When I mentioned to my mom that I was looking into the problem of loneliness, she said, “Well, you can talk to me.”
I had, in fact, started to investigate the topic because I wanted to better understand Mom, but also because my kids, now in their early 20s, had hit the age I remembered as the most lonely in my life.
Like nearly 50 percent of her peers over age 75, Mom lives alone. My home is two states away, and although we talk frequently, and I visit as often as I can, she still spends a lot of time with only her cat for company.
Mom made the choice to live on her own years ago, and for a long time, it felt like the right one. She had a core group of good friends who liked to hike and talk about birds and plants. She had a part-time job and a big summer garden. When she moved out of the mountains and into “town,” she cut her commute, upped her accessibility to medical services, and eliminated the need to clean a woodstove, but the trade-offs included the easy connections of neighborhood pals and the seasonal tasks of tending to the land.
“I think taking care of stuff grounds me,” she told me recently. “I often write dust on my list. I can get so involved dusting and just looking at all the things I love.”
Mom’s love of dusting got me thinking about how identifying reliable comforts might help us navigate periods of our lives when all else seems mysterious and frightening. It also got me thinking about how much change my mother had endured over the last five years.
“Uncertainty breeds loneliness in a fairly predictable emotional progression,” writes Jeremy Nobel, MD, in “Project UnLonely: Healing our Crisis of Disconnection.” We are all living in a time of unanswered questions, so it’s no surprise that the 2023 Meta-Gallup survey of 140 countries found that nearly one in four people worldwide consider themselves lonely.
Because Mom finds it boring to eat alone, she sometimes doesn’t eat at all. Without anyone in the house to bounce things off of, she gets caught up in her worries. There are days when a dripping faucet swells in her mind until it seems to possess all the force of a tidal wave. The lack of a stamp will leave a bill payment unsent.
“I give up easily when things are difficult,” she says. “It’s hard when it’s just me.”
According to many studies, loneliness is associated with an uptick in chronic disease, depression and other health issues. Just as it is good to lower blood pressure or increase physical exercise, it is healthy to be “unlonely.”
But how to begin?
Nobel advises taking time to recognize the kind of loneliness you feel. He names three distinct categories: psychological loneliness, societal loneliness, and existential loneliness.
Simply speaking, the three types boil down to: I don’t have a person. I don’t have a place. Who am I?
Knowing what is at the root of loneliness can help us choose the right way to address it. The sensation of being a meaningless speck in a sea of oblivion (existential loneliness) might not be fully addressed by joining a card game at your local community center, but for those with psychological loneliness, that card game might be the exact right solution for bringing more people into your life. Naming things — whether dependable pleasures or types of loneliness — is a grounding activity. It can also help us to understand what is missing and begin to make plans to fill in the blank spaces.
By 2030, an estimated 10 million Californians will be over the age of 60 — one-quarter of the state population. Anticipating this shift, the state’s Master Plan for Aging, rolled out in 2020, is a 10-year blueprint outlining goals for services, housing, employment and other resources that will need to change or grow with our evolving communities.
As part of this project, and with the goal of reducing loneliness in older adults and helping all generations thrive, the California Commission on Aging has partnered with the social-health platform, Eldera.
Developed by Dana Griffin in 2020, the platform pairs vetted adults, aged 60 and up, with young people from all over the world, for conversation and company. Inspired by her own deeply rewarding friendship with an older woman mentor, Griffin sought a way to make it easier to create intergenerational connections. What she has dubbed a “human use for technology” provides volunteers with training and a brief background check before pairing them in a face-to-face online chat with a young person. Eldera uses an AI Chaperone to ensure that conversations are safe and meaningful. It’s a strategy that makes the best use of technology and the vast resource of human knowledge and experience.
“Helping the next generation was the pull for me,” said Robert Vilker, an Eldera volunteer living in Laguna Niguel. After hearing an interview with Dana Griffin, he was sold on the program. “Her enthusiasm really came through,” he said. “And I liked her vision.”
Vilker logs onto the platform once a week to speak with a 12-year-old boy currently living in South Korea. “We do our best,” Vilker says. “He’s kind of a shy guy.” The two share a love of baseball and both cheer for the Dodgers. For Vilker, who still works part-time as a civil engineer, the role of mentor has always been a source of enjoyment, but he knows Eldera isn’t for everyone.
“I have some buddies in their 80s who are intimidated by the idea,” he says. Though it’s as easy as clicking on a link, he recognizes that some people feel uncomfortable moving out of their own peer group. With multiple grandkids nearby, Vilker would seem to have his hands full, but he plans to get more involved with Eldera in his retirement. “I want to surround myself with younger people as much as I can,” he said, “as long as I can.”
Doug Tow has always volunteered. “I’m addressing nothing more than a need to help someone else out,” he said. He’s taught classes in business and finance, tutored elementary school students and has been meeting with his Eldera mentee for five years. “It’s a rare connection,” he said.
Partnered during the pandemic when Tow’s student was living in South Carolina, they’ve continued to chat weekly despite the fact that the student, now 16, has moved with his parents to South Korea. The two share a love of cats and basketball. Tow, a long-distance hiker, has shared videos of the Pacific Crest Trail.
“We’ve played Yahtzee,” he said, “But not chess anymore because I always get clobbered.”
Over the years, Tow has visited his student and his student and family have made a trip to California. “I think they already know that I’d do anything for them,” he said.
Married for 51 years with grown kids and a 16-year-old grandson, Tow said loneliness did not play a part in his need to volunteer. For him, it’s more about feeling connected to the world, which, like his long-distance hiking, may be how he’s found purpose and side-stepped existential loneliness.
“You can talk to someone and make a real difference in a young person’s life,” he said. “You don’t need any skills. Just an open heart. That’s all.”
Prolonged feelings of exclusion, bias and rejection or the longing for a true friend or partner — factors in psychological and societal loneliness — may make it difficult to keep an open heart because chronic loneliness creates a constant stress loop. “Our systems stay revved up for flight or flight,” Nobel writes. He cites studies showing that “lonely people show less empathy and a reduced ability to ‘read’ other people’s intentions.”
Hoping to raise awareness of loneliness and promote tools for intervention and prevention, Nobel founded Project Unlonely. Focusing on older adults, college students, and those in at-risk or marginalized communities, the project offers online and in-person programs for organizations and individuals. Promoting creativity as a way to reduce the fight or flight response, the Unlonely Project sponsors a yearly film competition and hosts the Creativity Hub, an online guide to projects and activities that can be completed alone or together.
Nobel — whose mantra is “Be curious. Make something. Have conversations.” — finds value in creative expression because it doesn’t ask an individual to examine why they are lonely, or demand they make immediate habit changes, rather a creative act connects them with an inner, more playful self.
“The mere act of engaging with art,” he writes, “stimulates their social brain activity, making them feel more inclined to share themselves with others.”
I’ve seen the value of art making first-hand. Last spring, my mom took a watercolor class at her local senior center. She enjoyed the company of her fellow artists, and her enthusiasm spread to an at-home painting practice. She texted numerous photos of her work and we had a bunch of enjoyable conversations about perspective and technique.
Where, previously, she had ruminated on problems with the house or issues with her health, she talked more about the difficulties of creating believable water or realistic leaves. I was reminded how much I’d enjoyed making my own little paintings in those lonely days of my early 20s. The next time I visit Mom, we’ll paint together and, inspired by the work of Dana Griffin and the Eldera volunteers, I’ll make sure she understands how to log onto Zoom so we can continue our adventures online.
RESOURCES
Jeremy Noble, MD, defines loneliness as a “natural biological signal, like hunger or thirst.” There are as many ways to address our loneliness as there are to fill our bellies. Here are a few suggestions:
Eldera is enrolling adults 60 and older for one-hour, weekly sessions;
Oasis offers in-person classes in San Diego and online classes for retirees;
The Friendship Line, a 24/7 emotional support helpline for older adults, caregivers and adults with disabilities;
Learn more about California’s Master Plan on Aging at mpa.aging.ca.gov.