pandemic paradox: loneliness keeps us safe, but at risk

“our social life builds our immunity,” says susan pinker, montreal psychologist and author of  the village effect . “we’re between a rock and a hard place. essentially, what’s good for us in terms of living a connected life…is bad for us in terms of infection transmission.”

steve cole, a genomics professor and researcher at ucla, began researching the biological effects of loneliness 15 years ago with the late john cacioppo, a social neuroscience professor at the university of chicago. in their first study , the researchers compared how genes are expressed in the immune cells of lonely people with those of highly social ones.

cole, cacioppo and colleagues repeated these findings time and time again and identified the cellular mechanisms of how it happens — that social adversity consistently activates a “conserved transcriptional response to adversity” (ctra) process in our bodies that increases the expression of genes that promote inflammation and decreases the expression of antiviral and antibody-related genes.

this “signal” is part of the reason that social isolation triggers a social craving with a similar neural signature on brain imaging to hunger.

julianne holt-lunstad, a researcher and professor at brigham young university in provo, utah, studied these broader health effects of social isolation by reviewing 148 studies on the topic in 2010. she found a 50 per cent decreased likelihood for all-around survival for people who were socially isolated, compared with those with stronger social ties. social isolation exceeded the health risks associated with obesity, inactivity, heavy drinking, air pollution and smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

but she also notes the we need to be creative to stay socially connected even while staying physically apart.

part of this “spare tire” is finding purpose in your life. in 2015, cole began studying whether someone’s sense of purpose and meaning in life – a well-researched resiliency factor — could protect against the negative health effects of loneliness. like his other studies, he found that loneliness increased crta gene expression (the increased expression of pro-inflammatory genes and decreased expression of antiviral genes), but the opposite was true for people who reported purpose and meaning in life. surprisingly, the negative effects of being lonely were completely reversed when people reported meaning and purpose in life, despite still being lonely.

in his famous book,  man’s search for meaning , austrian physician viktor frankl famously documented how his focus on purpose and meaning allowed him to survive the torturous conditions as a prisoner of the nazi concentration camps that killed his wife, brother, father and mother. “those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how,’” he wrote.