thoughts on loneliness
Skeels and Spitz, yes, those are real people, not the segue into a joke, discovered a long time ago that when contact deprived, institutionalized children were connected with older, affectionate caregivers, their IQs improved 30 points or better with in a year. You have probably also heard of Harlow and his wire cloth monkey experiments; and the outcomes. Maybe you have heard of Bawkins, who coined the phrase, “failure to thrive,’ describing how infants will die if not touched, or even minimally touched. (This was less so a hundred years prior to the study likely because there were no plastic bottles; they had wet nurses and so minimum touch thresholds were exceeded.)
We, our present society/culture, have forgotten just how important touch is. Real, genuine, prolonged, intimate touch. I remember reading another study, but can't recall by whom: conducted on rabbits. A room room full of rabbits, each in their own cage. The nature of the experiment was to kill them through diet that was super high in cholesterol to determine how long it would take arteries to clog and heart failure to ensue. All the rabbits had the same diet. All the rabbits on the tops shelves died as expected, on schedule. The rabbits on the bottom shelf didn't die, and there was no evidence of clogged arteries. The scientist were baffled, until one day, someone watched a security tape. Every night, the cleaner would take time out from her nightly work to care for the rabbits; she would remove each rabbit, one at a time, and hug them, pet them, and talk nicely to them. She was a tiny thing, and could only reach the rabbits on the bottom shelves. Affection, kindness, changed their metabolism. They lived longer, healthier lives. It was not about diet alone.
We keep relearning this. We keep forgetting this. Wire monkey cloth monkey. Is your cellphone a wire monkey? It's certainly a monkey that's on our back, so to speak. And we keep getting messages about this, and we all believe it and look at the anecdotal evidence surrounding us, but how many of us make an effort to put the phone down?
There this other study I read about. Again, I don't remember by whom, but I know Depak Chopra refers to this study. It was conducted at several retirement homes. One of the homes had a major lifestyle change. Every piece of literature that referred to the present day in age was removed, and substituted with literature from their younger years, in this case, the 50s. Old television programs were shown round the clock. Old news reels were played, and a young Walter Conkrite spoke to the residents. Radios were removed and old music played. It was design to simulate the fifties. They were engaged in activities and encouraged to dress as they did in the fifties. At the end of the experiment, photos were taken of the residents of all the homes. The photos of the people living in the 'fifties' retirement home were identified by anyone who saw the photos as being the youngest, compared to the other two retirement homes, even though they were all relatively the same age.
You have probably heard people with pets tend to live longer and healthier than people without pets; caveat, you like pets. People involved with a church, or a group, doesn't have to be religious, tend to live healthier than people who are isolated. Another study that coincides with all of the above; elderly people who are surrounded by family, especially grandchildren, tend to live longer, healthier lives; they tend to have more energy. And yet, we know this and continue to box old people into isolated, 'stranger' care driven facility because of the time constraints on modern society, where the care is frequently questionable. I am not saying caregivers are evil; I am asking you to consider, who cares for the elderly? These are not high paid position. A school building cleaner, a nightwatchman, probably gets paid better than a care provider. Even if you get a nurse, who will be the top end of the pay scale, they have schedules and too many clients and too many have forgotten why they became care givers and will force a meal down a person's throat faster than they can eat and clients aspirate on their own food. You don't have to take my word for it. Look at nursing home and follow the thing that is most likely to be complained about. Waiting to be taken to the toilet so long that people frequently relieve themselves in their bed number one complaint. They are more likely to have a television for company than another person. Waiting to die is not living.
Good health is about society, not schedules, and it's never economical. Let me give another window into this to consider. Out of all the Western nations, the French are the healthiest in terms of BMI and cholesterol. Interestingly, they eat everything we eat! Well, not everything. They do not eat diet foods or fake ass butter. They will eat real butter, real cream, and they don't skimp on desserts, and yet, they're skinnier than the rest of us? (Also, they have the highest resistance to genetically engineered foods, but given their lower cancer rates, you got to wonder if there is a correlation!) You don't hear about that, do you. You want to know why? Our culture, especially US North-American culture, can't tolerate the solution. The French take two hour lunch breaks. They actually sit down and enjoy a meal, with other people. They have a relationships with other people and with their food. From an early age, French citizens teach their children about healthy foods, how to prepare foods, how to select foods, how to moderate, and children go to school already knowledgeable about foods and they continue to participate in classes geared towards nutrition and healthy life styles. All meals are social events. They tend not to eat alone, never with a television, not in the car, they aren't in a rush where they inhale something, so they can rush off to their next task. What would happen if we did that? There was an article in Time that suggested if a heavy person would eat with their skinny friends, they would loose weight. Surprised? One, you're socializing, so you're probably eating slower, and two, if you are eating the proportions that your skinnier friend eat, you're probably more in balance. Here's the thing about your relationship with food. There is a time delay between your stomach and brain; messages aren't delivered by cellphones. You have to eat a small portion and wait 20 minutes. It takes 20 minutes for your brain to realize it's full. If you keep eating before your brain has that message, you will over eat every meal. If you are sitting in front of a television when you eat, you will never hear your brain say, 'oh, maybe we should stop now.'
We are social animals. We have relationships. We have relationships with each other. We have relationships with our foods. We have relationships with our environments. We have relationships with our bodies! Our brains. Our hearts. There is some solid evidence that if we connect first with our hearts, not our left hemisphere, we have better emotional outcomes. Yes, I said left hemisphere, because most people don't use their whole brain. We tend to be left dominate.
Ideally, every night should be held with a group of people. Every meal should be held with other people. Most of us won't do this. We are so tired by our schedules that we're more likely to sit alone in an apartment and allow the television to take us into oblivion, and then we wake and repeat. There are few people that want to host meals. You want to a measure for loneliness in society? Ask any barista or waitress how many times a patron asks for their number. (Sometimes, the smile from the waitress is the only kindness a person in our society gets.) We do eventually eat with others, but those tend to be events, like parties. And we overindulge to make up for everything we lack in our ever day lives and then think back wishfully on, 'oh, that was a nice evening.' We have forgotten how to have nice, nightly evenings.
Sometimes, we are with people and still alone.
What is this note, you may ask. I don't know. I have a string of evidence that seems to mean something, and yet, I am not actively seeking 'my group.' I want a group. A group of good people who come together frequently and talk and eat and share lives. Maybe i have forgotten how, as well. Maybe this group would have to actually relearn what it means to be a group. I don't know. I just know there is something here. Something tangible, even though I am not touching anything or anyone.
We, our present society/culture, have forgotten just how important touch is. Real, genuine, prolonged, intimate touch. I remember reading another study, but can't recall by whom: conducted on rabbits. A room room full of rabbits, each in their own cage. The nature of the experiment was to kill them through diet that was super high in cholesterol to determine how long it would take arteries to clog and heart failure to ensue. All the rabbits had the same diet. All the rabbits on the tops shelves died as expected, on schedule. The rabbits on the bottom shelf didn't die, and there was no evidence of clogged arteries. The scientist were baffled, until one day, someone watched a security tape. Every night, the cleaner would take time out from her nightly work to care for the rabbits; she would remove each rabbit, one at a time, and hug them, pet them, and talk nicely to them. She was a tiny thing, and could only reach the rabbits on the bottom shelves. Affection, kindness, changed their metabolism. They lived longer, healthier lives. It was not about diet alone.
We keep relearning this. We keep forgetting this. Wire monkey cloth monkey. Is your cellphone a wire monkey? It's certainly a monkey that's on our back, so to speak. And we keep getting messages about this, and we all believe it and look at the anecdotal evidence surrounding us, but how many of us make an effort to put the phone down?
There this other study I read about. Again, I don't remember by whom, but I know Depak Chopra refers to this study. It was conducted at several retirement homes. One of the homes had a major lifestyle change. Every piece of literature that referred to the present day in age was removed, and substituted with literature from their younger years, in this case, the 50s. Old television programs were shown round the clock. Old news reels were played, and a young Walter Conkrite spoke to the residents. Radios were removed and old music played. It was design to simulate the fifties. They were engaged in activities and encouraged to dress as they did in the fifties. At the end of the experiment, photos were taken of the residents of all the homes. The photos of the people living in the 'fifties' retirement home were identified by anyone who saw the photos as being the youngest, compared to the other two retirement homes, even though they were all relatively the same age.
You have probably heard people with pets tend to live longer and healthier than people without pets; caveat, you like pets. People involved with a church, or a group, doesn't have to be religious, tend to live healthier than people who are isolated. Another study that coincides with all of the above; elderly people who are surrounded by family, especially grandchildren, tend to live longer, healthier lives; they tend to have more energy. And yet, we know this and continue to box old people into isolated, 'stranger' care driven facility because of the time constraints on modern society, where the care is frequently questionable. I am not saying caregivers are evil; I am asking you to consider, who cares for the elderly? These are not high paid position. A school building cleaner, a nightwatchman, probably gets paid better than a care provider. Even if you get a nurse, who will be the top end of the pay scale, they have schedules and too many clients and too many have forgotten why they became care givers and will force a meal down a person's throat faster than they can eat and clients aspirate on their own food. You don't have to take my word for it. Look at nursing home and follow the thing that is most likely to be complained about. Waiting to be taken to the toilet so long that people frequently relieve themselves in their bed number one complaint. They are more likely to have a television for company than another person. Waiting to die is not living.
Good health is about society, not schedules, and it's never economical. Let me give another window into this to consider. Out of all the Western nations, the French are the healthiest in terms of BMI and cholesterol. Interestingly, they eat everything we eat! Well, not everything. They do not eat diet foods or fake ass butter. They will eat real butter, real cream, and they don't skimp on desserts, and yet, they're skinnier than the rest of us? (Also, they have the highest resistance to genetically engineered foods, but given their lower cancer rates, you got to wonder if there is a correlation!) You don't hear about that, do you. You want to know why? Our culture, especially US North-American culture, can't tolerate the solution. The French take two hour lunch breaks. They actually sit down and enjoy a meal, with other people. They have a relationships with other people and with their food. From an early age, French citizens teach their children about healthy foods, how to prepare foods, how to select foods, how to moderate, and children go to school already knowledgeable about foods and they continue to participate in classes geared towards nutrition and healthy life styles. All meals are social events. They tend not to eat alone, never with a television, not in the car, they aren't in a rush where they inhale something, so they can rush off to their next task. What would happen if we did that? There was an article in Time that suggested if a heavy person would eat with their skinny friends, they would loose weight. Surprised? One, you're socializing, so you're probably eating slower, and two, if you are eating the proportions that your skinnier friend eat, you're probably more in balance. Here's the thing about your relationship with food. There is a time delay between your stomach and brain; messages aren't delivered by cellphones. You have to eat a small portion and wait 20 minutes. It takes 20 minutes for your brain to realize it's full. If you keep eating before your brain has that message, you will over eat every meal. If you are sitting in front of a television when you eat, you will never hear your brain say, 'oh, maybe we should stop now.'
We are social animals. We have relationships. We have relationships with each other. We have relationships with our foods. We have relationships with our environments. We have relationships with our bodies! Our brains. Our hearts. There is some solid evidence that if we connect first with our hearts, not our left hemisphere, we have better emotional outcomes. Yes, I said left hemisphere, because most people don't use their whole brain. We tend to be left dominate.
Ideally, every night should be held with a group of people. Every meal should be held with other people. Most of us won't do this. We are so tired by our schedules that we're more likely to sit alone in an apartment and allow the television to take us into oblivion, and then we wake and repeat. There are few people that want to host meals. You want to a measure for loneliness in society? Ask any barista or waitress how many times a patron asks for their number. (Sometimes, the smile from the waitress is the only kindness a person in our society gets.) We do eventually eat with others, but those tend to be events, like parties. And we overindulge to make up for everything we lack in our ever day lives and then think back wishfully on, 'oh, that was a nice evening.' We have forgotten how to have nice, nightly evenings.
Sometimes, we are with people and still alone.
What is this note, you may ask. I don't know. I have a string of evidence that seems to mean something, and yet, I am not actively seeking 'my group.' I want a group. A group of good people who come together frequently and talk and eat and share lives. Maybe i have forgotten how, as well. Maybe this group would have to actually relearn what it means to be a group. I don't know. I just know there is something here. Something tangible, even though I am not touching anything or anyone.
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