Karen:   I think often feeling overwhelmingly alienated or like there’s no one who cares or there’s no one who really understands me. The statistics on loneliness in our culture today are just extraordinary, particularly in a time when we seem to be so connected as far as the technologies are concerned.

David:   Are we talking older people? I mean we’re older. Is that our age group?

Karen:   No, we’re not older. We’re living longer. We’re changing the terminology remember?

David:   I remember you reading to me. We’re no longer.

Karen:   We’re not supposed to say we’re aging. We’re supposed to say we’re living longer. It’s much of a problem among the young people as among the rest of the population. Let me give you some statistics. One of the measurements is how many close friends do you have that you can turn to in a crisis? And this question was asked by pollsters in the most common answer in the past used to be five. How many people can you turn to when you’re in a crisis? That’s a question.

David:   It’s a good question.

Karen:   People used to say well five maybe there were more. Today the most common answer is none. Half of Americans also say that nobody really knows them well. So, we go into depression. We feel alienation. And I think it’s a form of feeling lost. Like we don’t have a tribe or a community or a network into which we belong.

David:   I can understand that. What about church people though? I would hope that it’s not that way with church people.

Karen:   Yeah, people who attend church regularly even once a month have less of a statistic on loneliness than those who don’t go at all. The Signa Insurance Company took 20,000 individuals and they asked questions about loneliness, and they were aged 18 and over. Okay?

David:   And they would have to be we’re not talking street people now because they’re not quite a…

Karen:   They’re part of Signa’s program.

David:   Yeah, so we’re talking people at least who have income of…

Karen:   …income enough to have insurance. 46% reports sometimes are always feeling lonely. 47% say they feel left out.

David:   So that’s similar. Okay.

Karen:   47% say they do not have meaningful in-person social interactions or extended conversations on daily basis. David, just what is that?

David:   Yeah, I don’t relate to those feelings at all.

Karen:   But just think it’s almost half your culture.

David:   Yeah, right. Half of the American culture. Yes.

Karen:   43% sometimes always feel the relationships they have aren’t meaningful.

David:   Okay, so you’re talking that that could include marriage or family.

Karen:   Yeah, they have a relationship that doesn’t feel meaningful.

David:   Yeah, it’s surface.

Karen:   43% report feeling isolated. I’m just going to read a little bit. And the shifts into these high statistics have gone on over the last 10 or 15 years. They’ve been very sudden. This is a really rapid sociological movement.

David:   Well, that’s in spite of all of the Facebook and all the rest.

Karen:   In spite. The loneliest are young adults between the ages of 18 and 22.

David:   Oh, my goodness. Okay. Just one second now because you’re talking young adult 18 to 22. I got it. And that’s the most significant where they’re feeling at the most. That’s college age 18 to 22.

Karen:   This age group also rated their health the lowest, which correlates with the health sciences link, loneliness with a greater risk for obesity, heart disease, anxiety, dementia, and reduced lifespan. In fact, maintaining strong and healthy social connections has been linked to a 50% reduced risk of early death. So, if you have those connections, if you don’t feel lonely because of those connections, your early death risk is reduced by 50%. So, they’re obviously not just focusing on the 18 to 22 year old group.

David:   Yeah. So also, I’m just trying to process it. When you say loneliness my mind kind of quickly goes to street people. This is not what we’re talking about.

Karen:   No,

David:   We’re talking about something…

Karen:   General population.

David:   That’s endemic. We’re talking, well, you can say at least 45% of the population is feeling this way…

Karen:   …or feeling it sometimes. Studies have shown that people who are lonely are more likely to experience higher levels of perceived stress, increased inflammation in medical communities, attributing a lot of our diseases to inflammation or body. So, this increases inflammation, reduced immune function and poor sleep.

In fact, Theresa May, the previous Prime Minister in Britain, a statistic in England were so bad that she had appointed a minister of loneliness.

David:   So, what we’re saying is this is not just an American problem, well at least the Western world.

Karen:   So, what do we do about that? I mean, this should ramp up the energies of everyone who cares about people, who is compassionate, who is concerned about where the young are, where mid-lifers are, where oldsters are. And then we need to design and talk about what we can do to help alleviate the loneliness.

David:   I’m just getting a whole different picture in my mind because if you ask the question, what comes to mind age-wise when we consider the topic of loneliness, I think of an elderly folk’s home.

Karen:   They’re probably the least lonely because they have one another.

David:   That’s really interesting.

Karen:   They eat their meals together, they get to know one another, they talk about what you’ve done in your life.

David:   It’s the younger age, the college age really, that seems to be in the biggest trouble. I wonder if this is something that’s gone on all the time. I wonder, for example, if they took polls in Jesus’ time, there must have been a lot of lonely people.

Karen:   Yeah, maybe.

David:   We don’t know. Maybe it’s just an academic thought and not even relevant. It is true that there is a huge problem within our culture of loneliness.

Karen:   Let’s talk about things that we can do because I would say that there was a time in my life when I did experience loneliness. And I wrote a book called, Lonely No More. So, I know what that’s about and there were a lot of things that contributed to it. One is we became well-known in the religious world very fast and fame itself is isolating. People want to be popular or to have fame or to be known in the headlines or whatever it is.

David:   Isn’t that interesting? It doesn’t scratch the itch, does it?

Karen:   No, most deadly things because you get isolated because of your fame. So, let’s talk about what people who are lonely can do because a lot of studies then go into suggestions that way. So, for those people who are listening to this podcast, we want to make sure today that those people have some tools.

So, one is to really begin to not let the feeling of loneliness overwhelm and defeat you because there are things you can do. You want to connect as much as you’re able to. So, join whatever group it is that you can find where you can become a member that suits some of your interests. Join a volunteer gardeners’ group where people go around and help older people, for instance, who maybe are not able to keep up with their gardening anymore.

Or volunteer group of any kind that helps other people. Call the hospital and see if they have need for volunteers to come in and whatever they could do. Take those carts around. Whatever. Anything like that will begin to connect the lonely person with human interaction.

One of my mantras is: “If you’re not being invited into other people’s lives, invite people into your life.” With that high of a percentage, 45% of people being lonely, you’re going to hit a button with other lonely people even without knowing that they’re lonely. They may not look lonely.

So just start inviting people over and one of my favorite things is have a pie night and everyone brings a favorite pie. It doesn’t matter if they make it or if they just go out and buy it, but you have a sample pie night where everyone samples pies and you invite them into your home and it’s easy. It doesn’t require a lot of work and it’s just a great way to get introduced to people and get people talking.

And then have some questions we’ve used to get to know groups. In fact, we did this with our teenagers. We would say to them, have five questions that you can ask anyone in the back of your mind. We’re sitting around eating pies, so we don’t want it just to be chit-chat, although even that is better than nothing. But let’s design some questions.

David:   The reason you’re asking the questions is to get it out of yourself into understanding what other people are like. You had a perfect day. It was one of the best days you could possibly imagine what’s going on or similar to that. If you could have a day that you would live over again, what would be one of those days? And you’re not asking that of yourself. You’re asking that of the other person.

Karen:   Right. And along with that is: “If money were no object, where in the world would you like to travel?” That’s another one.

David:   Oh yeah, all those are related. What’s on your bucket list? If you don’t have a bucket list, why don’t you have one?

Karen:   If you had a bucket list, what would be on it?

David:   What are you going to start a bucket list? What are you going to put on it? Do people know what a bucket list is? Things I would like to do before I die.

Karen:   One question I’d like to ask is we could sit around in a group and think of all the people or the one person who had the most impact in our lives. Who is the one person who has had the most impact in your life, or one of the persons who has had the most impact in your life?

David:   My generation had heroes. What about your generation? I’m talking to a young person. Who are your heroes? Oh, they’re all kinds of questions.

Karen:   All kinds of questions.

David:   Those are easy for us because we’ve asked them thousands of times, and we basically come up with the core belief that people are very interesting.

Karen:   Yes, very interesting. You ask one question, and that leads to another question.

David:   We may have run off five questions just in our talking. I don’t know.

Karen:   So, lonely person who is listening to us now, connect in whatever way that you can. Invite people into your home. Go to the places where people are.

David:   A lot of people, especially the younger ones, aren’t going to have a home.

Karen:   We’ll meet in a coffee shop. There are lots of places to meet. Local library. What you want to do is sit down and make a list of all the ways you can connect rather than bundling yourself up in your isolation, drawing it around you, feeling more and more disconnected like no one cares that you have no one to go to. I want to go back to the idea of volunteering to do something with a group that needs volunteers.

There was a book written on what happens to us when we do that. When we volunteer to go to the school and be an adult who helps with the kids.

David:   Okay, a traffic guard or whatever.

Karen:   A traffic guard or a teacher needs someone else in the class from the project and you give your name on the list. When we do that sort of thing it is true when we help others, we help ourselves. So, that’s really what we want to do is to get ourselves in a place where we are volunteering in a way that helps others because this thing connects us. It creates attachments between you and those groups you’re volunteering with, and it begins to assuage the loneliness condition that you’ve been in.

David:   Loneliness we started to talk about because of previous podcasts where we were talking about – becoming good listeners. So, let’s connect and maybe we already have just to make sure we’ve covered the ground. Loneliness is alleviated when you are in a position of being a good listener.

Karen:   That’s right. In fact, there is a synchronicity that occurs between the brain of the one who’s speaking and the one who’s listening.

David:   That’s a great word and I’m not sure I know what it means.

Karen:   It’s the connection. Let’s just put it that way.

David:   Ok. I’m with you.

Karen: You feel connected to someone who tells you their story even if you’re not telling them your story.

David: But it’s even better if you can tell your story as well.

Karen:   Yeah, and that’s part of the beauty and the brilliance and the miracle really of the listening process. But sometimes we have noticed that when we ask questions people are so thrilled to have anyone interested in them that they talk, and we’ve discovered these fascinating things about them. But they never return a question to us.

So, we have learned that in order to create a mutuality one of the things we need to do is to say, “Well that’s interesting. Can I tell you about this thing that happened to me that’s like that.” Or “I know exactly what you’re talking about. This is what happened to me in that way.” And so, you interject because you haven’t been asked to do that because people are not good at doing that. You interject your story in a way that is appropriate to their storytelling.

David:   You are making a very important point.

Karen:   Yeah, then you create these cohesiveness. People just have to learn how to do that.

David:   You model it yourself. You know if you had asked me that question here’s what I would have said. If you don’t do that you burn out asking questions after a while because you find that people are not good at asking questions.

Karen:   I think really, it’s more there’s such a flush that they feel and there is a physiological flush when someone asks you a question and is interested about your whole body is responding.

David:   Talk here about the evening. Oh, it’s probably been two months now where we had people from the church who could be lonely. Lonely was not why we called them to come to the house.

Karen:   Well, there were about five or six people who have chronic disabilities.

David:   Yes.

Karen:   These are disabilities that will not go away. They’re living with them, and they’ve lived with them for years or will live with them for years. But I did tell them we want to hear what their lives were like and what things they were dealing with and often that people don’t get a chance to tell those things who are dealing with chronic disabilities. So, we sat around our table and they each talked.

David:   …and not the spouses talked but they talked.

Karen:   Yeah, they talked.

David:   With great difficulty but beautiful.

Karen:   Beautiful and it was a conversation mostly about their losses.

David:   That was a keyword.

Karen:   That was the keyword wasn’t it. And I’m not sure what it did for them because I didn’t do any follow-up on it but there felt like there was this sweet unity that came among us as a group.

David:   Well, empathy.

Karen:   Oh yes thank you.

David:   Great empathy.

Karen:   Yeah. Great empathy. It was a beautiful thing. So that sort of stuff is maybe taking a little confidence to do but don’t overlook as you’re working your way out of loneliness kind of those sorts of things. I have one more idea on being a lonely person dealing with loneliness.

David:   Okay.

Karen:   Look for the lonely people. One of the things that we do in group settings where there’s conversation bouncing back and forward and generally, we try and focus on an idea that everyone is dealing with is the person who is silent who is either shy or doesn’t have the capability of jumping into a robust conversation. They sort of sit back.

David:   Maybe autistic whatever.

Karen:   Maybe autistic or are on the spectrum and so you’re really good at noticing them, but I try to do it. Generally, I’m serving the meal and cleaning up. I let you lead the conversation at the table, but you will say to the person who hasn’t talked that very thing. You’ll say, “Sarah or Jack. You haven’t said anything for a while. What are your thoughts on this?” I can’t remember anyone who ever said “I’m not thinking. I don’t have any thoughts on it. I’ve gone blank.” They always have thoughts, and you just give them a chance to contribute.

David:   And I’ve never sensed that the group thought don’t waste your time. I think they all were feeling “How do we draw this person in because he or she has been quiet.”

Karen:   Right. So, the point of it is really if you’re lonely, if you’ve experienced that feeling in a way that’s a gift because it can give you, I’ll use your word empathy and compassion understanding about how other lonely people feel and obviously there’s so many of them. And you can use that loneliness to bridge those gaps between humans.

David:   Loneliness is alleviated when there is someone to listen to and understand what is being said. Does that tie somewhat the two topics together?

Karen:   I think it pretty much ties them together well.

David:   Loneliness is alleviated when there is someone to listen to and understand what is being said. So don’t think this is going to be awkward. You just think “I’m going to plunge in and I’m going to listen. I’m going to be a good listener.” Yeah. Loneliness. The problem is immense. And because it’s so immense I think people just say “If I try to resolve that problem it’ll overwhelm me.” And the truth is it will if you think you’re going to solve the problem nationally. But you can solve it within your own little world.

Karen:   I have one dangling thought. I am by nature an introvert. An introvert is someone who restores in silence aloneness and quiet. So, I’m glad when I have a day with no one in it. I mean it’s just a great gift to me. But as I’ve aged my extroverted side is feeling much more comfortable in coming forth. And so, when I see someone alone or someone standing beside me somewhere in the crowd or in a public place I will go ahead and say the things that are in my heart to say to them. Funny little comments or I’ll just stop and say “Hey you look great. I love that outfit.” So, you’ve seen me do this more or?

David:   Yeah, very much so.

Karen:   So, what is the response that you’ve observed from the people I am? I do this one.

David:   Oh, it actually they light up.

Karen:   They light up. And they respond and we laugh together.

David:   I’m thinking of the specific people. Yes. Yeah.

Karen:   So, I think that that’s something I would encourage people to do even if you’re shocked. Just begin to connect in joyful ways or there’ll be something funny going on and I’ll say to the person beside me “Oh my goodness I can’t believe this is happening.” But we get to be here to see this something like that. They’re just with me. They’re like friends. They like friends and I think everyone in this lonely society is very open to connections of any kind even with strangers.

David:   Yeah, I would agree. Okay we haven’t resolved all that could be said regarding this topic, but we’ve poked at it a little. Then I trust it would be helpful and many others would continue to poke around the edges and pretty soon we’ll get to the middle of it all. God be with you friend.

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