Dr. Jeremy Nobel

So why is it so hard to take the first step to sharing who we are with other people? And I think a lot of it has to do with individuals' early experiences. If you've had a stressful upbringing or a stressful experience, other points in your life.

One of the things that often happens when you have these traumas, because that's what they are, injury, pain on a sustained or significant basis, we tend to push ourselves away from other people. We don't want to risk getting hurt again.

And so that's why having a little bit of a catalyst for that, whether it's the kind of exciting, fun activity of a social creative making experience or even watching a film with some people and sharing your thoughts and then maybe expressing yourself creatively. If we can just provide just that little nudge for people, right? to take that first step. Very hard for some, easy for others.

Then I think it becomes quite reinforcing because it's often quite pleasurable. It's joyous to feel connection. It increases dopamine levels to tell our story. It's a very positive experience.

And so part of my goal in Project Unlonely, in this book, in this conversation with you, Allison, is to encourage people to take those risks, tolerate that discomfort of disclosure and see where it leads them.

Share something about yourself. It doesn't have to be the biggest, darkest secret of your life, but just something you think other people might find interesting and compelling and see where it goes.

Do a drawing, a doodle, a dance move. Make something that puts your thoughts and feelings and vision about who you are and what matters into a tangible artifact that then can express those thoughts and feelings to others.

What you're thinking about, what motivates you, what excites you, share that to someone else and invite them to share back. That's a conversation.

Love walking on the beach? Find other people who love walking on the beach. And while you do that, have conversations.

I think takeaway number five is recognizing that other people's loneliness matters also. And if you see someone who's experiencing loneliness that you think is in a spiral of loneliness, be kind.

My pleasure, Allison. Stay connected.

The challenge isn't to avoid loneliness, but to see it as a signal. Just like thirst is a signal you need hydration, loneliness is a signal you need human connection.

The signal just gets stronger and it starts taking you into some, what you might call spiraling circles of increased anxiety around connection.

And we know that significant sustained loneliness also increases risk of physical illness too. Increases risk of heart attack, stroke, or death from either by 30%. increases the risk of dying early by 30%.

Absolutely. So loneliness is it's a mood state. It's an emotion just like love. There are different kinds of love. Why shouldn't there be different kinds of loneliness? Right. So there's brotherly love, love of country, romantic love.

I do point to these three types of loneliness you mentioned because I think it's useful not just for academic purposes, but if you understand the type of loneliness you're navigating, then it gives you some insight into what might be useful in that navigation. So let me go through them all really quickly. So first, psychological loneliness.

This is what most people think of when they hear the word lonely. Do I have a friend, a confidant, someone I can tell my troubles to? The second type, societal loneliness, one way I describe that to people is imagine a room filled with people, and you have to go into that room. Is your arrival anticipated, welcome, and safe?

If it's not, you might be reluctant, wondering, what am I doing in that room? And so whether it's race, class, Even disability, if we're systematically excluded, that's a kind of loneliness also. The third, existential or spiritual loneliness, I think is fascinating. It's probably been around quite a long time. How do we fit into the bigger universe, the human narrative, if you will?

Does our life have meaning and purpose, consequence? So this is another kind of disorientation to connection with others that I think can trouble some people. And of course, you could have one, two, three, or all of these types of loneliness all interthreaded.

Yes, we do need a sense that we are visible and matter to someone else. And I think uncertainty around that does invite a kind of spiraling into self-doubt, lack of self-worth, and then it makes it harder to take the risk of trying to connect with other people you're already anticipating. You won't be successful at that.

And so these are the kind of things that I think are troubling many people right now.

I think like many technologies, smartphones can be a source of great benefit to people individually in communities, but also great harm. And as I talk about in the book, one of the worrisome ways social media and smartphones are often used, particularly by younger generations, is a kind of performance platform where we curate what we put on that platform to tell a very

What we think or guess is an attractive story about ourselves to increase numbers, likes, and follows. And so you're not only performing, you're continually being judged by this unseen audience. And you start changing your, say, posting behavior or your social media behavior to try to accelerate the attention you're getting at the external persona level, if you will, your digital persona.

And that often is different from how you truly feel inside. So that can be very lonely making for people as they feel that in order to truly connect, they have to not be who they are.

Now, there's other ways we could use social media if we choose to tolerate the discomfort of authentic disclosure, to find people we share authentic interests with, and then be able to share personal stories and respond in kind. And that's how we build more authentic, more sustainable connections. And we now have technology that can amplify that. Technology in and of itself isn't the problem.

It's how we use it.

Absolutely. So be curious, make things, have conversations. And I find that this is very useful, simple guidance. And, you know, here's an example. Ten years or so ago, I got very curious about why are we so lonely when because of digital connection now we can connect with people around the world in seconds. So I got curious about that, and then I made something.

I made this book, and now we're having a conversation. And in that conversation and conversations like this, I'm continuing to learn about who I am, what I think's going on in the world, what matters, and engage and be less lonely.

Now, that's just one kind of almost funny example because we're in an interview scenario here, but I think in our daily lives, we have all kinds of things we get curious about. And then making things, this is harnessing some of the creative pathways in our brains. We can talk more about how remarkably energizing some of that can be.

And then human connection, to actually interact with authentic people conversations with people about things that matter, I think that is the basis of some very important types of connection.

Well, I think art forms can be a kind of conversation, right? So poetry is one of my art forms. I feel like I'm in a conversation with a reader I'm imagining when I write a poem. I love it when I can read publicly and people respond. But other kinds of creative expression work too. So

It's not just the classic four types of creative expressions that we often think of, visual art, language art, movement, and music, but the creative activities of using your imagination to express yourself in daily life. So, you know, what kind of decoration do you put on a cake that you make for your kid's birthday, right? That's an imaginative creative expression.

And so is for many people, textile arts, knitting, crocheting, quilting. These are all ways to share your stories with others and connect. But there's really some very exciting new neurophysiologic research that when you do creative expression and interact with the arts,

it stimulates the same parts of our brain that form our judgments and our experiences of our social connections, how we literally make sense of the social environment around us. And so it's quite clear that creative expression literally changes how we make sense of our social opportunities and what otherwise could be seen as risky interactions with others start becoming...

kind of interesting interactions they provide a sense of possible joy um curiosity delight and ultimately connection so that's one thing that the arts do is they change our brains but they also change our minds coming up why loneliness and trauma are linked and how to push past the fear of vulnerability stick around

Well, you know, so difference is one of the territories that I cover in my book because I wanted to identify some kind of areas of social experience where you're at risk for spiraling into serious loneliness. And difference is one of those. So you mentioned, you know, it could be gender identity. It could be race.

It could be, you know, are you a relatively new person in the United States, you know, a newcomer family? But it all comes down to feeling that you're systematically excluded because of some characteristic. And the way you kind of push back against that is, first of all, by recognizing that it's traumatic to be systematically excluded.

to actually recognize that it's not your fault that you're lonely. And fortunately, we are recognizing as a society the challenge of difference and beginning to have conversations about it and opening up pathways for people, no matter how excluded they may feel, to share their personal stories about that in a way that they don't have to fear the rejection, shame, and guilt.