The Threat of Loneliness

[archerships]

A talk with John Cacioppo

Loneliness also seems to impair people’s self-control, including their ability to stick with a task. In one extraordinary test - in which subjects were asked to taste as many cookies as necessary to rate their flavor - those who were told no one wanted to work with them ate twice as many as those who were told everyone wanted to work with them. Being primed for loneliness also seemed to make the cookies taste better. (The lonely, by the way, eat a fattier diet even outside the lab, although they also substitute pets and computers for human connections.)

Loneliness Associated With Increased Risk Of Alzheimer’s Disease

Lonely individuals may be twice as likely to develop the type of dementia linked to Alzheimer’s disease in late life as those who are not lonely, according to a study by researchers at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center. The study is published in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

Original: craschworks - comments

Comments

[zzzing.livejournal.com]

damn

[ersigh.livejournal.com]

I guess I should get to work on doing all the things I'd rather forget afterward! :p

[cramer.livejournal.com]

Dude. The computer *is* my connection to most other humans :-)

[ivanafox.livejournal.com]

I think perhaps the exception to the lonely diet rule is the phenomenon where single people on the market try hard to eat well in order to stay thin, attractive to attract a mate. But once secure in a relationship, many people tend to plump up. However, being single vs. half of a couple doesn't automatically correlate to lonely vs. not. After all, Chris had 2 Valentine's dates and I only had one...