The Loneliness Epidemic

Post Author: Ashley Updegraff

35 year-old full-time working mom with young children seeks other working moms to form tight-knit friendship group. Loves travel, good food, reading books, going to the movies/theater productions, and being outdoors—especially near water. Must enjoy iced coffee, Rosé, and have a slightly irreverent sense of humor. Must send silly texts, make time for lunches, errands, or nights out, and check-in about the ups and downs of life. Will do the same. Email if you think we could be besties!

This is the personal ad I would publish for a new friend if that were an actual thing. (Side note: why isn’t that an actual thing?) It’s embarrassing to admit it, but I have very few friends. Almost none of them live within 300 miles of me. I am lonely.

Call it irony, but I am not alone in my loneliness. In 2018, several large organizations conducted loneliness surveys to determine just how lonely we are. The answer: very. The Kaiser Family Foundation discovered that 1 in 5 adults often or always feels lonely.^[1] Cigna, one of the largest insurance companies in North America, concluded that “most Americans are considered lonely.”^[2] This statistic was enough for Cigna to deem loneliness an epidemic–a public health crisis. In fact, loneliness in adults is more pervasive than diabetes, but you wouldn’t know it given how little we talk about it.^[3]

Our silence on such a critical issue is confounding, but most likely has something to do with the subjective nature of loneliness. Defined as “the gap between the level of connectedness that you want and what you have,” loneliness changes from individual to individual. One’s level of loneliness is based on the gap between reality and desire, something that varies from person to person. This is why some people are perfectly content being home by themselves, while others can feel lonely in a crowded room. The gap between what you have and what you want is what matters, and that gap is different for everyone.

Because it seems so subjective in nature, we push the problem of loneliness to the margins of our discourse on public health. We outsource it to the self-help section of the local bookstore. But there are compelling reasons to change our approach to loneliness.

The human brain interprets loneliness as a threat, and because of that, our bodies engage the same hormonal response to loneliness as they would to any stressful situation—like a tiger about to attack.^[4] Primary among these hormones is cortisol, which in small, short-lived doses helps us respond to emergencies, threats, and attacks. But in large, prolonged doses, cortisol does more harm than good. Thus, when someone feels lonely for weeks or months or years, the body’s hormonal response can lead to negative health consequences of all kinds: emotional disorders like substance abuse, depression, or anxiety; heart disease; cancer; dementia; an increased risk for stroke; and a lower immune response. In fact, the Cigna study states that loneliness has the same impact on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.^[5]

Loneliness and its health consequences are something to take seriously. They aren’t going to go away. The pandemic has added increased stress, isolation, and loneliness to everyone’s lives, and the ever-quickening pace of our existence, along with the continuous stream of new technological advances, will continue to exacerbate our loneliness.

So what are we to do? One place to start, according to Dr. Vivek Murthy, the United States Surgeon General, is to “restructure our lives around people.”^[6]

On this point the issue of loneliness gets particularly complicated for people whose lives already revolve around people: pastors. For pastors and other clergy members, loneliness is complicated by the unique work that we do. In their new book A Path to Belonging: Overcoming Clergy Loneliness, Mary Kay DuChene and Mark Sundby credit things like the unrealistic expectations clergy have to navigate, the maintenance of healthy boundaries in our relationships with parishioners, and the inability to be authentic with the very people we spend the most time with as reasons why clergy members, as a group, are as lonely or lonelier than the general public.^[7]

I feel this deeply. In my work as a pastor, I am in relationship with many people, but the vast majority of those relationships are one-directional. I am the one to check-in, to offer a cup of coffee and a conversation, and to listen as worries and heartbreaks are shared. It is not my place to share the entirety of my own experience or the full truth of my personal opinions. And it is definitely not my parishioner’s job to check-in on me and inquire about how I am really doing.

Compound my occupation with the fact that I have a busy young family, and it feels next to impossible to create the time for combating loneliness. A few hours to really get to know a new mom from my daughter’s dance class or a woman from the neighborhood? I don’t have the time for that even if I did have a list of women to call up, which I don’t! And if I make time, it is at the expense of something else: my children, my spouse, my work, my hobbies, my “me” time. It feels like a no-win situation.

But women need close, deep friendships with other women. New research has come out that sheds light on how women in particular respond to stress. While we have the standard “fight or flight” response, when our bodies release stress hormones, we buffer that response with the impulse to “tend children and gather with other women instead.”^[8] When we are overcome with stress (which, let’s face it, is all the time), relationships are our natural inclination and our biological need. Because of this reality, DuChene says, “[I]t’s of the utmost importance for women to develop a few deep friendships with other women – women with whom we can be completely honest, hold nothing back, and know that we will be supported fully for who we are.”^[9]

I don’t have a magic formula for building this kind of friendship with other women. I don’t have a magic formula for overcoming loneliness and finding your tribe as a woman, as a clergy member, or as a female clergy member. Investing in your existing relationships, talking with a therapist, practicing mindfulness, and trying some new things that will surround you with new people are a few places to start. Mostly, I want you to know that if you are lonely, you are not alone. The majority of America is right there with you.

And if you need a friend…check out my ad!

^[1] Read in The New York Times article How Loneliness is Damaging Our Health: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/nyregion/loneliness-epidemic.html for the original research: https://www.kff.org/report-section/loneliness-and-social-isolation-in-the-united-states-the-united-kingdom-and-japan-an-international-survey-introduction/

^[2]https://www.cigna.com/static/www-cigna-com/docs/about-us/newsroom/studies-and-reports/combatting-loneliness/loneliness-survey-2018-full-report.pdf

^[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/nyregion/loneliness-epidemic.html

^[4] To read more on the body’s stress response: https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body#:~:text=When%20the%20body%20is%20stressed%2C%20the%20SNS%20contributes%20to%20what,adrenalin%20(epinephrine)%20and%20cortisol.

^[5] https://www.cigna.com/static/www-cigna-com/docs/about-us/newsroom/studies-and-reports/combatting-loneliness/loneliness-survey-2018-full-report.pdf

^[6] Read in The New York Times article How Loneliness is Damaging Our Health: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/nyregion/loneliness-epidemic.html

^[7] DuChene, Mary Kay and Sundby, Mark: A Path to Belonging: Overcoming Clergy Loneliness. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN 2022

^[8] https://www.anapsid.org/cnd/gender/tendfend.html

^[9] Email with DuChene, exchanged June 28, 2022

Image by: Ashley Updegraff, through Canva
Used with permission