How Loneliness Affects the Body: Why Connection Protects Your Health

In this episode of Health Recoded, we break down the science behind loneliness, social isolation, and human connection — and how loneliness affects the brain, nervous system, immune system, hormones, and long-term health.

If you’ve been experiencing loneliness, emotional isolation, low social connection, anxiety, or feeling disconnected from people around you, this episode will help you understand what is happening physiologically inside the body and how connection affects overall health.

Many people don’t realize that loneliness is not just emotional — it is biological. 

In this episode, we explain the anatomy and physiology behind loneliness, why the body responds so strongly to social disconnection, and practical ways to improve connection in everyday life.

We cover:
- How loneliness affects the brain and nervous system
- The relationship between loneliness, cortisol, and stress physiology
- Why human connection improves emotional and physical health
- Practical ways to improve connection and reduce loneliness

If you want to better understand the effects of loneliness on mental and physical health, this episode gives you a science-based and approachable place to start.

Subscribe for more conversations that help you better understand your body, nervous system, and health. New episodes weekly.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
01:41 Who is most affected by loneliness?
02:18 How does social media increase loneliness?
03:22 How does loneliness affect brain health?
09:28 How does loneliness affect hormones?
12:35 How does loneliness affect the immune system?
14:13 How does loneliness affect heart health?
15:32 How does loneliness affect mental health?
17:15 How does chronic loneliness affect health?
17:59 Why does the body respond to loneliness?
19:02 How does connection affect the body?
21:24 Tips for reducing loneliness
23:04 The 5-3-1 Rule
31:20 How do hugs improve health?
32:43 How to improve connection
42:38 Key Takeaways

This content is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for guidance provided by your own medical professional.

Resources:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention https://www.cdc.gov/social-connectedness/risk-factors/index.html
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [https://www.cdc.gov/mental-health/about-data/community-connection.html](https://www.cdc.gov/mental-health/about-data/community-connection.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Cleveland Clinic https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-happens-in-your-body-when-youre-lonely
- U.S. Surgeon General loneliness advisory coverage https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2023/05/02/surgeon-general-loneliness-poses-risks-as-deadly-as-smoking/
- NIH social isolation overview [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK595227/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK595227/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Loneliness and dementia meta-analysis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39802418/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

About 50% of U.S. adults report feeling loneliness. Loneliness is not just a passing emotion. It is a serious health risk that is linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and mental health. It's linked to 29% increased risk of heart disease, 32% increased risk of stroke, and 50% increased risk of dementia in older adults. Loneliness doesn't just affect your mental health, it changes your nervous system, your hormones, your immune system, and even your risk for chronic disease. Hi, I'm Alex. I'm your nurse, and today we're talking about loneliness and how it affects your health. About one in three U.S. adults report feeling lonely regularly. The U.S. Surgeon General reported that about 50% of adults have experienced measurable loneliness, and he equated the health impact of chronic loneliness to smoking up to 15 cigarettes per day. Chronic loneliness is associated with increased risk of heart disease, stroke, anxiety, depression, and dementia, like we talked about. There is physiological reasoning behind all of this. It is your body responding to increased stress response and it is giving you feedback. Loneliness is not just weakness, it's a biological signal from your body. Humans evolved in groups. Historically, isolation increased vulnerability to predators or illness, injury, or lack of resources. And because of that, the nervous system still interprets prolonged isolation as potential danger because if you were on your own, you might just get eaten by the bear instead of being able to actually safely defend yourself. So this is one of the reasons that loneliness affects the body so deeply. Groups with higher loneliness risk, a lot of people think that it's the elderly, but there's a rising population of particularly Gen Z. So young adults, older adults, caregivers, parents, remote workers in particular, where we've seen this rise of remote work and you're isolated in your home, and maybe you're talking to people on Slack or social media, but it's not the same as in-person connection, and we're going to talk more about that as we get into this conversation. Men, especially young men, are at more increased risk of loneliness, and then people with chronic illness and disability, and then also marginalized groups as well. So social media has also worsened all of this. The digital interaction is not always nervous system regulation. Passive scrolling can worsen loneliness. It may seem like you're connecting with people, and sometimes you genuinely are. If you're keeping up with somebody that's on another continent that you can't talk to, it's better to talk to them some way than none at all. But this passive scrolling can actually isolate you more from the group that you're in at that moment, or going and getting that physical connection through a hobby or being in person with a different friend or family member. Humans regulate best through eye contact, voice tone, physical presence, and touch. And I've personally experienced this. I was a travel nurse for about four years, and even when I was around other people, that connection wasn't as deep because I didn't know them as well, and that really starts to affect you. And you start to mentally believe that you're more isolated than maybe your physical presentation really shows, and that starts to affect your health. So let's talk about how loneliness affects the body physically. It affects all of these systems, like we talked about your brain, your hormones, your immune system, your heart, and especially your mental health. Starting with the brain, the thing to note, connection is neuroprotection. The brain does not interpret chronic isolation as simply being alone. It often interprets it as decreased safety and therefore increased stress. And therefore, you're essentially increasing your stress response. So loneliness for the brain is associated with an increased risk of dementia, cognitive decline, impaired executive functioning, and increased anxiety and depression. A large meta-analysis has shown loneliness increased dementia risk significantly across over 600,000 individuals. So, how does this translate to our nervous system as well? Humans are biologically wired for co-regulation, and this wiring connects to your nervous system. Without connection, sympathetic nervous system activation increases and your cortisol increases as well. So does the threat perception. The autonomic nervous system will constantly start scanning for safety or danger or support or threat, and it could make something as simple as a little bit of road noise seem really loud and really overstimulating. Healthy social connection helps to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. So this is the one that helps you calm down and rest. So this would achieve a calmer heart rate, reduce stress hormones, improved recovery, and better emotional regulation overall. So the nervous system ultimately interprets isolation as vulnerability. Again, if you were on your own, you had less regency or sorry, agency and resource with which to protect yourself. So therefore, your nervous system is going to be overactivated. It's going to be looking for all of these threats, it's going to be scanning for any signals so that it can help protect you to get away from the bear. Because remember, the nervous system doesn't know if the bear or if the threat is the bear or something like paying your bill. So things can become particularly heightened in these increased stress responses. And loneliness is to your body a stress response. Decreased connection equals increased threat. So again, you're constantly scanning and you're becoming more overreactive. So let's talk about why physiologically. So during chronic loneliness, the brain becomes more sensitive to social threat, hypervigilance can increase, and the body shifts towards a more protective state. And research shows that lonely individuals often demonstrate increased attention to negative cues, increased defensiveness, and then higher anticipatory stress response. So that jumpiness that you feel or the constant rejection that you're interpreting from people, it may be somewhat of an overperception by your brain and a heightened response by your nervous system because essentially what you're looking for, you will find. And so if it's thinking that everything is going to be negative, then that's what you're gonna find and it's gonna perceive even the smallest thing as a biggest slight. So this doesn't mean that anything is wrong with you. It is a response by the brain to protect you and to keep you safe, but it can be counterproductive because it could actually lead to more disconnection than connection or protection that is being desired. So the cycle then will actually perpetuate itself. Another part physiologically to talk about is the prefrontal cortex. This gets less regulatory control the more you get into this lonely stress response state. So the prefrontal cortex normally helps regulate emotional responses, inhibit fear reactions, and create rational interpretation. So chronic stress and loneliness impair this regulation. This contributes then to anxiety or emotional dysregulation or rumination or worsened stress states. So the stress centers become louder, which is the prefrontal cortex, and then the regulatory states become less effective, which was the amygdala. So as a response to all of this, your sympathetic nervous system is gonna increase, right? Because this is the one that's your fight or flight. It's gonna get you away from the bear. So the nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system controls vigilance, fight or flight activation, and cardiovascular mobilization, as well as a bunch of other things. But chronic loneliness is associated with increased sympathetic response. So this means higher heart rate, higher blood pressure, increased pressure in your vascular system, so increased constriction there, increased stress hormone signaling with cortisol and the like. And as a response, again, we've talked about this being a cycle. The cortisol will increase and that'll increase your stress, and that'll increase the sympathetic tone and response in your sympathetic nervous system, and then it'll go again and again and again, and it's kind of hard to get out of sometimes. But we're gonna talk about that in a little bit. Moving into the parasympathetic suppression, in increased loneliness states, in increased stress states, your parasympathetic nervous system is going to be decreased. So this is the rest or digest system. So this is responsible for digestion and recovery and sleep and restoration. Healthy social connection helps to activate this system. And this is why. Without enough regulation, the body may spend more time in a sympathetic state. So moving into stress and hormones, historically, isolation from the group meant danger. Like we talked about, if you were isolated from the group, you had less people to help protect you from a perceived danger, whether it be again the bear or another attacker, or it could even be sickness or illness or decreased resources and food. The body still responds this way biologically because our bodies don't know that we live in a modern society and that we have so many more resources at our fingertips that are so much easier to access. It's still going to respond in the way that it was evolutionarily and biologically created. So loneliness is associated with an increased activation of the HPA excess. And we talked about this a lot in a previous episode, but it stands for hypothalamic pituitary adrenal excess. A lot of words. The short end of this is it increases your cortisol release. How it does this is your brain perceives the stress threat and then it activates the hypothalamus to release CRH, which stands for corticotropin releasing hormone, and then that releases pituitary sorry, that signals to the pituitary to release ACTH, which is adrenocorticotropic hormone, and then from there it signals to the adrenal glands to release cortisol. So a little bit of a feedback process here, but essentially we're getting cortisol released from the stress or the threat that's being perceived. So again, the brain doesn't know if the threat is the bear or perceived rejection from a friend. It just knows that you don't feel safe anymore and it wants to get you away from that response or protect you in whatever way it can. So loneliness creates essentially a low-grade chronic stress state in the body. Impaired sleep, increased inflammation, insulin resistance potentially, increased blood pressure or heart rate, impaired mood and immune function. Acute cortisol can be very protective. It's not a bad hormone. We want to have healthy levels of cortisol. But chronic cortisol dysregulation is damaging. Short-term cortisol helps to mobilize you, helps to increase your alertness, improve your survival. But chronic elevated cortisol can contribute to impaired immune functioning or increased inflammation or worsened mood. And there's a long list of things that cortisol can affect and a negative aspect when it's elevated chronically. But this can be a very dysregulated feeling and a very uncomfortable state to be in. Because sometimes you'll feel like you have your wits about you and everything's going okay, but your physiology is telling you otherwise. It's typically identified as being tired but wired. You might feel like you should be tired at night, but you're really wired. That's because you're activated. Or maybe it's in the inverse during the day. But the point being, cortisol isn't bad, but when it's highly elevated or dysregulated, it can feel miserable. So how does this all affect the immune system? Research shows loneliness is associated with poor immune function, increased inflammatory signaling, and increased illness susceptibility. So chronic loneliness increases your inflammation. It's shown to increase its all these different inflammatory markers, but essentially they're inflammatory cytokines, and the body shifts towards an inflamed state because it's having to stay on and activated for so often. So the body prioritizes survival vigilance over long-term repair and recovery. This is why chronic stress states often impair recovery capacity. The body heals more efficiently when it feels safe. Due to increased cortisol, remember, increased stress states weaken your immune system. Your body is having to do all of this work for baseline level of functioning, so anything beyond that stresses the capacity further, and therefore it makes you more susceptible for infections. If you remember the immune system episode, your immune system is supposed to work. When it's impaired, when it's taking care of too many things all at once, it can be much, much easier for it to not work as effectively, and therefore you to get a new illness. So the body tends to function better in regulated social environments. And we're going to talk about what that looks like later in the episode, I promise. But I do want to talk about how loneliness affects each different system so that you have an idea of how much this really is affecting your body on a physical standpoint. So loneliness affects the heart, and it is associated with increased heart risk, increased stroke risk, elevated blood pressure, and increased systemic inflammation. So how this works is chronic sympathetic activation, again, that's your nervous system, increases catecholamines, such as adrenaline or noradrenaline, and this makes the heart pump faster and harder and essentially increases your heart rate. Chronic sympathetic activation also increases your vascular resistance and therefore your cardiac workload. So the heart is having to work harder to do baseline level of function, again, like the immune system. And so this can contribute to hypertension, high blood pressure, or increased heart rate, endothelial dysfunction, meaning the lining of your vascular system and your vessels and everything, that's not functioning as effectively as well. And then increased cardiovascular restrain as a result of all of this. Your heart is having to work more to do, again, a baseline level of functioning. And so as a result, it's going to be more stressed from your stressed state. So loneliness can increase your blood pressure, it can increase the heart rate, and this is as a result of prolonged loneliness and a chronic elevated stress state. And of course, loneliness is going to impact your mental health. It's going to feel miserable to feel isolated. It's associated with increased anxiety, depression, impaired cognitive function, and increased dementia risk. The brain becomes more threat focused under chronic loneliness. Researchers have found increased hypervigilance and social threat sensitivity in chronic in chronically lonely individuals. This can create a cycle. Loneliness leads to increased anxiety, leads to social withdrawal, leads to more loneliness. This is the cycle I was talking about earlier. Loneliness and depression are related, but they're not identical. Someone can be socially surrounded and still feel lonely. You could be in a group of plenty of people that you know and still feel no connection. And this is the part that I want to distinguish. I'm not advocating for going and making a million friends to avoid feeling lonely. You can have the most friends in the world and still feel very isolated and lonely. The antidote for loneliness is connection. And we're going to talk about how to increase your connection to ideally lower your loneliness prevalence in your life. But just because you have a lot of people surrounding you, it's not about the quantity, it is about the quality. Humans are biologically social. Isolation often amplifies psychological stress. So I know all of this sounds really scary to listen to. I'm just saying pay attention because if you're experiencing some of these different presentations, loneliness could be a contributor to that, and it's a really simple fix. So let's talk about implications of chronic illness, increased comorbidities, increased anxiety and depression, increased illness, all of these things we just talked about with the body. The body experiences loneliness as a stress. Chronic loneliness is associated with increased cortisol, chronic stress activation, worsened sleep, and higher inflammation. And as a result, this stress state equals poor health outcomes due to the increased demand on the body. A little bit of loneliness is not going to kill you. It is fairly human to feel lonely every now and then. But I'm talking chronic, sustained loneliness and lack of connection. This is gonna create some of these health problems. So why would the body do all of this? There's evolutionary theory behind all of this. Isolation historically increased risk of injury, infection, environmental danger, death, as I've mentioned a couple times already. The body may increase inflammatory preparedness in anticipation of threat. So again, we're seeing these activations of all of these stress states to try to protect us, even though it doesn't feel very great. It's to try to protect us to get us to safety. And in this situation, it would be safety of connection and being with others to then have the safety of not getting attacked by the bear or somebody else that's out to get us. So the problem is chronic inflammation damages tissues over time. As we talked about, it wears down the heart, it wears down your immune system, it can wear down your brain. Connection is neuroprotection. We want to make sure we have enough daily amounts of it, weekly amounts of it, ideally, in order to help avoid all of these health comorbidities. So, on the opposite side, how does connection affect the body and our health? This will improve your self-image. It'll reduce your anxiety and depression if you're experiencing that from loneliness. It'll improve your physiological presentation. Human connection is not just emotional support, it is biological protection. We need this to survive. Think of it as a daily supplement or vitamin that you have to take every day or at least a couple times a week. Safe human connection helps to regulate your nervous system activity, cortisol release, emotional processing, and inflammation. Why? Your vagus nerve, we've talked about this in the neuro nerve, we've talked about this in the nervous system episode before, but vagus nerve helps to regulate the sympathetic and the parasympathetic tone in your nervous system. So social safety cues help to stimulate this vagal activity. So it helps to down-regulate your system. And as a result, it'll improve your digestion and your heart rate and your recovery. Connection also increases oxytocin. So oxytocin is associated with reduced stress signaling, lower cortisol, increased bonding and safety, parasympathetic activation. Excuse me. Oxytocin is released through connection, bonding, touch, trust. It is the bonding neurochemical or hormone, however you want to call it. But this is part of why safe connection physically changes the body. It's what pairs us, it's what bonds us. It is something that our brains need to release and receive, and it is very restorative for your health. Connection also affects dopamine and the reward systems in the brain. Healthy social interaction activates reward pathways. So chronic isolation can blunt your motivation or your reward perception or your pleasuring signaling, your pleasure signaling. This contributes to depressive symptoms, withdrawal, emotional numbness. Connection helps to regulate the nervous system through co-regulation. So co-regulation is calming voice or eye contact or physical touch or presence with a friend, laughter, emotional safety with somebody. These things all sound really small or woo-woo or superfluous, but connection helps the body to feel safe enough in order to downregulate. And as a result, we're gonna ideally leave that stress response or just avoid being in one in the first place. So my nursing tips for you how to increase connection in everyday life. Your nervous system is designed to regulate through connection. Increasing human connection involves intentionally fostering vulnerability, practicing active listening, engaging in shared experiences. And key strategies can include initiating conversations with curiosity with friends or family or whoever you feel safe with, expressing gratitude even with strangers, volunteering, prioritizing face-to-face time. Aim for one to three hours of daily social interaction if you can. That sounds like a lot, but you'd be surprised. This can range from small talk with neighbors or a stranger at the grocery store or deep conversations with a friend. Deep conversations with friends or family typically provide the highest health benefits. This is where you get the most connection, the most vulnerability. If you feel safe and you're able to be vulnerable and connect with this person, that's going to be part of that cycle that we were talking about. Just like the stress cycle is going to continue, the connection cycle is going to foster itself as well. So if you go, you connect to the person, you're grateful with them, you're vulnerable with them, they give that back to you. It is a beautiful cycle that feeds itself back in a positive way. So here are some other tips. The 5-3-1 rule, it's a recommended manageable guideline to have. So it's five different weekly contacts, three monthly genuine exchanges, and one hour of daily social interaction. So this could be, I guess, work weekly contacts if you're able to connect with people at work, or maybe you go to the gym every week. That could be your five weekly if you're able to get in there that often. Or it doesn't have to even be the same one. Maybe you alternate between a couple different hobbies and places that you go. The point is at least five per week. And then from there we move to monthly. So three monthly genuine exchanges. So maybe you plan a phone call with somebody that's across the country. Like I plan phone calls with my sister and one of my best friends in Nashville still. I live in Phoenix, but I still maintain deep connections with these people because it's really important for me and my health. And I start to notice if it's been a few weeks since I've talked to them, it definitely helps to regulate and to keep up with these people. And then from there, one hour of daily social interaction. And this comes back to work because we're at work so often, or going to the gym, or talking to strangers again somewhere. And it's not that you have to make the best friend with some random person in target, but it's literally just some laughter or small piece of connection or exchange can really make a difference in your day. And the thing is, it's not like one small conversation with a target stranger is going to change your health. It's the repeated practice of this over time that's going to continue to supplement your health. Think of this as a preventative health measure. This isn't just something that sounds nice to go make friends and have hobbies and to do activities. This is genuinely a part of your health, and that's why I'm talking about it. It's not just the physical stuff of drink your water and take your supplements and go on a walk. Connection is physical protection, and it is one of the best preventative health measures that you can take. So, some regular hobbies and activities you can volunteer by engaging in your community or charity or in a school or a church somewhere. You can join an interest group, again, the gym or a book club or a sports group. Sports groups are specifically really good in the way of connecting and engaging with people. There's something about the physical presence of being together, but also doing an activity like a soccer group, for instance, to actually physically be working as a group, but also the structure to playing a sport. These seem to be particularly good at fostering connection and friendships with people. You can also host and connect. Maybe if you have a few friends, invite people over for dinner and have them invite people over so you can build your network that way progressively. Again, even if you're not being the best friend with somebody there, you don't meet your forever person in that one moment. You still met somebody, you still connected with somebody for a five-minute conversation and connection, even if you never see that person again. For all of these, ultimately find aligned activities that work best for you. If you don't like soccer, like I don't like soccer, don't do soccer. Like I would hate joining a run club. I hate running. Why would I do that? But I love dancing or I love going to the gym. So doing something aligned in those activities is going to bring me in my best self, but also make me comfortable, more comfortable to go do those things to then feel safer in connecting with other people. So it's not a matter of going to the busiest bar and finding somebody to talk to or going to the most extroverted activity that you can to seek some form of connection. You want to foster your own feeling of safety within yourself so that you can then from there feel safe enough to connect and be vulnerable with someone else. Intentional connection is ultimately what is most important. Yes, you can have these passive conversations with people and they'll still be just as helpful and important. But if that's the only thing you're having with people day in and day out, again, this comes back to my previous point. You can have the most friends and the most people around you in the world and still feel completely isolated. The antidote for loneliness is not people, it is connection. So get out of your house and get off your phone, essentially touch grass, and go and intentionally connect with other people. I do want to talk about passive media. I'm not ostracizing social media. I personally hate it, but it can be really useful. There's people that I keep in contact with that I haven't seen in years, but I can still keep up with them relatively because of it. So it can be a really useful tool, but in limitations, or I should say in doses. If you're constantly on your phone and you're constantly scrolling and you're not getting out and going and doing these other hobbies and connecting with people in person, I'm sorry, but that just doesn't replace in-person human connection. And I do want to highlight AI use as well. AI use can be very, very helpful. It can be great for research tools or learning new things, but I'm seeing a lot more new AI tools being used and developed, particularly for mental health aspects. And while I think it can be helpful to use in moderation, it concerns me that it's starting to be used as a replacement. And maybe that's not the case. Again, I think some of them can be really useful with context and nuance. But when it's starting to be relied on as an immediate source of connection as opposed to going out and talking to a friend or phoning a parent or talking to a neighbor. So with that, high amounts of social media over two hours per day can increase feelings of isolation. And this kind of comes back to what I was talking about with Gen Z. They are having increasing prevalence of loneliness with that specific generation. And these people were essentially born with phones, you know. I'm a millennial, so I still remember when phones came about. I still remember when that wasn't a thing. But the perception there is different. And I have a friend, she's a therapist, and she had a kid that she was counseling, and she said the phone usage for the day was literally like 16 hours straight, just on TikTok straight. And I still have hesitancy to believe that that's the truth, but she said she checked the phone multiple times because I'm not gonna share this person's details, and she didn't share all the details with me. But the point was she was tracking that and tracking that with the mood of said client. And as the phone usage went up, the mood decreased, and it just highlights and shows that this stuff can be dangerous. There's a book called The Anxious Generation, and it talks about this specifically, and I've yet to read it, but I've heard that it's really good. Again, I'm not trying to fear monger and say that your phone is gonna kill you or that social media is, but I do want to advocate for these are tools that we can use to help to connect, but ultimately go touch grass, go out, go talk to a neighbor, go on a walk, go have a scheduled time with your hobbies or a group or something like that, and then use your phone in moderation. One to two hours a day, again, is not gonna be a bad thing, but studies and research have started to show high amounts of social media use over two hours can increase your feelings of isolation, and if that prolongs, then it'll get into these other health problems that we were talking about. Something that I want to highlight because I found this to be really interesting, is hugs. Hugs and physical touch are so healing, and we don't get enough of them per day. The 4812 is a hug rule that I found, and it's popularized by a fa popularized by a family therapist named Virginia Seder, I think is how you say her name. But essentially it goes four hugs a day for survival, eight for maintenance, and then twelve for growth. That's a lot of hugs. I think I would probably average maybe one or two a day, and that's high. That's not every day. So some days I get more, some days I get less. And I would love to get eight hugs a day. That would be delightful. So that's one of my own personal goals. I think I'm gonna become a little bit more of a hugger in safe environments, don't worry. Um but it's interesting how the physical connection can directly influence your psychological state. But ultimately, this guideline suggests that regular physical touch reduces stress or cortisol, boosts your oxytocin, and it fosters emotional well-being. So I keep talking about connection and connecting with others. What are some key strategies for deepening connection? So we want to practice active listening, focus on understanding others rather than just replying. So instead of listening to respond, listen to understand. Actually hear the person speak. Repeat back what you heard to ensure that you heard them and their understanding. And from there, that's going to show them that you are listening, and then they're going to become more of an active listener as a result. And when we're hearing each other, we're connecting with each other. Be vulnerable and open. And this isn't to say you need to go trauma dump with everybody. That is the opposite of connection. But share your own struggles and fears. This encourages others to do the same and to be open with you, and it fosters this sense of trust and connection. Show genuine curiosity, just as with the act of listening, ask open-ended questions that start with what or how to express that you heard what they said, but also that you processed it and that you're listening. And then from these questions, you want to deepen your understanding and the conversation. So it makes that person feel cared about and listened and heard and understood, but also that you're interested. It is much more attractive to be interested than interesting. And I think that's something that a lot of people get confused is that you have to have the most interesting thing to say in the room for people to like you. Half the time people just want to be heard. If you listen to somebody and listen actively and actually hear what they have to say, you'd probably make a closer friend than the person who had 20 interesting things to say in the same amount of time. And that's not to say that you can't be interesting and know a lot of stuff, but it's just to highlight the difference between the two. Um, express gratitude, regularly show appreciation for friends, family, colleagues. This strengthens bonds. Practicing gratitude has scientifically been shown to improve your own mental state and resilience, but also as well your connection with others. And so when you're telling people genuine compliments, like not just on their physical presentation, but I really liked the way that you listened to me, or thank you for being present with me in this situation, or thank you for showing up for me in this presentation or situation. That will foster again more trust, oxytocin, and from there, connection. And then prioritize in-person time. Back to what I was talking about with digital tools, social media, it can't replace being in person with somebody. In-person, undistracted time is most effective for building intimacy. And if you have to go to a specific class that's virtual as opposed to being able to go in person, that's better than not going at all. But being in person will always trump the digital use nine times out of ten. So some mindset shifts for fostering connection. Be approachable, smile and use open body language to encourage interaction safely. Because your love language is, I hate to say it this way, but your hate language, that's not the best way to put it. But essentially think of it this way: if some if you love receiving gifts and that's your love language, and nobody ever gives you a gift, you feel like you're not loved because you're not receiving that that cup is not being poured into, right? You're not receiving the love in the way that you perceive love. So when somebody tells me no, I don't want to hang out or I can't hang out that day, even if they have a perfectly good reason for doing it, and this is a problem that I've worked through in therapy, and that's why I can speak about it now, but when somebody would say, No, I can't hang out, or no, I don't want to do it, I would take it so personally that they didn't care about me and they didn't love me. But that's not ultimately what it was. And so it's just the practice of reiterating that and doing it over and over again and telling myself that's not what's going on, to then find that people truly do want to hang out. It's just that they couldn't. Or if I go and ask this friend and coordinate with them, they were wanting to ask too, but they were just as scared to get the no answer. Half the time, people are just really, really busy. And it's not that they don't want to hang out, but we start to get blinders on, particularly as we get older. It's not hard making friends, it is as an adult, but it's about as simple as you make it. And I say that for everything because I've discovered that in my head, I make things a lot harder than they need to be. And while some things are genuinely hard, I find that my brain made it much harder than the reality presented. And so there's been so many times where I've gone and I've invited somebody to go do something and they've said yes. Or I was afraid to plan the party because I thought no one would show up, and most people said yes and showed up. And it's just really easy to get down on yourself and think that nobody wants to do things, nobody wants to come to my birthday party, right? That's fair, that is honest, and I think most people are probably still pretty scared about that. But that's why I say this, to be proactive and initiate and don't wait for others to reach out. Talk to them, say the thing in class, be engaging when you're in these hobbies and these group activities, reach out to people to do things outside of those activities, and you might be surprised to see how far it goes. Key points. Prioritize recurring interaction. Remember, hobbies, volunteering, whatever works for you. Small, consistent interactions matter. So even if you're at the grocery store or if you're after even if you're at the gym, maybe take out your headphones. And even if you're not having a long conversation with somebody, you're having some small moments of engagement one way or another. And it keeps you more engaged into your environment, if nothing else. Now, that being said, that's just a specific example. I like listening to my AirPods and the phone. I like listening to my AirPods in the gym as well. But that's just an example for a way to foster more connection in a small way. Movement and community together is powerful with, again, the gym or sports activities, like we talked about, walking groups, running groups, etc. Um, voice is going to be better than texting. So if you have the option to call somebody even for a quick chat, that would be much better than texting, but that's not to say that every conversation needs to be had over the phone, right? So it just kind of depends on the context. And then ultimately, quality is greater than quantity. Prioritize close ties, focus on building three to five close friendships. We actually need less friends than we think we do in order to avoid loneliness. And this comes back to connection being the antidote to loneliness. I used to think when I was in my young 20s that I needed all of these friends and have all these invitations all the time and to go out and do all these things because I would see Instagram or social media, and that's what all my other friends were seemingly doing. And it just seemed so impossible and so hard. And for some people, they're just naturally that extroverted, and that's how they live their lives. But I found that with two to three solid people in my life, I felt good. I felt resilient, I felt strong, I felt loved, I felt connected. So it's a tiered system, at least in my mind. It might not be for you, but you'll have more of the more like acquaintances in your life, right? Like maybe your neighbors, maybe really close with your neighbor. I don't know, but like maybe your neighbors or the people that you don't necessarily hang out with, but you see on the regular, maybe it's coworkers, and then the next layer above that is people that you actually talk to and connect with on a regular basis. And then a layer above that would be your closest friends. They know your deepest fears, darkest secrets, XYZ. And so as you can see with the pyramid, you have more at the bottom and less at the top. So not every friendship and connection is going to be the same. And that sounds really stupid to say it like that. Like that seems like kind of logical, like duh. But I don't know. That was just something that kind of resonated with me when I was much younger, figuring all of this out, battling loneliness through COVID and going on travel nursing assignments and things like that. So just adjusting expectations appropriately, knowing that not every connection was going to be a massive connection. So ultimately, a person can talk to people all day long and have coworkers or roommates or constant social contact and still feel profoundly lonely emotionally. The nervous system responds to consistency more than intensity. So you don't have to do the most. But again, it's quality over quantity, and it is connection over the amount of people present. So my key takeaways for you: connection is neuroprotection. Connection is not just emotional comfort, it is a biological regulation tool. It affects your brain, your heart, your hormones, and the immune system. Loneliness is not a weakness, it's a biological signal. It's your body responding to an increased stress state. Prolonged loneliness can lead to worsening health, and it's a direct result of heightened stress response. And ultimately, connection isn't a luxury for humans. It is part of how the body stays regulated. Connection is so important and has personally affected me and my life for the positive. And when I prioritize this as a health measure, I see a difference. And that's why I want to talk to you guys about this because I see this as a rising epidemic in our culture, whether you're in America or anywhere else, but particularly anywhere that uh has high use of social media or phones or increased remote work, things like that. And don't get me wrong, I love working remotely. But one of the things that I think has really helped is I knew going into remote work that this might be a problem. And so I'm very active on Slack to talk to my friends and my coworkers when I'm there, or I make sure that on my days off, I'm not sitting at home all the time if I don't have to. I schedule things on my days off so I'm out of the house. I'm scheduling my hobbies consistently because I know that consistent routine is just as much for my health as well as it is for my enjoyment. So I hope this helped. If this spoke to you, please consider subscribing. I have episodes that I do every Week, it's every Tuesday night. And if you want to learn more about your body and your health, please follow. If you have any questions or any thoughts that you'd like to add, you can leave a comment or you can follow me on Instagram. I'll respond to messages there. I'm at Health Recoded Podcast. Thank you for listening. I enjoy talking about all of these things. So if there's anything that you want to talk about or know more about, please let me know. I'll see you guys next week.