Image: Together by Len Lantz (CC BY-NC-ND)
Synopsis: Len's Star Rating: 10 out of 10. An eye-opening book on the harmful impact of loneliness and the power of connection to heal its wounds.
BY LEN LANTZ, MD, author of unJoy / 11.24.2023; No. 117
Disclaimer: Yes, I am a physician, but I’m not your doctor and this article does not create a doctor-patient relationship. This article is for educational purposes and should not be seen as medical advice. You should consult with your physician before you rely on this information. This post also contains affiliate links. Please click this LINK for the full disclaimer.
Star Rating – 10 out of 10
Rating guide: 1 = horrible, 5 = average and 10 = wow
Author
Vivek Murthy
About the author
Vivek Murthy, MD, is a physician specializing in internal medicine and the Surgeon General of the United States. He has served as Surgeon General both under Presidents Obama and Biden. He earned his BA from Harvard, his MD from Yale, and his MBA from the Yale School of Management. Dr. Murthy has co-founded several organizations including VISIONS (an HIV/AIDS education program in India), Swasthya (a community health partnership in rural India that trains women as educators and health providers), TrialNetworks (a software company), and Doctors for America (a progressive physician organization with a focus on public health and affordable healthcare).
General description
Together is a book on the increasing epidemic of loneliness in the United States and what to do about it. Dr. Vivek Murthy shares a variety of stories depicting the negative impact of loneliness and how to improve relationships and create connections with others. Dr. Murthy arranged his content into two sections, “Making Sense of Loneliness” and “Building a More Connected Life,” and he offers four key strategies for strengthening ourselves and others:
Spend time each day with those you love (at least 15 minutes each day).
Focus on each other (with your full attention).
Embrace solitude (build a stronger connection with yourself).
Help and be helped (serve others and be willing to ask for and receive help).
Unique and most important aspects
In Together, Dr. Vivek Murthy makes a compelling case for the negative health and societal problems that can be attributed to more and more people experiencing loneliness in the US. He shares how loneliness is associated with cardiovascular disease, dementia, anxiety, and depression and discusses steps we can take to reduce loneliness. While we are trusting each other less and less over time, Dr. Murthy shares stories of people who are making positive strides in their polarized communities by enhancing connections with each other. Amazingly, Dr. Murthy was working to learn about and combat loneliness in our country long before the COVID-19 pandemic. His timely book was released near the start of the pandemic, and I’m certain that it helped a multitude of readers who were dealing with social distancing, quarantine, and the harmful damage to our social fabric during the first months and years of the pandemic.
While there is more research available on the harmful effects of loneliness, there is less evidence on what to do about it. Author Vivek Murthy makes up for this by providing many case examples of what people are doing in their communities to combat loneliness. His stories serve to engage the reader to consider what action they could take in their own communities. Dr. Murthy also gives hope to readers through inspiring stories of connection, which lift the tone of an otherwise sad and demoralizing topic. The author’s subtitle, The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, is an accurate description of what the reader can hope to find in this book. Important features of this book include:
· Explaining the differences between intimate, relational, and collective loneliness
· Distinguishing loneliness from solitude
· Sharing about the extreme stress response takotsubo (“broken heart syndrome”)
· Describing the impact of “men sheds” and “Space Gathering”
· Covering RULER, an emotional fitness curriculum for youth
Best quotes
“Giving and receiving, both, strengthen our social bonds—checking on a neighbor, seeking advice, even just offering a smile to a stranger six feet away, all can make us stronger.”
“People didn’t easily volunteer these stories. Many were embarrassed to admit how alone they felt. This shame was particularly acute in professional cultures, like law and medicine, that promote self-reliance as a virtue.”
“The irony is that the antidote to loneliness, human connection, is also a universal condition.”
“According to a 2018 report by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 22 percent of all adults in the US say they often or always feel lonely or socially isolated.”
“Julianne’s study showed that people with strong social relationships are 50 percent less likely to die prematurely than people with weak social relationships.”
“Helen’s approach to helping Enid followed a practice known as social prescribing. Clinicians recommend—or “prescribe”—resources and activities in the community that can help patients forge healthy social connections.”
“The late Dr. John Cacioppo was the first to liken loneliness to hunger and thirst, identifying it as a necessary warning signal with biochemical and genetic roots.”
“John Cacioppo determined that our threat perception changes when we’re lonely, so we push people away and see risk and threat in benign social opportunities.”
“These studies and others like them have confirmed something most people suspected: rejection hurts. But they also showed that emotional and physical pain are both processed by the brain in very similar ways.”
“These three circles of connection roughly correspond to the three dimensions of loneliness: Intimate, Relational, and Collective. We all need close friends and intimate confidantes with whom we share deep bonds of mutual affection and trust. We need casual friends and social relationships that offer shared support and connection. And we need to belong to communities of people—neighbors, colleagues, classmates, and acquaintances—with whom we experience a sense of collective purpose and identity.”
“Each kid seemed to experience a wide spectrum of fleeting emotions online, sometimes without any provocation or obvious explanation, throughout the day. Ruston also noticed that many kids didn’t know how to manage or even identify these ‘microemotions.’”
“To date, more than two thousand public, private, independent, and parochial schools have implemented RULER worldwide, and data from many of the schools show that the program meaningfully shifts the emotional climate of the classroom.”
Who would enjoy this book?
Readers interested in a book on loneliness that offers strategies for individual and community action are likely to enjoy Together.
Who would not enjoy this book?
Readers seeking either an academic text or a book focusing primarily on religious or political solutions for the epidemic of loneliness are unlikely to enjoy Together.
Conclusion
Together is an eye-opening book on the harmful impact of loneliness and the power of connection to heal its wounds.