
What Loneliness Does To Your Brain And Body
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Spoiler: it’s nothing good (but it can be addressed!)
Not something to be ignored
Loneliness raises the risk of heart disease by 29% and the risk of stroke by 32%. It also brings about higher susceptibility to illness (flu, COVID, chronic pain, etc), as well as poor sleep quality and cognitive decline, possibly leading to dementia. Not only that, but it also promotes inflammation, and premature death (comparable to smoking).
This is because the lack of meaningful social connections activates the body’s stress response, which in turn increases paranoia, suspicion, and social withdrawal—which makes it harder to seek the social interaction needed to alleviate it.
On a neurological level, cortisol levels become imbalanced, and a faltering dopamine response leads to impulsive behaviors (e.g., drinking, gambling) to try to make up for it. Decreased serotonin, oxytocin, and natural opioids reduce feelings of happiness and negate pain relief.
As for combatting it, the first-line remedy is the obvious one: connecting with others improves emotional and physical wellbeing. However, it is recommended to aim for deep, meaningful connections that make you happy rather than just socializing for its own sake. It’s perfectly possible to be lonely in a crowd, after all.
A second-line remedy is to simply mitigate the harm by means of such things as art therapy and time in nature—they can’t completely replace human connection, but they can at least improve the neurophysiological situation (which in turn, might be enough of a stop-gap solution to enable a return to human connection).
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
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Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!
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The Real Immune-Boosters
What comes to your mind when we say “immune support”? Vitamin C and maybe zinc? Those have their place, but there are things we can do that are a lot more important!
It’s just, these things are not talked about as much, because stores can’t sell them to you
Sleep
One of the biggest difference-makers. Get good sleep! Getting at least 7 hours decent sleep (not lying in bed, not counting interruptions to sleep as part of the sleep duration) can improve your immune system by three or four times.
Put another way, people are 3–4 times more likely to get sick if they get less sleep than that on average.
Check it out: Behaviorally Assessed Sleep and Susceptibility to the Common Cold
Eat an anti-inflammatory diet
In short, for most of us this means lots of whole plant foods (lots of fiber), and limited sugar, flour, alcohol.
For more details, you can see our main feature on this: Keep Inflammation At Bay!
You may wonder why eating to reduce inflammation (inflammation is a form of immune response) will help improve immune response. Put it this way:
If your town’s fire service is called out eleventy-two times per day to deal with things that are not, in fact, fires, then when there is a fire, they will be already exhausted, and will not do their job so well.
Look after your gut microbiota
Additionally, healthy gut microbiota (fostered by the same diet we just described) help keep your body pathogen-free, by avoiding “leaky gut syndrome” that occurs when, for example, C. albicans (you do not want this in your gut, and it thrives on the things we just told you to avoid) puts its roots through your intestinal walls, making holes in them. And through those holes? You definitely do not want bacteria from your intestines going into the rest of your body.
See also: Gut Health 101
Actually get that moderate exercise
There’s definitely a sweet-spot here, because too much exercise will also exhaust you and deplete your body’s resources. However, the famous “150 minutes per week” (so, a little over 20 minutes per day, or 25 minutes per day with one day off) will make a big difference.
See: Exercise and the Regulation of Immune Functions
Manage your stress levels (good and bad!)
This one swings both ways:
- Acute stress (like a cold shower) is good for immune response. Think of it like a fire drill for your body.
- Chronic stress (“the general everything” persistently stressful in life) is bad for immune response. This is the fire drill that never ends. Your body’s going to know what to do really well, but it’s going to be exhausted already by the time an actual threat hits.
Read more: Effects of Stress on Immune Function: the Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful
Supplement, yes.
These are far less critical than the above things, but are also helpful. Good things to take include:
Enjoy, and stay well!
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Chorus or Cacophony? Cicada Song Hits Some Ears Harder Than Others
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ST. LOUIS — Shhhooo. Wee-uuu. Chick, chick, chick. That’s the sound of three different cicada species. For some people, those sounds are the song of the summer. Others wish the insects would turn it down. The cacophony can be especially irritating for people on the autism spectrum who have hearing sensitivity.
Warren Rickly, 14, lives in suburban south St. Louis County, Missouri. Warren, who has autism, was at the bus stop recently waiting for his younger brother when the sound of cicadas became too much to bear.
“He said it sounds like there’s always a train running next to him,” his mother, Jamie Reed, said.
Warren told her the noise hurt.
Starting this spring, trillions of the red-eyed insects crawled their way out of the ground across the Midwest and Southeast. It’s part of a rare simultaneous emergence of two broods — one that appears every 13 years, the other every 17.
The noisy insects can be stressful. People with autism can have a sensitivity to texture, brightness, and sound.
“I think the difference for individuals with autism is the level of intensity or how upsetting some of these sensory differences are,” said Rachel Follmer, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.
“It can get to the extreme where it can cause physical discomfort,” she said.
When a large group of cicadas starts to sing, the chorus can be as loud as a motorcycle. Researchers at the University of Missouri-St. Louis this year crowdsourced cicada noise levels as high as 86 decibels, about as loud as a food blender.
That can be stressful, not melodic, Follmer said.
To help children cope, she suggests giving them a primer before they encounter a noisy situation. For cicadas, that could mean explaining what they are, that they don’t bite or sting, and that they’ll be here for just a short time.
“When something is uncomfortable, not having power in that situation can be very scary for a lot of individuals, whether you’re on the spectrum or not,” Follmer said.
Jamie Reed’s family has been using this and other strategies to help her son. Warren wears noise-canceling headphones, listens to music, and has been teaching himself about cicadas.
“For him, researching it and looking into it I think grounds him a little bit,” Reed said.
Fatima Husain is a professor and neuroscientist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and studies how the brain processes sound. She said people with tinnitus may also struggle with cicada song.
Tinnitus, a ringing or other noise in the ears, is a person’s perception of sound without an external source.
“Some people say it sounds like buzzing, like wind blowing through trees, and ironically, quite a few people say it sounds like cicadas,” Husain said.
For most people with tinnitus the cicada’s song is harmless background noise, according to Husain, but for others the ringing can prevent easy conversation or sleep. Those with tinnitus are also more likely to have anxiety or depression. A loud persistent sound, like singing cicadas, can make someone’s tinnitus worse, Husain said.
It’s not always bad, though. The cicada’s song can also be a relief.
For some, tinnitus gets worse in a quiet environment. Husain said she’s seen reports this year of patients saying the cicadas’ song has been like soothing white noise.
“The sound is loud enough that in some ways it’s drowning their internal tinnitus,” Husain said.
As loud as the cicadas can be, they won’t necessarily damage anyone’s hearing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hearing loss builds up over time from repeated exposure to loud sounds. Cicadas aren’t loud enough for long enough to do lasting damage, Husain said.
Everyday sources of noise come with a higher risk. Husain said constant exposure to loud highways, an airport, industrial sites, or household appliances like blenders and hair dryers can be a concern. And they can take a toll on someone’s emotional well-being.
“If you are being exposed to very loud sounds for a part of your school day or your working day, it may make you more stressed out; it may make you more angry about things,” she said.
Unlike the highway or an airport, cicadas won’t be around long. Most of the current brood will be gone in the next few weeks. Just in time for another noisy summer event: the Fourth of July.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
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What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
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We speak often about the importance of dietary diversity, and of that, especially diversity of plants in one’s diet, but we’ve never really focused on it as a main feature, so that’s what we’re going to do today.
Specifically, you may have heard the advice to “eat 30 different kinds of plants per week”. But where does that come from, and is it just a number out of a hat?
The magic number?
It is not, in fact, a number out of a hat. It’s from a big (n=11,336) study into what things affect the gut microbiome for better or for worse. It was an observational population study, championing “citizen science” in which volunteers tracked various things and collected and sent in various samples for analysis.
The most significant finding of this study was that those who consumed more than 30 different kinds of plants per week, had a much better gut microbiome than those who consumed fewer than 10 different kinds of plants per week (there is a bell curve at play, and it gets steep around 10 and 30):
American Gut: an Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research
Why do I care about having a good gut microbiome?
Gut health affects almost every other kind of health; it’s been called “the second brain” for the various neurotransmitters and other hormones it directly makes or indirectly regulates (which in turn affect every part of your body), and of course there is the vagus nerve connecting it directly to the brain, impacting everything from food cravings to mood swings to sleep habits.
See also:
Any other benefits?
Yes there are! Let’s not forget: as we see often in our “This or That” section, different foods can be strong or weak in different areas of nutrition, so unless we want to whip out a calculator and database every time we make food choices, a good way to cover everything is to simply eat a diverse diet.
And that goes not just for vitamins and minerals (which would be true of animal products also), but in the case of plants, a wide range of health-giving phytochemicals too:
Measuring Dietary Botanical Diversity as a Proxy for Phytochemical Exposure
Ok, I’m sold, but 30 is a lot!
It is, but you don’t have to do all 30 in your first week of focusing on this, if you’re not already accustomed to such diversity. You can add in one or two new ones each time you go shopping, and build it up.
As for “what counts”: we’re counting unprocessed or minimally-processed plants. So for example, an apple is an apple, as are dried apple slices, as is apple sauce. Any or all of those would count as 1 plant type.
Note also that we’re counting types, not totals. If you’re having apple slices with apple sauce, for some reason? That still only counts as 1.
However, while apple sauce still counts as apples (minimally processed), you cannot eat a cake and say “that’s 2 because there was wheat and sugar cane somewhere in its dim and distant history”.
Nor is your morning espresso a fruit (by virtue of coffee beans being the fruit of the plant, botanically speaking). However, it would count as 1 plant type if you eat actual coffee beans—this writer has been known to snack on such; they’re only healthy in very small portions though, because their saturated fat content is a little high.
You, however, count grains in general, as well as nuts and seeds, not just fruits and vegetables. As for herbs and spices, they count for ¼ each, except for salt, which might get lumped in with spices but is of course not a plant.
How to do it
There’s a reason we’re doing this in our Saturday Life Hacks edition. Here are some tips for getting in far more plants than you might think, a lot more easily than you might think:
- Buy things ready-mixed. This means buying the frozen mixed veg, the frozen mixed chopped fruit, the mixed nuts, the mixed salad greens etc. This way, when you’re reaching for one pack of something, you’re getting 3–5 different plants instead of one.
- Buy things individually, and mix them for storage. This is a more customized version of the above, but in the case of things that keep for at least a while, it can make lazy options a lot more plentiful. Suddenly, instead of rice with your salad you’re having sorghum, millet, buckwheat, and quinoa. This trick also works great for dried berries that can just be tipped into one’s morning oatmeal. Or, you know, millet, oats, rye, and barley. Suddenly, instead of 1 or 2 plants for breakfast you have maybe 7 or 8.
- Keep a well-stocked pantry of shelf-stable items. This is good practice anyway, in case of another supply-lines shutdown like at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But for plant diversity, it means that if you’re making enchiladas, then instead using kidney beans because that’s what’s in the cupboard, you can raid your pantry for kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, fava beans, etc etc. Yes, all of them; that’s a list, not a menu.
- Shop in the discount section of the supermarket. You don’t have shop exclusively there, but swing by that area, see what plants are available for next to nothing, and buy at least one of each. Figure out what to do with it later, but the point here is that it’s a good way to get suggestions of plants that you weren’t actively looking for—and novelty is invariably a step into diversity.
- Shop in a different store. You won’t be able to beeline the products you want on autopilot, so you’ll see other things on the way. Also, they may have things your usual store doesn’t.
- Shop in person, not online—at least as often as is practical. This is because when shopping for groceries online, the store will tend to prioritize showing you items you’ve bought before, or similar items to those (i.e. actually the same item, just a different brand). Not good for trying new things!
- Consider a meal kit delivery service. Because unlike online grocery shopping, this kind of delivery service will (usually) provide you with things you wouldn’t normally buy. Our sometimes-sponsor Purple Carrot is a fine option for this, but there are plenty of others too.
- Try new recipes, especially if they have plants you don’t normally use. Make a note of the recipe, and go out of your way to get the ingredients; if it seems like a chore, reframe it as a little adventure instead. Honestly, it’s things like this that keep us young in more ways than just what polyphenols can do!
- Hide the plants. Whether or not you like them; hide them just because it works in culinary terms. By this we mean; blend beans into that meaty sauce; thicken the soup with red lentils, blend cauliflower into the gravy. And so on.
One more “magic 30”, while we’re at it…
30g fiber per day makes a big (positive) difference to many aspects of health. Obviously, plants are where that comes from, so there’s a big degree of overlap here, but most of the tips we gave are different, so for double the effectiveness, check out:
Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
Enjoy!
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Honey vs Maple Syrup – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing honey to maple syrup, we picked the honey.
Why?
It was very close, as both have small advantages:
• Honey has some medicinal properties (and depending on type, may contain an antihistamine)
• Maple syrup is a good source of manganese, as well as low-but-present amounts of other mineralsHowever, you wouldn’t want to eat enough maple syrup to rely on it as a source of those minerals, and honey has the lower GI (average 46 vs 54; for comparison, refined sugar is 65), which works well as a tie-breaker.
(If GI’s very important to you, though, the easy winner here would be agave syrup if we let it compete, with its GI of 15)
Read more:
• Can Honey Relieve Allergies?
• From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose C’sDon’t Forget…
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Who Initiates Sex & Why It Matters
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In an ideal world, it wouldn’t matter any more than who first says “let’s get something to eat” when hungry. But in reality, it can cause serious problems on both sides:
Fear and loathing?
The person who initiates gets the special prize of an n% chance of experiencing rejection, and then what? Try again, and again, and risk seeming pushy? Or leave the ball in the other person’s court, where it may then go untouched for the next few months, because (in the most positive scenario) they were waiting for you to initiate at a better time for them?
The person who does not initiate, and/but does not want sex at that time, gets the special prize of either making their partner feel unwanted, insecure, and perhaps unloved, or else grudgingly consenting to sex that’s going to be no fun while your heart’s not in it, and thus create the same end result plus you had an extra bad experience?
So, that sucks all around:
- Initiating touch (sex or cuddling) can feel like a test of being wanted, whereupon a lack of initiation or response may be misinterpreted as a lack of love or appreciation.
- Meanwhile, non-reciprocation might stem from exhaustion or unrelated issues. For many, it’s a physiological lottery.
10almonds note: not discussed in this video, but for many couples, problems can also arise because one partner or another just isn’t showing up with the expected physical signs of physiological arousal, so even if they say (and mean!) an enthusiastic “yes”, their body’s signs get misread as a “not really, though”, resulting in one partner feeling rejected, and both feeling inadequate—on account of something that was completely unrelated to how the person actually felt about the prospect of sex*.
*Sometimes, physiological arousal will simply not accompany psychological arousal, no matter how sincere the latter. And on the flipside, sometimes the signs of physiological arousal will just show up without psychological arousal. The human body is just like that sometimes. We all must listen to our partners’ words, not their genitals!
The solution to this problem is thus the same as the solution to the rest of the problem that is discussed in the video, and it’s: good communication.
That can be easier said than done, of course—not everyone is at their most eloquent in such situations! Which is why it can be important to have those conversations first outside of the bedroom when the stakes are low/non-existent.
Even with the best communication, a more general, overarching non-reciprocity (real or perceived) of sexual desire can cause bitterness, resentment, and can ultimately be relationship-ending if a resolution that’s acceptable to everyone involved is not found.
Ultimately, the work as a couple must begin from within as individuals—addressing self-worth issues to better navigate love and intimacy.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Relationships: When To Stick It Out & When To Call It Quits
Take care!
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Rebounding Into The Best Of Health
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“Trampoline” is a brand-name that’s been popularized as a generic name, and “rebounding”, the name used in this video, is the same thing as “trampolining”. With that in mind, let us bounce swiftly onwards:
Surprising benefits
It’s easy to think “isn’t that cheating?” to the point that such “cheating” could be useless, since surely the device is doing most of the work?
The thing is, while indeed it’s doing a lot of the work for you, your muscles are still doing a lot—mostly stabilization work, which is of course a critical thing for our muscles to be able to do. While it’s rare that we need to do a somersault in everyday life, it’s common that we have to keep ourselves from falling over, after all.
It also represents a kind of gentle resistance exercise, and as such, improves bone density—something first discovered during NASA research for astronauts. Other related benefits pertain to the body’s ability to deal with acceleration and deceleration; it also benefits the lymphatic system, which unlike the blood’s circulatory system, has no pump of its own. Rebounding does also benefit the cardiovascular system, though, as now the heart gets confused (in the healthy way, a little like it gets confused with high-intensity interval training).
Those are the main evidence-based benefits; anecdotally (but credibly, since these things can be said of most exercise) it’s also claimed that it benefits posture, improves sleep and mood, promotes weight loss and better digestion, reduces bloating, improves skin (the latter being due to improved circulation), and alleviates arthritis (most moderate exercise improves immune response, and thus reduces chronic inflammation, so again, this is reasonable, even if anecdotal).
For more details on all of these and more, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Exercise Less, Move More
- How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
- Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)
- HIIT, But Make It HIRT
- The Lymphatic System Against Cancer & More
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