Six steps to ease loneliness
If you’ve been feeling lonely post-lockdown, you are not alone. In recent weeks the Sunday Star-Times and Neighbourly have been investigating New Zealanders’ social contact, and you’ve likely read about some of the results in these pages: the single mum who feels desperately lonely when her children are with their dad; the young professionals with busy jobs during the week who confess to intense ‘weekend loneliness’; the New Zealanders whose social lives have remained suppressed even after the lockdown.
At its heart, loneliness is an unmet need for social connection and, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, it posed a significant public health and wellbeing challenge. Under ‘normal’ circumstances in 2018, 39 per cent of respondents to the government’s General Social Survey reported feeling lonely at least some of the time in the previous four weeks.
Certain groups, including people on low incomes, sole parents, people who were unemployed, Ma¯ ori, and young people aged 15 to 24, were much more likely to report feeling lonely most, or even all, of the time. This is a problem, because when experienced for prolonged periods, loneliness poses significant health risks.
As social animals, humans have evolved to rely on each other for survival. Our brains are wired to experience the feeling of being isolated from ‘the group’ as an existential threat and, in a very real way, it is. Remaining in this state for prolonged periods can mess with our hormones and sleep, raise blood pressure and cholesterol, increase risk of dementia, depression and heart disease, and leave us at greater risk of contracting infectious diseases. Studies have linked prolonged loneliness to shorter life expectancy.
Throw in a global pandemic with enforced social distancing, heightened anxiety about interacting with others, and mass loss of income and employment, and it’s easy to understand why so many people have described feeling the anguish of loneliness and social isolation in 2020.
National surveys conducted both during and after level 4 lockdown confirm that loneliness has indeed spiked this year. During the lockdown, 10.6 per cent of respondents to a Victoria University of Wellington study reported feeling lonely most or all of the time, compared to 3.5 per cent in 2018. For people who were unemployed or on low incomes, and for young people, this jumped to around 20 per cent.
In another survey conducted post-lockdown for the Loneliness NZ charitable trust, numbers have remained high. These surveys demonstrate that loneliness is a societal problem, that peaks and shifts in response to societal events like the pandemic. We should therefore be thinking about societal solutions.
I spent much of the lockdown investigating just that. The resulting report, Alone Together, jointly published by the Helen Clark Foundation and WSP New Zealand, identified six planks of an effective public policy response to loneliness. These are:
Make sure people have enough money. Loneliness is clearly linked to income and employment. Given the mass loss of both income and employment caused by Covid-19, ensuring people have stable, sufficient income and employment opportunities will be critical to buffer against the effects of not only economic recession, but also the ‘social recession’ that will follow.
■ Close the digital divide. Our reliance on digital technologies during the lockdown threw Aotearoa’s digital divide into stark relief. There are some 211,000 households with no internet access and many others without access to affordable data or wi-fi. In the 21st century, a suitable device with an affordable internet connection should be considered part of the baseline for social inclusion.
Help communities do their magic. Community organisations provide day-to-day
Humans have evolved to rely on each other for survival. Our brains are wired to experience the feeling of being isolated from ‘the group’ as an existential threat.
opportunities for social interaction and connection that can buffer against loneliness. If communities are supported to identify and tackle the challenges they wish to solve collectively, enhanced relationships and a greater sense of belonging occur as a result.
■ Create friendly streets and
neighbourhoods. Communities thrive when people know their neighbours and feel a sense of belonging and connection. This requires conscious planning to prioritise social wellbeing. Such developments prioritise walkability, social interaction, common space, parks and green space, and well-integrated links to public transport.
■ Prioritise those already
lonely. Even with stable
incomes, equitable digital access, strong communities and well-designed neighbourhoods, some people will still experience debilitating loneliness. Existing data helps us to identify those most likely to be in this group: specific support should be targeted to them.
■ Invest in frontline mental
health. As the immediate crisis recedes, we can expect to see an increase in people seeking help for depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions. Budget 2019 committed $455m to the roll-out of a new frontline mental health service. During the recovery and rebuild period, this new service will be vitally important.
While the particular experience of loneliness varies, it’s not right to leave alleviating loneliness up to lonely individuals, when circumstances that contributed to it are societal. These six policy planks are a great place for our leaders to start. Meanwhile, if you are feeling lonelier than ever in 2020, perhaps you can take some comfort in knowing that you are not alone, and that it is almost certainly not your fault.
Holly Walker is the deputy director of the Helen Clark Foundation, an independent public policy think tank founded on the values of former prime minister Helen Clark. Her loneliness research is the result of a partnership with WSP New Zealand.