Loneliness and stress were rising exponentially worldwide even before the COVID pandemic erupted. Since then, the crisis propelled us into uncharted waters impacting wellbeing on a global scale.
But what is actually happening inside our minds and bodies? Why are human connections vital for health? And how can we build resilience against contagious modern stressors?
Dr. Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and executive leadership coach, has illuminating answers to these pressing issues. Her research unveils how emotions and anxiety transmit between us, why this matters enormously, and most importantly – what we can do to safeguard our own mental health.
The Biological Drivers of Human Bonds
We take social bonds for granted, yet they fulfill an innate primal need. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors relied on tight-knit groups for protection and resources. Evolution ingrained drives for social proximity and intimacy over millennia to equip us for survival.
The imprint remains firmly today – we feel profoundly soothed and safe in caring company. Scientists attribute this to the hormone oxytocin, which surges during affectionate contact. Also dubbed the “love hormone”, oxytocin elicits feelings of contentment, calmness and security around trusted people.
Oxytocin plays crucial developmental roles too:
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Bonding mothers with infants – breastfeeding, co-sleeping, extended eye gazes and physical closeness stimulate oxytocin release enabling strong maternal attachment and healthier child development overall
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Facilitating childbirth – triggering uterine contractions expelling the baby
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Romantic attachments – released during intimacy, kisses and sex to strengthen pairing
Estrogen joins oxytocin encouraging social bonds. One remarkable effect – women’s menstrual cycles synchronizing when cohabitating through airborne pheromones and stress hormone transmission. Even learning of a close friend conceiving can influence another’s reproductive biology subconsciously to time pregnancies similarly.
The Pain of Disconnection
If bonding mechanisms serve vital functions, it follows that isolation and loneliness inflict real damage. Depriving prisoners of human contact remains the most punishing incarceration method globally.
Yet, modern life drifts ever more towards isolationism. Declining community engagement, couples postponing parenting and smaller family sizes mean people interact less frequently beyond digital realms.
Pandemic lockdowns then eliminated even basic socializing for months. Rates of diagnosed anxiety and depression disorders soared 27% and depressive episodes surged more than three-fold since February 2020.
18% of US adults report feeling lonely versus 3-5% pre-pandemic. Critically, research shows lonely individuals have a 26% higher mortality risk – on par with smoking 15 cigarettes daily.
This burden falls heaviest on singletons living alone, seniors, adolescents lacking peer connections and marginalized groups. However, oxytocin release from comforting human interactions can rapidly reverse the biological impacts of isolation.
Reintegrating people should be society’s priority after the trauma of extended isolation. Governments would do well investing in community building initiatives – shared public spaces, localized volunteering, helplines and support groups.
Small regular interactions are powerful. The chatty dental hygienist, friends’ kids saying hello back and lively neighborhood parks all reinforce that wonderful sense “I belong here. We’re in this together”. Such everyday moments seem trivial but trigger profound neurobiological uplifts.
Seeking positive social connections buffers stress, whereas isolation amplifies it severely. The latter augments risks for numerous health conditions.
How Stress Spreads Insidiously
Unbeknown to most, anxiety transmits rapidly from one stressed individual to another. Workplace burnouts cascade through teams via:
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Contagious fear – Leaders facing uncertainty spread staff apprehension
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Toxic Venting – Frustrated co-workers verbally offload negativity
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Vicarious Trauma – Counsellors/health workers absorb patients’ distress
Dr. Swart focuses one key mechanism causing “emotional contagion” – the stress hormone cortisol. Secreted by the adrenal glands, cortisol ramps up heart rate, blood pressure and brain alertness responding to threats.
Useful short-term, but chronic cortisol elevation corrodes wellbeing severely long-term.
Here’s why:
Cortisol Permeates Skin
Exuded in sweat, cortisol literally leaks from highly stressed people into close environments. Nearby individuals absorb traces from skin contact, inhaling airborne particles, even shaking hands.
Detecting elevated cortisol unconscious primes their own fight-flight-freeze system, driving sympathetic nervous activation. Chronic crosstalk between local brain and endocrine signals keeps nearby people on continual hair-trigger too.
Think open-plan offices, customer service teams, hospital wards. Stressed managers or coworkers diffuse anxiety stealthily through simple proximity.
Estrogen Drops from Distress
Both sexes secrete estrogen playing key immunologic, neurologic and metabolic roles via estrogen receptors throughout the body.
Women inherently produce more, yet chronic strain decreases estrogen levels substantially. Cascading impacts include:
- Irregular periods or cessation
- Hot flashes and night sweats
- Vaginal dryness hampering intimacy
- Accelerated bone density loss
- Impaired thyroid activity – weight gain and fatigue
Packing people into high-pressure workplaces aggravates this. No mystery white-collar women suffer more autoimmune disorders, migraines, IBS, fibromyalgia and chronic pain issues.
Acute crises like bereavements, divorces or job losses also commonly disrupt menstrual cycles. Evolutionarily this had survival value preventing pregnancy during hardships. Today it indicates serious perturbations from extreme distress.
Belly Fat Deposits from Sustained Cortisol
Under acute stress our primal reflexes prove useful–like fleeing attackers or battling illnesses. Equally, momentary social awkwardness rarely harms us.
The real threat is unrelenting strain and anxiety.
Digestion suffers, blood sugars spike, arteries constrict, water retention swells limbs…chronic systemic inflammation. And crucially fat shifts from peripheries to hibernate around organs for metabolic fuel reserves.
Hello potbelly and skinny limbs! The distinctive “middle age spread” body shape.
Studies confirm people with bigger waists sleep worse and feel more depressed or exhausted. Omentum fat cells then block insulin furthering inflammation and metabolic dysfunction in a vicious cascade.
Building Stress Resilience
Tactics to temper cortisol and boost oxytocin bring multiple benefits optimizing sleep, cardiac health, immunity and neurogenesis.
Holistic resilience flows from emotional, physical and spiritual balance rooted in healthy social bonds.
Here are key evidence-based means for strengthening yourself.
1. Prioritize Sleep
Sleep deprivation alone spikes cortisol whilst slashing protective hormones. Whereas sufficient restorative sleep synthesizes proteins vital for neuroplasticity and new learning.
The newly discovered glymphatic system also actively clears cumulative daily neuronal metabolic waste products during sleep. Brain plaque build-ups seen in dementia patients likely accrue slower with regular adequate rest.
Aim for 7-9 hours nightly. Turn off devices 1-2 hours pre-bed allowing natural melatonin rise. Consider supplements like glycine, magnesium or CBD to ease sleep initiation.
2. Walk in Nature
Japanese culture elegantly captures nature’s restorative power with Shinrin-yoku – “Forest Bathing”. Quiet contemplative walks oxygenate, reduce inflammation and stimulate calming endocannabinoids.
Even 20 minutes markedly drops cortisol, blood pressure plus heart and breathing rates. Do it phoneless and shoeless for added mind-body benefits.
3. Tend Your Tribe
Social neuroscience confirms oxytocin surges from supportive group activities like dancing, laughing, singing or creative collaborations. These forge enduring bonds strengthening resilience to future stressors.
Identify sincere friends or family willing to listen, not judge. Feeling heard and accepted soothes emotional turmoil, especially for trauma sufferers. Alternatively consider joining mental health peer support groups.
4. Express Gratitude
Keep a daily gratitude journal. Recognize efforts of colleagues, send thank you notes or publicly praise good work. This trains the brain to spotlight positive events, boosting oxytocin and emotional wellbeing.
Studies by positive psychology pioneer Martin Seligman validate feeling and expressing gratitude reliably increases happiness metrics.
5. Train Mindfulness
Meditation, breath focused yoga, Tai Chi and Qigong all elicit relaxation responses – lowered blood pressure, reduced inflammatory gene expression and attentional control. With practice your baseline stress tolerance increases and cortisol receptors downregulate.
Start simply with 5 minutes daily focusing only on the breath without judgement and progress pace yourself.
Foster Healthy Bonds However Possible
Healing isolation‘s deep wounds post-pandemic requires recognizing social nourishment as fundamental for wellness.
Where feasible, increase intimate family time reconnecting partners and parents weakened from extended separations. Schedule regular video calls, delve into photo archives recalling positive memories.
For aging seniors, create multigenerational households and neighborhood communities combatting loneliness. Exchanging childcare help for companionship conveys needed purpose.
Volunteer at animal shelters, help literacy programs, offer career mentorships. Teach skills online or donate professional services.
Even brief pleasant encounters genuinely matter for those starved of contact. Exchange smiles more liberally and make friendly eye contact (the gateway interaction starting oxytocin flows).
Be present and deny digital intrusions when conversing together.
Integration reaches down to architectural decisions also – are new homes and apartments designed for communal gatherings or further isolating inhabitants? Are more older people co-housed with younger families under one roof?
Policy wise, governments could subsidize group travel packages with health worker escorts helping disconnected seniors vacation after lengthy confinements.
Creative social catalyzing at all levels can offset the health impacts of loneliness quickly with relatively little funding compared to future burgeoning chronic disease costs.
The Bottom Line
Mental health now represents one of this century‘s greatest public health challenges. Left unchecked, the contagious spread of anxiety and physical strains of social isolation will become the dominant disease factors of societies globally.
The biologist E.O. Wilson fittingly described humans as "an extraordinarily social species". Our biology evolved for tens of thousands of years in tight-knit interdependent tribes. Sever this ancestral link at your peril it now appears.
Our wellbeing and survival are far more dependent on community bonds nurturing positive health behaviors than modern culture acknowledges. Prioritize emotional needs as much as economic or status needs.
The world desperately requires more loving sources of oxytocin and safe spaces where cortisol secretion calms. From here flows sustainable mental and physical vigor to overcome life‘s growing stresses.
Be well!
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(Studies are linked throughout for credibility and further investigation)