Growing Young

by Marta Zaraska

  Throughout evolution, this connection between social relationships and physical warmth became hard-wired in our brains. Today, the mechanisms that regulate body temperature and those that determine how “warm” or “cold” we feel toward other people tend to overlap. The key lies in the insula, a small, pyramid-shaped structure deep within the cerebral cortex that is important both for how we perceive temperature and how we perceive others. Animal studies also suggest that oxytocin may play a role. Mice that don’t have receptors for oxytocin have trouble regulating their body temperature.

  What that all means for us modern humans is that our bodily thermostat can serve as a clue to how well connected we are socially. Do you crave hot showers? Do you suddenly feel chilly even though the room temperature is objectively quite cozy? Maybe your body is telling you to get in touch with your close ones to get your oxytocin boost.

  On the other hand, playing with temperature can help you deal with the feelings of loneliness and exclusion. In Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles, a wealthy old woman, Mrs. Inglethorp, quarrels with her husband. “You have lied to me, and deceived me,” she exclaims. After the fight, Mrs. Inglethorp retreats to her boudoir and complains to her maid of “great shock” and betrayed trust. The maid offers a simple solution: “You will feel better after a nice hot cup of tea, m’m.”

  The maid was on to something when she claimed that a hot drink can lift your mood when you are upset after a fight. It can be hot chocolate, it can be tea—it doesn’t matter what drink it is as long as holding it warms up your hands. In a similar fashion, curling up by a fire or indulging in a long, steamy shower may potentially reduce loneliness.

  The problem, however, is that while hot chocolate or a bath may temporarily lift us out of the misery of being all alone, it’s just a temporary fix, a bit like treating a headache with Tylenol without addressing any underlying medical causes. If you are chronically lonely, what you need for a true health and longevity boost is to get rid of the feeling for good—and for that even a 121-hour hot shower wouldn’t be enough. Banishing loneliness requires far more effort and is unfortunately an uphill battle, since feelings of isolation change the way we behave and think, trapping us in a catch-22.

  Loneliness Habits and Magic Mushrooms

  In a laboratory room at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, an eighteen-year-old student was seated in front of a laptop, a weird contraption attached to his head, something like a Star Trek Vorta command headset. Yet this was no sci-fi invention. It was an eye-tracking device used by psychologists and neuroscientists to study what attracts our attention. By analyzing data coming from cameras and mirrors mounted around the eye area, researchers can measure gaze direction and eye movements to better understand how visual information is processed in different situations by different people.

  On that particular day at the University of Central Lancashire, the eye tracker was being used to study what happens when lonely people face socially unpleasant situations. Just after each of the dozens of students who volunteered for the project installed themselves in front of the laptop, they were presented with eight video clips, each lasting a mere twenty seconds. Two videos would play at the same time, showing people in different social situations—either positive ones (smiling or nodding at one another) or threatening ones (turning their backs on each other, ignoring each other). Since the researchers also surveyed each participant on their level of loneliness, they could weight this data against the measurements from the eye tracker. Here is what they found: people who were particularly lonely paid far more attention to threatening social situations than did those who felt happy with their relationships—the lonely subjects’ eyes would automatically drift to images of shunning and disdain.

  A similar picture emerged from other studies, including those using functional magnetic resonance imaging: loneliness makes us fixate on social threats. Is this guy sneering at me? Is that girl giving me the cold shoulder? In Cacioppo’s studies, lonely people could pick up on negative social signals within 120 milliseconds, less than half the time it takes us to blink. This obsession with social threats makes relationships an uphill battle for lonely people, who tend to withdraw from social situations and distrust other people. They feel a hunger for connection, yet if that hunger is not satisfied soon and becomes chronic, they start growing a thick, thorny skin to protect themselves from potential hurt.

  “In 120 milliseconds you are not doing that deliberately. Your brain is on hyper-alert even when you are just sitting and resting,” Cacioppo told me. Once again, such behaviour made sense on the African savanna. You wanted to be vigilant in case members of some other tribe were out to get you with their sharpened sticks. Loneliness makes our brains react differently to strangers versus people we know well: it turns on “hunger” for reconnection when we see those we know, but not when we face outsiders. Such fixation on “stranger danger” was a good idea when we lived in small groups, but not in our large, modern society, when making new friends could help overcome solitude.

  Although this may all sound bleak if you are among the millions of Westerners who feel chronically lonely, the good news is that understanding the mechanisms of loneliness can set you on the path out of it—and protect you from its health-damaging consequences. According to Cacioppo, the first and foremost step is changing your mindset about loneliness. “Knowing that there isn’t something wrong with you, but rather that it’s a biological response designed to help you. It’s not that you are unlovable, it’s just the lonely state trying to promote self-preservation,” he told me.

  To reduce loneliness you don’t have to jump head-first into a whirl of partying and networking, and you don’t need to sign up for dozens of dating portals and friendship-making apps. Here’s what you can do. First, stop blaming yourself—loneliness is natural and perfectly normal. Humans have always experienced it and always will. Simply recognizing that loneliness is not a genetically-based sentence or a result of life trying to get you can push many people out of being lonely. The second step is to try to change the way you look at others, to realize that the distrust and hostility you may be feeling is likely just your savanna-evolved body prepping you for an attack by an enemy tribe.

  Unless an attack by an enemy tribe is something you may realistically fear in the near future, a cognitive behavioural therapy might be a good idea. Finding a professional therapist could work well, but you could also try changing your thoughts on your own. In his book Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, Cacioppo describes techniques for consciously stopping negative thoughts: “ ‘Is it literally true that everybody hates me? No? Then why do I keep saying this to myself? Let’s recognize the habit, and the harm that it causes, then stop it.’ ” This is followed by redirecting them in a more positive way: “‘Yes, I’m not as sociable as I would like to be, but that’s a far cry from “Everybody hates me.” Some people actually like me.’ ”

  For a more radical approach, you could try hypnosis—if people are hypnotized and their thoughts are redirected toward feelings of social connection, their loneliness tapers off. And if that still doesn’t work, there are also magic mushrooms. And yes, that recommendation is actually science-tested. In one experiment conducted in Switzerland and published in the prestigious journal of the National Academy of Sciences, after taking psilocybin, an active compound of magic mushrooms, volunteers reported feeling less socially excluded—and the effects were also confirmed by functional magnetic resonance imaging scans of their brains. According to one of the study’s authors, psilocybin might have real potential for the treatment of severe loneliness. You could enjoy psychedelic euphoria, feel less isolated, and increase your centenarian potential in one go. Just keep in mind that for now taking psilocybin is illegal in many countries, the US, Canada, and the UK included—so to profit from its loneliness-busting effects you would have to volunteer for another scientific experiment. Or simply wait a bit�
�it may soon become legal. Two US cities, Oakland and Denver, have recently decriminalized possession of magic mushrooms (although commercial sales still remain illegal).

  * * *

  Loneliness kills—and not just because it can drive a person to suicide. It kills slowly by messing with your stress response and altering the functioning of your genes. Feeling all alone in the world may have nothing to do with how many friends you have or how much they care about you, but it can still up your risk of cancer and heart disease, and it can shorten your life more than obesity or a couch-based lifestyle.

  In the Western world, as many as one in five people experience loneliness. It hurts them just as much as physical pain does, like a gaping wound. They may feel so desolate that to get an oxytocin boost, they sign up for sessions at professional cuddling shops. They may take particularly long and hot showers to fool their brains into feeling socially connected. These measures do work, but only temporarily. To avoid the negative health consequences of loneliness, lonely people need to realize that the feeling is natural, that we’ve evolved to have it. It used to protect us, yet now it often leads us astray, locking us into negative patterns of thinking. With effort, behavioural therapy, or even hypnosis, such patterns can be changed. The feeling of loneliness can be decreased even if you don’t make a single new friend.

  But subjective social isolation, albeit important, is only part of the story. The objective part—how many close, loving relationships we have—matters at least as much for our longevity and health as does the subjective feeling of loneliness. What we need is what scientists call a “strong social support”—a network of friends, family, and neighbours to whom we can turn in times of need. But how can we be sure we have enough of that social support? And if we don’t have enough of it, how do we know whether we’ve slipped into the “socially isolated” category? Is having one close friend enough? Or are three or more friends necessary if you really want to increase your centenarian potential? Do you have to be married to reap the longevity benefits? Luckily, we have decades of research to give us some answers, starting with a simple tip: if you want to stay slim, don’t roll your eyes.

  A FEW SUGGESTIONS TO BOOST YOUR LONGEVITY

  If you feel lonely, the first step is to realize that this is a biological adaptation and not a sign that something is wrong with you. Stop blaming yourself. Try to change your thought patterns. Think, “Yes, I’m not as sociable as I would like to be” instead of, “Everybody hates me.” Try to warm yourself up physically—take warm showers and drink hot tea. Don’t fixate on social threats or how others are “trying to get you.”

  6

  FRIENDS WITH (LONGEVITY) BENEFITS

  How Marriage and Friendships Prolong Life

  “NO! PLEASE DON’T EAT ME! I have a wife and kids—eat them!”—cries Homer in one of the episodes of The Simpsons. Although throwing your spouse to a bear or a cannibal is certainly one way in which marriage could prolong your life, it’s not the only one. Married people have lower risks of heart issues, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. They even sleep more soundly and respond better to flu vaccines. If a married person does have a heart attack requiring coronary artery bypass grafting, that person is two and a half times more likely to still be alive fifteen years down the road than someone who is unmarried. And when it comes to cancer, marriage can be more effective than chemotherapy. When researchers followed over 700,000 patients with several different types of cancer, they noticed that those who were married had between 12 and 33 percent higher chances of survival than their unmarried counterparts. That’s higher than is usually found for the effects of chemotherapy.

  Overall, the effects of marriage on longevity far surpass those commonly found for healthy eating or exercise. In one large sample, not being married meant even three times the risk of death for men, and a risk of 20 percent higher for women. The researchers who conducted the study called the effects “enormous”—and that’s something coming from scientists, who are in general a cautious bunch when it comes to grandiose words. Yet the benefits of marriage are indeed enormous. Abundant research has now shown that from a health and longevity perspective, this is the most profitable relationship you can have. Marriage is not just better than exercise and diets; it’s better than friendship, too—particularly if you are a man.

  “It is a notorious fact that women everywhere are ‘desperate to get married’ ” noted an article in the Dallas Weekly Herald back in 1882. Journalists these days may be more careful about making such statements, but in popular culture the image of a girl “desperate to get married” certainly lives on. However, men rather than women should be particularly keen on saying the vows. In study after study, it’s the husbands who benefit the most from sporting a wedding ring, and who suffer exceedingly when their spouse dies. This so-called “widower effect” has been known for centuries—the 1657 mortality statistics for the city of London, England, listed such “griefe” as an official cause of death. There are plenty of stories of a spouse dying right after their partner passes away. When Ruth Kretschmer, a ninety-year-old afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, stopped breathing just before 10 a.m. one December morning, her husband of seventy-one years, Bob, passed away within fifteen minutes. They were both at their own house, lying in hospice beds just a few feet apart—while Ruth struggled with Alzheimer’s disease, Bob had been fighting cancer. Once Bob heard that Ruth was gone, it seemed as if his body just gave up the struggle.

  For new widows and widowers, the most dangerous period is the first week—the risk of dying from natural causes doubles for them. What’s more, chances are that pets might suffer from a “widower effect,” too. After our beloved cocker spaniel, Evita, passed away in August 2018, her longtime companion and our second dog, Roger, got diagnosed with an aggressive cancer just three weeks later. The veterinarian was not surprised. She told us such things happen often in her practice, to the despair of the pets’ owners.

  So what is it about marriage that gives those who go for it unprecedented longevity benefits? Maybe it’s simply that the healthiest people get married in the first place, while the less strong-bodied ones remain spinsters and bachelors? Yet when studies control for pre-selection into marriage, the effects on health remain. Something else is obviously going on. Perhaps it’s about economic factors—after all, the pooling of resources that happens with marriage is better for the wallet, which may translate into better health care access, better nutrition, and so on. But once again, financial well-being does not account for all the longevity perks of matrimony.

  By now you may be wondering whether the key here is marriage as an institution, with ivory dresses, first dances, and white doves released into the sunset, or if maybe just living together—or “cohabiting,” as scientists prefer to say—is good enough, too. It may be, it may not—it simply depends. A hefty pile of evidence suggests that it’s all about commitment.

  Voodoo Weddings and Synchronized Bodies

  The Marché des Féticheurs, the world’s largest outdoor voodoo market on the outskirts of Lome, Togo, smelled of dust and the sweetish, leathery scent of animal skins drying in the sun. The locals call this place “a pharmacy” and venture here to buy treatments for all ailments—from a porcupine quill for asthma to a mahogany seed for poor memory. As I walked among the stalls, clouds of rust-coloured soil rose up, settling slowly on everything around: dried crocodiles, chopped-off dogs’ heads, birds with their eyes plucked out. Maciek, my better half, whom I had married many years previously in Poland, strolled beside me, bewilderment obvious on his face.

  To the disappointment of the stall-keepers we decided against investing in animal skulls, but when one of the voodoo priests urged us inside his amulet shop, we followed him into the dusty interior. And when he offered to fortify our marriage vows with a few voodoo spells, we looked at each other, swallowed hard, and agreed. Couldn’t hurt, right?

  The ceremony was short and complete
ly bewildering. The priest, who introduced himself as Germain, sang songs, rattled amulets, prayed to a giant clay statue of a voodoo god, and had us hold our hands and nod at certain intervals. Then he drank some liquid out of a jar with a dead snake inside, and rattled amulets some more. It all looked very serious.

  I have to admit: after the voodoo ritual I felt even more committed to my dear husband than I had before. And no, it wasn’t really about any worry that I might mess with some dark spirits by not being a perfectly devoted wife. It was more about deciding to honour our relationships within another culture, once again. To say yes in one more way. According to science, that voodoo ceremony might have prolonged my life.

  A lot of research has found that simply living together as a couple is not as good for your physical well-being as is getting married. In a Finnish study published in 2015, those who cohabited without “putting a ring on it” had higher risk of heart attacks than did married people. For women, living out of wedlock was actually worse than being single—cohabitation meant 69 percent higher risk of a heart attack than being married, while those living on their own had that risk elevated only by 8 percent.

  World-renowned marriage expert John Gottman, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington, believes that it’s the strength of commitment that is responsible for the health and longevity benefits of marriage. He believes that is why cohabitation may not offer the same gains. Gottman told me about a fascinating experiment in which holding hands reduced the activity of the amygdala in gay couples, but only if they considered themselves married (that was before same-sex marriage became legal in the US). “In any relationship that can create that sense of trust and commitment, people will get the benefits,” Gottman told me. Researchers in general distinguish two types of cohabiting couples: those who intend to stay together “till death do us part,” and those who don’t. It’s only the former who may reap the health benefits of a romantic relationship. So if you want to live long, it might be a good idea to adopt the viewpoint of Audrey Hepburn, who once said, “If I get married, I want to be very married.”