• health

• psychology

The habit that helps dispel loneliness in ten minutes

Many people have felt lonely in the last year of the Corona, and now a study done in the United States reveals how this loneliness and anxiety can be alleviated in a few minutes during the week

Tags

• loneliness

• phone

• Corona

Walla!

health

Monday, 08 March 2021, 09:49

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on general

• Share on general

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

0 comments

Loneliness is a worrying side effect.

Older woman looks out the window (Photo: ShutterStock)

Loneliness is undoubtedly one of the most worrying phenomena of the corona plague, and it not only affects the mental health of people in the present, but also has a meaningful effect on their future.

Experts have warned that the past corona year could hurt adults and herald a wave of dementia cases, due to the disconnection from an interpersonal connection.

The good news is that loneliness can be alleviated, and it does not even require much.

A new study has found that talking to someone on the phone for 10 minutes several times a week can significantly reduce loneliness.

Half of the 240 new study participants were selected to receive short phone calls from volunteers over the course of a month, and they reported feeling 20 percent less lonely on average, according to the study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

More on Walla!

The real question of quarantine: to what extent is loneliness harmful to health?

To the full article

The study included volunteers who were briefly trained in empathic communication skills, which included active listening and asking questions, explained lead author of the study Mindy Kahlon, associate professor of public health and senior principal at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin to CNN.

"Sometimes the agenda is to just feel they have control," Kahlon said, "they may not have control over other aspects of their lives, but they can control the conversation," she explained.

More on Walla!

• Scientists have shown how loneliness is reflected in the human brain

• In this country more people have died from suicide than from Corona in the last year

• The first aid button that accompanies anywhere and anytime

In the first week, volunteers called participants five days during the week at times chosen by participants.

In the following weeks, participants chose whether to receive less than two calls a week or up to five calls.

The call was a little over ten minutes in the first week, Kahlon said, but they dropped to 10 minutes later in the study, which lasted a month.

Participants discussed a variety of topics, including their daily lives and asked about the lives of the volunteers.

Both participants who received phone calls and the control group who did not suffer from loneliness, anxiety, and depression were measured on a scientific scale at the beginning and end of the month.

The researchers also measured the anxiety and depression of the study subjects because these disorders may be affected by the conversations.

A little conversation a day can make a difference.

Woman uses her smartphone (Photo: ShutterStock)

In the three-question UCLA Loneliness Scale - a common scientific measure of loneliness - ranging from three to nine, participants in the telephone conversation averaged 6.5 at the beginning and finished at 5.2.

In anxiety and depression, an even greater decrease was recorded, with a decrease of over 30 percent in the GAD-7 scale (generalized anxiety disorder questionnaire) and a decrease of almost 24 percent in the PHQ-8 scale (depression survey), respectively.

These results were "even more pronounced than the effect of loneliness because we did not necessarily expect this level of results," Kahlon said.

"It's important to turn to family and friends if you see them feeling lonely," Kahlon said, "I'm definitely trying to work on my communication with my mom," she added, and she works to prioritize listening to her loved ones and allowing them to have conversations.

If you feel lonely, Kahlon recommends contacting someone on the family network and friends you trust.

This can be difficult because "the reality is that it can only happen if there is someone else interested in you," she said.

She suggested contacting someone you believe would be "non-judgmental and really interested in hearing from you."

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on general

• Share on general

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

0 comments