It’s ironic, I suppose, the people who most urgently need to isolate themselves during the current pandemic are also the ones who are most vulnerable to the unhealthy consequences of the isolated life. I’m referring to geezers like myself who have been told to stay indoors for the foreseeable future, even though obeying that order could extend another pandemic among the senior set: loneliness.
A 2021 University of Michigan poll discovered that one in four older Americans reported feeling isolated a minimum of some of the time, and one in three said they lacked regular companionship. Those numbers are bound to spike in the weeks ahead, threatening to saddle a large swath of housebound seniors with anxiety, malnutrition, dementia, insomnia, substance abuse, and other well-documented products of a lonely life.
“Loneliness creates a kind of toxic chain reaction in our body: It produces stress, and the chronic release of stress hormones suppresses our immune response and triggers inflammation,” Amanda Ripley writes in the Washington Post. “And the elderly, who are most at-risk of dying from COVID-19, are more likely to say they are lonely.”
I’m pleased to report that, after 12 times of (mostly) sequestered life, My Lovely Wife and that i don’t seem to be suffering much from a lack of human contact. Of course, we’re not probably the most sociable people you’ll ever meet; nothing pleases us as much as when a social obligation is canceled in the last minute. Still, we miss the most popular coffee shop and the neighborhood bistro, destinations which routinely served as the primary reasons to climb onto our bicycles. And, as lifelong Minnesotans, we simply feel weird to be making an effort indoors in March with no drama of a decent blizzard.
Overall, though, our comparative isolation hasn’t produced much grief — insufficient anyway to break down and start calling people on the phone. Ripley, author of The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — and Why, argues that connecting via telephone is the greatest way to maintain contact when you’re limited to your quarters. “The phone is the lifeline,” she writes. “I’ve set an individual goal to talk (actually talk, not text) with a couple of friends, elderly neighbors, or family members by phone every day until this pandemic ends.”
I admire her sociability, and wonder whether she still uses a landline, because I’ve found that trying to converse with someone on the smartphone is about as efficient because the White House’s response to the novel coronavirus. It’s probably just me and my hearing aids, but if I hold the phone up to my ear, inevitably some part of my face will lightly brush from the little red button with the phone image and the line will go dead. And if I depend on the phone’s speaker, the fuzzy conversation that ensues travels well beyond its intended target.
We did call our offspring last week to listen for any telltale coughing (there is none) and request a report on their own current situation. They tend to avoid disclosing something that might be of interest unless it calls for an urgent transfer of funds, however, therefore the conversations were brief, predictably bland, and eventually inexpensive.
I was more interested in a few Ripley’s other tips because, well, they validate my own strategies for outlasting the pandemic. Exercise and mindfulness meditation, she notes, both combat the hazards geezers face while quarantined by lowering levels of stress, reducing inflammation, and boosting immune function. Among the upsides to working at home is the fact that my commute only mandates that I scale a flight of stairs, and so i have more time than usual every morning for my daily zazen session along with a moderately intense (for me) workout. It’s a regimen that clears my head and helps me digest my breakfast — not to mention the front-page headlines — a little more calmly.
It’s still at the start of our confinement, so I’m not going to suggest that these or any other strategies will carry us through without enduring some periods of loneliness and missed connections. (I might need professional help if my favorite golf course closes.) We’re facing a uniquely vexing health challenge, and nobody knows at this point how it’s going to play out. I’ll say this, though: If I’m still limited to quarters 18 months from now, I might be forced to pick up the phone making a few calls. And it’s an excellent bet that I won’t be scheduling the letter time.
