A simple message showing that you care, can make your dear ones/someone healthier.
Some of us have been better able to cope with the social isolation brought to us by the travel and movement restrictions, than others. Perhaps you have found a way to uplift your mood and build a level of emotional resilience that has allowed you to see things through.
If this is the case, I’m happy for you, but that means the job is half done.
It’s our responsibility to reach out to others regularly, whether they are family, friends or co-workers, and make sure that they are not feeling the physical, mental and the obvious emotional struggles of loneliness.
Social interaction is so hard-wired in us that isolation tricks our body into thinking it’s in danger. When our brain senses that we are lonely, our nervous system activates the fight-or-flight response, and our immune system turns off some of our antiviral defences. To make things worse, in its quest to divert resources to deal with this perceived threat, our immune system turns on an inflammatory reaction that raises the risk of contracting innumerable ill-health conditions.
That’s why I’d like to encourage you to reach out to at least one person a day who you think would benefit from social contact. It just takes a voice message, a text, an email, an emoticon or a phone call to help people in our immediate social network to be less exposed and debilitated by the experience of loneliness.
I read somewhere that “lonely is not being alone; it’s the feeling that no one cares”.
Prove them wrong and show them that you care.
Always at the service of your wellbeing,
César