KarunaNews Story

U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, has made the study of loneliness and its impacts a big part of his career. When we experience ongoing loneliness, we have weakened immune function, increased levels of inflammation, and increased risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, dementia, depression and anxiety. According to Murthy, these health effects are signals that our bodies send us when we’re lacking something we need for survival: healthy human connection. He tried out a practice developed by the Science of Happiness podcast for boosting human connection and combating loneliness. You can try the practice yourself. Ask a friend or colleague to tell you about a good thing that happened to them today. It doesn’t matter what type of event or how important it was, as long as they feel comfortable discussing it. As they share, listen and try to respond actively and constructively, including: making good eye contact, expressing positive emotion, making enthusiastic comments, asking open-ended questions to get more detail, and commenting on the positive implications and benefits of the event. “Sometimes the power of our presence in itself can be deeply healing,” Murthy says. “These conversations were an opportunity to focus on what was good, on the positive, and on what I had to be grateful for. I needed to do that more consciously.”