Dr. Murthy on Loneliness: It Raises Your Risk of Depression, Anxiety, and Suicide

RUSH EXCERPT:
MURTHY: "Well, kristen, this issue came as a real surprise to me. I didn’t start my tenure as surgeon general thinking I was going to focus on loneliness back in 2014. But what I found as I traveled around the country is that people were telling me stories about loneliness everywhere I went. College students on campuses surrounded by thousands of other kids, but saying, “I don’t feel like anybody knows me. I don’t feel like I can be myself. I feel alone.” Parents were saying this, c.E.o.s were saying this. Members of Congress were telling me they were struggling with loneliness. Everywhere I went, this is a challenge. And as I dug into the data, two things emerged. One is that loneliness is extraordinarily common. We’ve got over half of kids who are saying, for example, that they struggle with loneliness. And by the way, kids across the population struggle the most. But it’s also consequential. So when you struggle with loneliness and isolation, it raises your risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide. But it also increases your risk of heart disease by 29%, stroke by 31%, dementia by 50% among older adults. And the overall mortality increase related to social disconnection is comparable to the mortality impact of smoking and obesity. That’s how powerful and how important loneliness is."