Together: Why Social Connection Holds the Key to Better Health, Higher Performance, and Greater Happiness

by Vivek H. Murthy

Then the reactions begin. Those who’d like to help start turning away, leaving us feeling even more alone. Before long we’re trapped in a vicious cycle of suspicion, jealousy, and resentment. Loneliness thus fuels more loneliness until the fracture leads to severe alienation. Clearly, the solution is more complicated than telling someone who’s lonely to go to a party or “just be with people.” “What’s disturbing about this,” Steve Cole observed, “is that we have created a culture of living which is different from our historical default state. I think we are relaxed and at ease by default and are bonding oriented in our resting state. But few of us feel this way. It’s less common for us to be sitting around our fire talking with neighbors. Instead, we are racing around trying to get work done all the time. So, I think our current state is different from what our physiology is engineered to support.”