Midlife loneliness is a killer; Speeds up aging

Feeling lonely is never fun. However when it happens in middle age it can take a very bad toll on one's health. In the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, two University of Chicago psychologists report their findings that loneliness leads to very negative physiological affects on middle age bodies.

Among the observations of Louise Hawkley and John Cacioppo were that lonely people identified more sources of chronic stress and recalled more childhood adversity. This occurred despite the fact that the researchers believed these lonely subjects had similar numbers of stressors and had no more childhood adversity than non-lonely people. Another observation was that even when faced with similar challenges, the lonelier people appeared more helpless and threatened.

Blood samples of lonely people noted that they had more of the hormone epinephrine flowing in their bodies. This is the human body's "fight or flight" chemical. The researchers noted that "high levels indicate that lonely people go through life in a heightened state of arousal. As with blood pressure, this physiological toll likely becomes more apparent with aging. Since the body’s stress hormones are intricately involved in fighting inflammation and infection, it appears that loneliness contributes to the wear and tear of aging through this pathway as well."

From the press release announcing their findings:

There is more bad news. When we experience the depletion caused by stress, our bodies normally rely on restorative processes like sleep to shore us up. But when the researchers monitored the younger volunteers’ sleep, they found that the lonely nights were disturbed by many “micro awakenings.” That is, they appeared to sleep as much as the normal volunteers, but their sleep was of poorer quality. Not surprisingly, the lonelier people reported more daytime dysfunction. Since sleep tends to deteriorate with age anyway, the added hit from loneliness is probably compromising this natural restoration process even more.

It should be noted that loneliness is not the same thing as solitude. "Some people are just fine with being alone, and some even see solitude as an important path to spiritual growth. But for many, social isolation and physical aging make for a toxic cocktail."

In other LifeTwo posting we've noted the impact that positive social relationships have on mental health, physical health, quality of life, and longevity. The work Hawkley and Cacioppo points at a potential root cause for these impacts and underscores the importance of addressing loneliness in middle age and later years when it appears that our bodies are less apt to handle it.