The lonely become lonelier unless they don’t
After my husband died last year, I felt very lonely. We had recently moved from where we lived for 25 years and his family, after initially expressing their condolences, disappeared. I have no children and for the previous five years had spent my extra time focusing on his healthcare. Fortunately when I woke up alone, I knew the important, if not critical, reasons for social interaction due to being a mental health counselor. Filling a social void is not easy, it’s work, but it’s work that paid off for me when I got up and got out and about. I had to overcome my shyness and spoke to strangers. I pasted a friendly smile my face and instigated conversations. Slowly, but surely, other lonely people responded, and lo and behold, I now have a few new friends and am more comfortable having a casual chat with cashiers, others at the farmer’s market or at an art opening. I befriended myself and helped me make friends with others. You can too!—MR
How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain
The Neumayer III polar station sits near the edge of Antarctica’s unforgiving Ekström Ice Shelf. During the winter, when temperatures can plunge below minus 50 degrees Celsius and the winds can climb to more than 100 kilometers per hour, no one can come or go from the station. Its isolation is essential to the meteorological, atmospheric and geophysical science experiments conducted there by the mere handful of scientists who staff the station during the winter months and endure its frigid loneliness.
