Loneliness — Transcript

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1. 0:00Everybody feels lonely from time to time
2. 0:04When we have no one to sit next to at lunch
3. 0:06When we move to a new city
4. 0:08or when nobody has time for us at the weekend.
5. 0:12But over the last few decad es,
6. 0:14this occasional feeling has become chronic for millions.
7. 0:17In the UK, 60% of 18 to 34 year old say they often feel lonely.
8. 0:24In the US, 46% of the entire population feel lonely regularly.
9. 0:30We are living in the most connected time in human history,
10. 0:34and yet, an unprecedented number of us feel isolated.
11. 0:39Being lonely and being alone are not the same thing.
12. 0:43You can be filled by bliss by yourself, and hate every second surrounded by friends.
13. 0:48Loneliness is a purely subjective, individual experience.
14. 0:53If you feel lonely,
15. 0:55you are lonely.
16. 0:57A common stereotype is that loneliness only happens to people who don't know how to talk to people,
17. 1:02or how to behave around others.
18. 1:05But population-based studies have shown that social skills make
19. 1:08practically no difference for adults when it comes to social connections.
20. 1:13Loneliness can affect everybody.
21. 1:15Money, fame,
22. 1:17power, beauty,
23. 1:18social skills, a great personality—
24. 1:21nothing can protect you against loneliness,
25. 1:23because it's part of your biology.
26. 1:31Loneliness is a bodily function, like hunger.
27. 1:34Hunger make you pay attention to your physical needs;
28. 1:38loneliness makes you pay attention to your social needs.
29. 1:43Your body cares about your social needs,
30. 1:45because millions of years ago,
31. 1:47it was a great indicator of how likely you were to survive.
32. 1:51Natural selection rewarded our ancestors for collaboration,
33. 1:54and for forming connections with each other.
34. 1:57Our brains grew and became more and more fine-tuned
35. 2:00to recognize what others thought and felt, and to form and sustain social bonds.
36. 2:06Being social became part of our biology
37. 2:10You were born into groups of 50 to 150 people,
38. 2:13which you usually stayed with for the rest of your life.
39. 2:17Getting enough calories, staying safe and warm,
40. 2:19or caring for offspring was practically impossible alone.
41. 2:24Being together meant survival,
42. 2:26being alone meant death.
43. 2:29So it was crucial that you got along with others.
44. 2:32For you ancestors, the most dangerous threat to survival
45. 2:35was not being eaten by a lion,
46. 2:38but not getting the social vibe of your group and being excluded.
47. 2:42To avoid that, your body came up with "social pain".
48. 2:46Pain of this kind is is an evolutionary adaptation to rejection.
49. 2:51A sort of early warning system to make sure you stop behaviour that would isolate you.
50. 2:57Your ancestors who experienced rejection as more painful
51. 3:00were more likely to change their behaviour when they got rejected,
52. 3:04and thus stayed in the tribe, while those who did not got kicked out
53. 3:08and most likely died.
54. 3:10That's why rejections hurt,
55. 3:13and even more so, why loneliness is so painful.
56. 3:16These mechanisms for keeping us connected
57. 3:19worked great for most of our history,
58. 3:22until humans began building a new world for themselves
59. 3:29The loneliness epidemic we see today really only started in the late Renaissance.
60. 3:34Western culture began to focus on the individual.
61. 3:37Intellectuals moved away from the collectivism of the Middle Ages,
62. 3:41while the young Protestant theology stressed individual responsibility.
63. 3:46This trend accelerated during the Industrial Revolution.
64. 3:49People left their villages and fields to enter factories.
65. 3:54Communities that had existed for hundreds of years began to dissolve,
66. 3:58while cities grew.
67. 4:01As our world rapidly became modern,
68. 4:03this trend sped up more and more.
69. 4:06Today, we move vast distances for new jobs,
70. 4:10love, and education,
71. 4:12and leave our social net behind.
72. 4:15We meet fewer people in person,
73. 4:17and we meet them less often than in the past.
74. 4:20In the US, the mean number of close friends dropped from
75. 4:233 in 1985 to 2 in 2011.
76. 4:28Most people stumble into chronic loneliness by accident.
77. 4:31You reach adulthood and become busy with work,
78. 4:34university,
79. 4:35romance,
80. 4:36kids,
81. 4:37and Netflix.
82. 4:38There's just not enough time.
83. 4:40The most convenient and easy thing to sacrifice is time with friends.
84. 4:45Until you wake up one day and you realise that you feel isolated,
85. 4:50that you yearn for close relationships.
86. 4:53But it's hard to find close relationships as adults,
87. 4:56and so, loneliness can become chronic.
88. 5:00While humans feel pretty great about things like iPhones and spaceships,
89. 5:04our bodies and minds are fundamentally the same they were 50,000 years ago
90. 5:10We are still biologically fine-tuned to being with each other.
91. 5:17large scale studies have shown that the stress that comes from chronic loneliness
92. 5:21is among the most unhealthy things we can experience as humans
93. 5:26it makes you age quicker it makes cancer deadlier
94. 5:30Alzheimer's advance faster
95. 5:32your immune systems weaker
96. 5:34loneliness is twice as deadly as obesity
97. 5:37and as deadly as smoking a pack of ciggarettes a day
98. 5:42the most dangerous thing about it is that once it becomes
99. 5:45chronic it can become self sustaining
100. 5:49physical and social pain use
101. 5:51common mechanisms in your brain
102. 5:53both feel like a threat
103. 5:54and so social pain leads to immediate
104. 5:57and defensive behaviour
105. 5:59when it's inflicted on you
106. 6:01when loneliness becomes chronic
107. 6:03your brain goes into self preservation mode
108. 6:06it starts to see danger and hostility everywhere
109. 6:10but that's not all
110. 6:12some studies found that when you're lonely your brain is much more
111. 6:15receptive and alert to social signals
112. 6:18while at the same time it gets worse at
113. 6:20gets worse at interpreting them correctly
114. 6:22you pay more attention to others but you understand them less
115. 6:26the part of you brain that recognises faces
116. 6:29get out of tune and becomes more
117. 6:31likely to categorise neutral faces as hostile
118. 6:34which makes it distrustful of others
119. 6:37loneliness make you assume the worst about others intentions towards you
120. 6:42because of this perceived hostile world
121. 6:45you can become more self-centred to protect yourself
122. 6:49which can make you appear more cold unfriendly and
123. 6:52socially awkward than you really are
124. 6:59if loneliness has become a strong presence in your life
125. 7:02the first thing you can do is to try to recognise
126. 7:04vicious cycle you may be trapped in
127. 7:07it usually goes something like this
128. 7:10an initial feeling of isolation leads to feelings of
129. 7:12tension and sadness
130. 7:14which makes you focus you attention selectively on negative
131. 7:17interactions with others
132. 7:19this makes your thoughts about yourself and others more negative
133. 7:23which then changes your behaviour
134. 7:26you begin to avoid social interaction
135. 7:28which leads to more feelings of isolation
136. 7:31this cycle becomes more severe
137. 7:33and harder to escape each time
138. 7:36loneliness make you sit far away from others in class
139. 7:40not answer the phone when friends call
140. 7:42decline invitations until the invitations stop
141. 7:46each and every one of us has a story about
142. 7:48ourselves and if your story becomes that
143. 7:51people exclude you others pick up on that
144. 7:54and so the outside world can become the way you feel about it
145. 7:59this is often a slow creeping process that takes years
146. 8:02and can end in depression
147. 8:05and a mental state that can prevent connections even if you yearn for them
148. 8:09the first thing you can do to escape it is to accept
149. 8:12that loneliness is a totally normal feeling
150. 8:15and nothing to be ashamed of
151. 8:17literally everybody feels lonely at some point in their
152. 8:20life its a universal human experience
153. 8:24you can't eliminate or ignore a feeling until
154. 8:27it goes away magically but you can accept that
155. 8:30you feel it and get rid of its cause
156. 8:33you can self examine what you focus your attention on
157. 8:37and check if you are selectively focusing on
158. 8:39negative things
159. 8:41was this interaction with a colleague rarely negative
160. 8:45or was it really mutual or even positive
161. 8:48what was the actual content of an interaction?
162. 8:51what did the other person say?
163. 8:53did they say something bad or did you add
164. 8:56extra meaning to their words
165. 8:58maybe another person was not really reacting negatively but
166. 9:02just short on time
167. 9:04then there are your thoughts about the world
168. 9:07are you assuming the worst about others intentions
169. 9:10do you enter a social situation and have
170. 9:12already decided how it will go?
171. 9:15do you assume others don't want you around?
172. 9:18are you trying to avoid being hurt and not risking opening up
173. 9:22and if so can you try to give others
174. 9:25the benefit of the doubt can you just assume
175. 9:28that they're not against you
176. 9:30can you risk being open and vulnerable again?
177. 9:33and lastly your behaviour
178. 9:36are you avoiding opportunities to be around others
179. 9:39are you looking of oppertunites to decline invitations
180. 9:43or are you pushing away others preemptively to protect yourself
181. 9:47are you acting as if you are getting attacked
182. 9:50are you really looking for new connections
183. 9:52or have you become complacent with your situation
184. 9:56of course every person in each situation is unique
185. 9:59and different and just in introspection alone
186. 10:02might not be enough
187. 10:03LEGAL DISCLAIMER
188. 10:03if you feel unable to solve your situation alone by yourself
189. 10:06please try to reach out and get professional help
190. 10:10its not a sign of weakness but of courage
191. 10:14however we look at loneliness as a purely individual
192. 10:17problem that needs solving to create
193. 10:20happiness or as a public health crisis
194. 10:22it is something that deserves more attention
195. 10:25humans have build a world that is nothing short of amazing
196. 10:28and yet not of the shiny things we have made is able to
197. 10:32satisfy or substitute
198. 10:34our fundamental and biological need for connection
199. 10:37most animals get what they need from their physical sourroundings
200. 10:40we get what we need from each other
201. 10:43and we need to build our artificial human world
202. 10:46based on that
203. 10:49(giggling)