Loneliness and the Aging Brain
By Makena Wood, B.Sc. Neuroscience student
In some of our previous blog posts about the aging brain, we have explored how maintaining healthy habits and assessing the quality of your diet, exercise, and sleep can help maintain the health of your body and brain as you age. While these are all very important to brain health and healthy aging, for reasons discussed in those previous blog posts, they are physical measures of health and therefore much easier to monitor and to affect change in when compared to a social or emotional issue like loneliness. Loneliness has been identified as a health concern for older adult populations, as it predicts cardiovascular disease and other causes of mortality (Freak-Poli et al, 2021; Barnes, 2022). Additionally social isolation and loneliness are important factors to consider when looking to engage in play, as play may be affected by lack of participants or negative thoughts or emotions associated with loneliness. Thus, loneliness can bring about adverse health outcomes for both your mind and body. To prevent these outcomes, this blog will focus on providing both an understanding of loneliness and helpful resources for those experiencing social isolation and the feeling of loneliness.
Defining and understanding loneliness literature
First, it is important to understand that there is a difference between social isolation and loneliness.
- Social isolation is the objective measure of having few social relationships or opportunities for social contact (National Academies of Sciences, as cited in Freak-Poli et al., 2021).
- Loneliness is the subjective negative emotion that accompanies isolation (National Academies of Sciences, as cited in Freak-Poli et al., 2021). However, in this way, isolation may also be subjective, and so a person’s subjective feeling of loneliness may be the result of a feeling of emotional isolation rather than physically having little contact with others.
In many reports on the effects of loneliness and social isolation, authors will address one or the other as a cause, and it helps to understand which measure (the objective or the subjective) they are referring to.
For example, let’s compare two articles on the health effects of loneliness and social isolation:
- An article by Freak-Poli et al. (2021) examined the effects of social isolation and perceived loneliness on the development of and mortality due to cardiovascular disease. They found that social isolation had a more significant effect on later-life cardiovascular health than perceived loneliness.
- An article by Sundström et al. (2019) discusses the increased risk for all-cause dementia and Alzheimer’s disease involved in experiencing loneliness and social isolation. Relative to Freak-Poli et al.’s article, they focus instead on perceived loneliness being the culprit.
Once you feel confident in your ability to recognize whether you yourself are experiencing social isolation, loneliness, or possibly both, you can hopefully recognize which risks presented by scientific literature are relevant to you. This can apply to loneliness and any other aspect of health and wellness related to aging.
Effects on the brain
As described by Sundström et al. (2019), perceived loneliness increases the risk of all-cause dementia. Given this, loneliness must surely have some effect on the brain. Here are some theories presented often in the literature discussed by Sundström et al.:
- “Use it or lose it” theory:
o In general, this theory suggests that areas of the brain that are not stimulated will atrophy. When a brain area atrophies, so too do the skills that were maintained and represented by this area of the brain. Social activities have a stimulating effect on the brain, and when we experience social isolation or loneliness, this lack of stimulation leads to brain atrophy that may be related to the higher risk of all-cause dementia. (Hultsch et al. (1999) as cited in Sundström et al., 2019)
- Cognitive reserve theory:
o In general, this theory suggest that environmental factors can build synaptic density in the brain, resulting in cognitive networks that are both more efficient and better involving other networks to compensate for age-related changes in the brain. Social interaction is one of those environmental factors that can help to build cognitive reserve (the increased synaptic density) and is therefore important to maintain throughout your lifespan as age changes your brain. (Scarmeas & Stern (2004) as cited in Sundström et al., 2019)
- Social threat:
o Prolonged loneliness can develop into feelings of being unsafe, and therefore lead to an increased perception of social threat. This heightened arousal can activate inflammatory responses in the body which may be a possible link between social isolation and loneliness to dementia. (Hawkley & Cacioppo (2010); Cole et al. (2015); and Gorelick (2010) as cited in Sundstrôm et al., 2019)
A final health finding related to social isolation that I will highlight is the association between social isolation and poorer sleep quality. Research conducted by Yu et al. (2018) found that older adults experiencing social isolation also had poorer quality of sleep, but that this finding was independent from their subjective experience of loneliness. Based on what we know about the importance of sleep for the health of your brain, especially as you age, this may be another way that social isolation could affect your brain.
Getting connected
In terms of conquering social isolation and loneliness, the former, objective social isolation, is somewhat easier to address. Here are some ways you can fight against social isolation in our community:
- Connect with volunteers from around Lethbridge over the phone through LSCO’s Community Connect: https://lethseniors.com/lsco-community-connect/
- Register for classes through community organizations like LSCO and NordBridge Seniors Center: https://lethseniors.com/programs/ https://nordbridgeseniors.com/virtual-programs/
- Catch a ride around the city or to social events with LSCO’s Drive Happiness: https://lethseniors.com/drivehappiness/
- Brain Knowledge Mornings with BBT at NordBridge Seniors Center is free for anyone 55+ and starting September 10th, 2024! If you’re interested in learning more about the brain AND looking to for opportunities to play fun games and meet new people and volunteers, then Brain Knowledge Mornings are the place to be!
Not only do these programs provide you with activities to do, but they connect you to volunteers, drivers, and potentially new friends to be made along the way. The key to conquering loneliness is to first avoid social isolation. Loneliness can be a deeper feeling to overcome, but with enough time, and by stepping outside of your comfort zone into new places and activities, you may be surprised by how many people of all ages and stages in life are looking to find someone to be less lonely with.
References
Barnes, T.L., Ahuja, M., MacLeod, S., Tkatch, R., Albright, L., Schaeffer, J.A., & Yeh, C.S. (2022). Loneliness, social isolation, and all-cause mortality in a large sample of older adults. Journal of Aging and Health, 34(6-8), 883-892. https://doi.org/10.1177/08982643221074857
Freak-Poli, R., Ryan, J., Neumann, J.T., Tonkin, A., Reid, C.M., Woods, R.L., Nelson, M., Stocks, N., Berk, M., McNeil, J.J., Britt, C., & Owen, A.J. (2021). Social isolation, social support, and loneliness as predictors of cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality. BMC Geriatrics, 21(711), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02602-2
Sundström, A., Nordin Adolfsson, A., Nordin, M., & Adolfsson, R. (2019). Loneliness increases the risk of all-cause dimentia and Alzheimer’s Disease. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 75(5), 919-926. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbz139
Yu, B., Steptoe, A., Niu, K., Ku, P., & Chen, L. (2017). Prospective associations of social isolation and loneliness with poor sleep quality in older adults. Quality of Life Research, 27(1), 683-691. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-017-1752-9