Is the collapse of social health causing a spike in anxiety?

We talk a lot about mental health and physical health, but much less often about social health and wellbeing. There’s a higher stigma around saying I’m lonely than saying I’m depressed. Admitting to loneliness feels like admitting you have no friends or that no one likes you. It’s our worst fear. It goes straight to our self-esteem, our sense of self-value. But loneliness is much more complex. It is a self-perception of your relationships and often not the reality.

According to researcher and psychologist John Cacciopo, “Loneliness deeply affects 60M Americans.” A perception of loneliness can increase anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and substance use. You may wake up every morning with an outsized spike in cortisol driven by the feeling that you have to fight to survive another day – which has detrimental physical health effects. Loneliness increases the risk of premature death by 45%. It’s more deadly than smoking or obesity. 

And according to Pew Research and the APA, more than 25% of US adults live alone, more than 50% are unmarried, and 20% never married. Today, less than half of adults participate in a local religious group. What used to create more connections in our lives is now often missing. The COVID stay-at-home and social distancing orders and now the trend to continuously work from home isn’t helping the situation.

All of this lifestyle change has caused the doubling of loneliness over the past 35 years. Some of us may simply reach out less or miss the cues of friendship someone else is sharing. If we live with chronic disease, we may retreat from others to avoid the discussion of our health, believing we can’t share how we are really feeling. Or, we simply don’t feel well enough to make the effort to socialize. If we have experienced trauma, that can make us cautious, or avoid altogether developing relationships. Some of us never learn to set boundaries and continually feel others take advantage. As we retreat into ourselves, we not only feel lonely, but we develop a sense of onlyness – the belief that we are the only one suffering.

The more we retreat the rustier our interrelationship skills become. We might find that we talk too much, are too needy, get disappointed by others easily, or feel others impede upon our personal space. We can overact to the smallest of injustices. For some, even the thought of meeting new people triggers a fight or flight response. If we have an avoidant attachment style, any small aggrievance could mean we avoid seeing that person or joining that activity again.

All of this plays out with our family, friends, colleagues, and even casual acquaintances. We may ignore or dismiss kind gestures all around us at the coffee shop, grocery store, at work, and at home. We may find it a challenge to give others kind gestures.

It adds up to a life less well lived. Our physical health, mental health, and social health are all tightly connected. And to increase the quality of our wellbeing – the quality of our life – takes effort across all three.

The solution for social health challenges is exposure – the one thing that socially repressed people avoid. The common advice is to join an activity-oriented group such as hiking, biking, bird-watching, gardening, or cooking. But that might not be the right starting place. There are cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) tools such as gratitude journaling and savoring, and mindfulness tools such as labeling that have been proven to rewire how we internalize, acknowledge, and respond to the behaviors of the people around us. For a free course, check out the very popular (and one of my favorites) The Science of Wellbeing from Yale professor, Dr. Laurie Santos.

If you need additional help, group therapy may be the right choice. Group therapy is relationship-centered therapy. It’s intentionally group-oriented, not individual therapy delivered to a group. The group model is designed to reduce mental health symptoms while working on interrelationship skills. It’s a safe space to learn and practice before you start meeting new people, repairing broken bonds, and joining in on group activities.

How do you know if this is the right time for you to seek change and enhance your social wellbeing? Ask yourself how often you feel lonely or left out. Are there people you can talk to where you feel heard and understood? Do you have someone to call in case of an emergency? Are your relationships healthy and balanced? Did you “break up” with a friend or family member and never make up? Do you yearn to have more friendships but don’t know where to get started? 

If you answered yes to any or all of those questions, you aren’t alone. Millions of people, both young and old, share these feelings and experiences. It’s time to take action on your social health. Repair a broken relationship, laugh with friends or colleagues, lend a supportive ear to a family member, or chat with the Starbucks barista. All of these actions can have a powerful effect on your sense of wellbeing by lowering anxiety and reducing symptoms of depression. It can help you feel safe in the world and make facing each day less stressful and more enjoyable. And it’s been proven to help you live longer.

Reaching out to a friend or joining a group can seem daunting at first. It exposes our vulnerability which we’ve spent most of our lives protecting with a mighty shield. The thing about vulnerability is that once you own it, no one can use it against you. If you can open this one door and step through it, you may find the power to open many more.