A cure for loneliness

SIR – I was interested in the report that loneliness can be more deadly than obesity (report, August 7).

A number of years ago, I was involved in a project that sought to alleviate loneliness and isolation among older people. This project was not complicated: all we did was attempt to ensure that older people were safe, that they sought to eat healthily, that they tried to take some sort of exercise, and that they had an opportunity to escape from the four walls that circumscribed their lives.

What we really did, however, was give the participants the confidence to relate to each other by talking together and, more importantly, by listening to what was being said.

Everyone should try to talk every day to someone they don’t know. There will be those who just give you a look, but I guarantee that many more will be happy to have a blether. David Denton

Belfast