How loneliness affects undocumented Latinos
Since older undocumented immigrants tend to live with family, their family members are primarily their support and safe spaces, but community-based support systems are also critical. Unfortunately, few organizations provide services specifically only for undocumented older adults.
More than one-fifth of Americans over 18 say they often or always feel lonely or socially isolated. Among older adults, social isolation has been linked to various adverse physical and psychological effects, including increased risk of dementia and heart disease. “Addressing the crisis of loneliness and isolation is one of our generation’s greatest challenges,” wrote Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
If loneliness is an epidemic, how do you treat it? Given its myriad health consequences, some experts argue it’s time to consider new remedies. This calls to mind a trip to the pharmacy to pick up a bottle of pills, but treating loneliness the same way doctors treat high cholesterol isn’t exactly the idea here. As a growing body of research indicates, loneliness is a biological phenomenon with far-reaching consequences. Neuroscientists have found that brain signals that should trigger someone to seek social connection are the same ones that, under different circumstances, can turn people defensive and vigilant.
Under this rubric, loneliness isn’t simply a symptom of societal failure to foster deep relationships but rather a wariness that takes root, steadily snowballs and reshapes the brain. Loneliness may be a communal problem, but healing begins with the individual.
It’s not entirely obvious what the medical system can or should do with loneliness. Proposals range from the simple (adding loneliness scales to annual checkups) to the medically far-fetched (a pill for loneliness) and are sure to come with side effects and controversies.
Declaring loneliness an epidemic first requires an understanding of what loneliness is and how it works in the brain. Only when the latest insights into the lonely mind are considered can Americans begin to hope for a solution.
While sometimes mistaken for social isolation, loneliness is different. Social isolation is an objective state: Are you interacting regularly with other people or not? Loneliness, by contrast, is a paradoxical puzzle—an entirely subjective experience of distress at one’s perceived lack of social connection. That can be true whether you’re alone most of the time or at the center of a dance floor.
“You’re lonely because the set of relationships you have, your social network, is not meeting your expectations,” says Dr. Russell.
People feel lonely for many reasons: relocating for school or work, grieving a spouse, struggling with counterproductive coping mechanisms or even having a natural disposition toward gloom. If these are the causes, then there are at least known remedies to try. How many times can you give someone the same tired advice to join a club, call a friend or make small talk with a stranger?
Many lonely people not only feel sad; they also feel endangered. Social situations are perceived as a threat, not an invitation.
Over the past decade, those who study loneliness have begun to better understand why. Although loneliness is usually understood as an experience of mental anguish, in reality it is “a whole-body affliction,” as the historian Fay Bound Alberti writes in “A Biography of Loneliness.” Research suggests chronic loneliness is related to a range of physical and neurological problems, including increased susceptibility to infections and cognitive decline.
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