Cutting connections cuts life short

"Katie could hardly wait to get away. The moment she had her college degree, she moved about as far away as she could to take a job in the software industry.

"Katie's new career required her to spend weeks at a time hopping around from city to city. She still talked to her mother once or twice a week, but now the contact happened through her Blackberry or laptop.

"After six months of this very different routine, she realized that she was not sleeping well. If a cold or flu bug was anywhere in her vicinity, she would catch it. She spent a great deal of time in front of the TV, eating ice cream straight from the carton."

What was Katie's problem? Loneliness.

At any given time, 20 percent of people feel so isolated that they say loneliness is a major source of unhappiness in their lives.

In 1985, when the average American was asked "How many confidantes do you have?" the most common response to the question was three. In 2004, the most common response was none (25 percent of the respondents).

In 2007, more than 27 million Americans lived entirely alone.

People who are lonely are more apt to eat fatty food and less apt to exercise. They are more apt to die young, from such diseases as cancer, respiratory failure, heart failure and any other cause of death, many studies find. They are more apt to develop Alzheimer's and take up residence in a nursing home.

In one study, the epidemiologist Lisa Berkman found that men and women with few ties to others were two to three times more likely to die in a nine-year follow-up period than those who had many more social contacts.

Loneliness also leads to decreased mental functioning. In one experiment, subjects were presented images of 24 males and female faces depicting anger, fear, happiness and sadness. The higher the participants' level of loneliness, the less accurate their interpretation of the facial expressions.

Loneliness is linked to higher amounts of the stress hormone epinephrine and higher levels of cortisol, which indicates stress. Lonely people do not differ in the number of hours that they sleep but in their quality of sleep.

One of the most dramatic real-world examples of the effects of loneliness occurred in Romania. When Romanian orphanages were opened to the world, public health officials found 3-year-olds who did not cry and did not speak. They were in only the third to tenth percentile for physical growth and grossly delayed in motor and mental disabilities. They spent their time rocking themselves and clutching themselves silently.

Older children who had passed through this system were typically unable to form attachments and roamed the streets.

So what can people do to reduce a debilitating sense of loneliness?

• Help others. We can give this gift to others easily. Some people, for example, help people find lost dogs or people stranded in automobiles in the cold.

• Show genuine interest in other people. These can be small acts, like smiling at strangers in a grocery store or bringing cookies and fruit to the office.

• Join an online community. You can take risks about revealing yourself. You can find a group of friends with common interests.

• Join a church or synagogue. Many churches and synagogues sponsor a vast array of social activities, in addition to religious ones. The dramatic growth of megachurches is an example.

Katie is ensnared in a web of loneliness. But the good news is that she -- and all of us -- can break out.

"It is not good for man to be alone," says the Bible. "If you want to go fast, go alone," according to an African proverb. "If you want to go far, go together."

Judith Kleinfeld is director of northern studies and a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.