December 1, 2019. In the coming days, an estimated 115.6M people would take to the roads and skies for holiday gatherings, shattering previous records. Preparations for office parties and gift exchanges were underway. People were hustling to wrap up pr…
When the pandemic sent so many people home to work and live in the same space, living alone was already on the rise. In 2019, 28.4% of U.S. households were single-person, up from 16.7% in 1969. For some, daily interaction in the office was an important form of connection that was suddenly disrupted.
And while living alone doesn’t necessarily lead to loneliness, research from CIGNA indicates that living and working from home can increase the risk of feeling lonely. The company’s 2020 “Loneliness in the Workplace” report found that remote workers report feeling lonelier, especially if they would prefer to be in the office.
Loneliness in general is an issue that concerned former U.S. surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy so much that his new book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, is devoted to the topic. Loneliness is an epidemic that existed even before the pandemic, of course. Murthy not only experienced the feeling himself throughout his life but saw other people suffering after he became a physician. As he traveled around the country and met with people as the U.S. surgeon general, stories of loneliness were often coupled with those of substance abuse disorder, depression, anxiety, and even community violence.
It can be harder to live alone now—and work there too—when so many outlets for connection are cut off due to social distancing and stay-at-home orders or recommendations, Murthy says. The good news is that there are some actions people living alone can take to help manage loneliness. In fact, Murthy says, these actions can help anyone struggling with the issue, whether they live alone or not.
Embrace solitude
Understanding the difference between loneliness and solitude—and establishing more respect for the latter—is a good place to start, Murthy says. Our lives are so busy, and this is an opportunity to truly stop and become more comfortable with being alone. “Solitude is so important because if we’ve incorporated it into our lives on a regular basis, it can be an opportunity for us to center ourselves and reground ourselves. It can be a chance to let the noise around us settle and to simply be in the world rather than always ‘doing,’” he says.
Establish periods where you choose to be alone without interruption. Work on appreciating the quietness and the space around you. You may start a gratitude practice, write in a journal, read, or choose other activities that you can do on your own and that bring you joy.
Be present when connecting
Whether you prefer to use videoconferencing for the face time, a phone call, or even written correspondence, set aside at least 15 minutes per day to reach out to someone who matters to you. But such communication only works in fighting loneliness if you’re present for it, Murthy says.
“While we’re talking to a friend, we might be checking our inbox or refreshing our media feeds. We might be googling questions that pop into our head and have a ball game on in the background. And we tell ourselves, we can do this and we think we can multitask and technology’s awarded us the opportunity to do that,” he says. We think of ourselves as being more efficient. But the reality is that we’re not truly listening to what the other person is saying and not connecting as fully as we could if we were focused only on the conversation. It’s the quality of the connection that matters, he says, so devote yourself fully to the exchange.
Move
If you’re always at home, it’s easy to adopt a sedentary lifestyle. But movement impacts mood, Murthy says. Getting some exercise or finding ways to move more can improve how you feel. Get up throughout the day and stretch. Find ways to exercise and move more. If you can get outside, that can help too. Work on the yard or go for a walk while you take some of your work calls, if possible.
Some people are combining social and physical activity, Murthy says. Even when people can’t go to the gym, he says some people are working out virtually with friends or even hosting virtual dance parties, which can combine fun and exercise.
Engage in acts of service
Charitable activities or acts of service that benefit others also make us feel better and allow us to connect with others. And while we may typically think of acts of service as volunteering in a soup kitchen or building houses with Habitat for Humanity, there are many other things we can do, even while social distancing, Murthy says.
Check in on an older neighbor who might be worried about going to the grocery store and offer to pick up some things they need. If you have a friend who’s at home with children, offer to “virtually babysit” for a while. Read the children a story or otherwise keep them occupied via video for a short time so your friend can relax a bit (while still watching the children, of course). Your community may need volunteers to deliver meals to home-bound seniors or families whose children get free or reduced-price lunches at school.
“We’re all in boats of different sizes, but we’re all in the same storm. And we’re trying to figure out how to make sense of our lives, which have been turned upside down. When we recognize that, we will see that there are many opportunities for us to serve,” he says.
Murthy points out that, regardless of what someone’s social media feed looks like (even the watercolor painters and bread bakers), this is a difficult time, and we’re all figuring it out. Looking for ways to effectively combat loneliness and improve how we interact with our loved ones and others, “we can strengthen our connection and, hopefully, come out of the pandemic more deeply connected to each other, healthier, and more resilient than before,” he says.
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I write a lot about leadership issues, often from the perspective of psychology studies, since I’m a psych professor at University of Texas at Austin. But recently I’ve been thinking about something a bit different.
A few weeks ago, I was…
If public health officials in the U.S. government are worried Americans aren’t exercising enough, logic suggests a simple solution: Tell us how much to exercise.
But here’s the thing: They did. Their national physical activity recommendations have been well publicized. And a whopping 78% of us still aren’t meeting them.
“This idea that we just need to educate people and give them the right information and then they will behave better or change their lifestyles, that’s just not true,” says Octavia Zahrt, a doctoral candidate in organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “Most people actually know that exercise is important, but that’s not enough to motivate them.”
So what is? The key, Zahrt argues, may be in shifting our mindsets.
How negative mindsets can hurt us
When Zahrt moved from London to the San Francisco Bay Area, she experienced a culture shock. In terms of her regular exercise routines in England, she had biked to work and had done some yoga and housework and had thought that was plenty. But in California, she noticed fitness studios on practically every corner and a focus on vigorous activities.
“I just felt like I was suddenly surrounded by people who exercised all the time. I suddenly felt really unfit and unhealthy, just because I was comparing myself with a different set of people,” she says.
Based on this experience, she developed the idea that no matter how active people actually are, they can hold the mindset that their physical activity level is adequate and healthy, or inadequate and unhealthy, and that these mindsets may have real consequences for people’s well-being.
These thoughts led to a November 2017 study in the journal Health Psychology that she coauthored with Alia Crum, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford. It showed that this type of negative mindset may have detrimental effects on health and longevity. In their study, participants who believed they were less active than their peers had a 71% higher mortality risk than those who perceived themselves as more active than their peers—and this finding held true no matter how active they actually were.
Define “exercise”
In their latest study (published this month in the journal Preventive Medicine Reports), they looked beyond peer influence to examine how recommendations affect our behavior.
There were two parts to the study.
In part one, 157 participants reported their level of physical activity in the previous week and then were randomly assigned to read one of two sets of U.S. exercise guidelines:
- The 1996 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: These are considered “low and liberal” because they recommend 150+ minutes of moderate aerobic activity per week and count lighter, everyday activities such as walking or housework as exercise.
- The 2018 guidelines from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: These are considered “high and stringent” because they recommend either 150+ minutes of moderate or 75+ minutes of vigorous aerobic activity per week, plus muscle strengthening at least twice a week. They do not count lighter, everyday activities as exercise.
Immediately after, participants were asked questions about their mindsets regarding the adequacy and health consequences of their current level of physical activity. One week later, they were asked about their current level of physical activity and how healthy they thought they were.
The findings: Those who were exposed to the low and liberal guidelines formed more positive mindsets and believed that their activity levels were adequate and healthy, compared with those who read the high and stringent guidelines.
Importantly, the researchers found, this positive mindset predicted greater physical activity and perceived health one week later. Those who read the high and stringent guidelines appeared to lose motivation and got, on average, one hour and 20 minutes less of moderate physical activity the following week. On the other hand, those who read the low and liberal guidelines mostly maintained their level of physical activity the following week.
Part two of the study was similar, except the researchers added in one more measurement: self-efficacy. In other words, how confident are you that you’ll be able to motivate yourself to exercise given everything else that’s going on in your life—for example, go for a run at the end of a really long, tiring day at work?
The researchers found a three-step domino effect: Low and liberal guidelines led people to adopt a more positive mindset. These positive mindsets led to higher self-efficacy measures. And those with high self-efficacy were more likely to be active the week after viewing the guidelines.
These discoveries raise an important question: How useful are demanding, strict guidelines if they don’t inspire the desired outcome? “This was a wake-up call that we have to look more into these complex psychological relationships to be able to help people most effectively,” says Zahrt.
Tweaking public health messaging
While these findings are preliminary and need to be replicated and confirmed in future studies, Zahrt says, there’s a lot we can learn here.
Mostly, Zahrt would love to see public health officials collaborate more with psychologists and modify their exercise messaging. “We could help people see all the ways in which they’re already getting physical activity in their everyday lives. For example, lots of people think that the only adequate exercise is running or going to the gym and weight lifting, and they underestimate the positive impacts of walking the dog, carrying a child, or cleaning the home,” says Zahrt. “It helps people to think ‘Well, maybe I can improve on that’ rather than ‘Oh, I’m doing nothing and I have no idea how I can ever live up to the guidelines.’”
Zahrt’s next project explores the intersection of exercise, mindsets, and technology. She’s analyzing how people respond, both mentally and physically, when fitness trackers provide certain types of feedback.
Perhaps there’s one overarching lesson from all of Zahrt’s research that applies to people in any industry: be kind to ourselves when we’re trying to achieve a goal, and celebrate every win. That tiny change in outlook might just keep you going—and yield big results.
“Being more mindful and appreciating every small step along the way is a great way to stay positive and motivated during goal pursuit and to boost the benefits that we get from our physical activities,” says Zahrt.
This piece was originally published by the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
