Women Personality and Mental Health

Do you often feel lonely, or have an old family member who often complains about being lonely ? Or think that loneliness is something natural to be experienced when you grow older ? You should be careful. The impact of chronic loneliness is not only felt psychologically, but also physically. Actually, the physical impact of loneliness is just as big as what caused by obesity or smoking.

With a growing concern about the increasing of chronic loneliness case numbers, Age UK Oxfordshire, Counsel and Care, Independent Age and WRVS have joined in the Campaign to End Loneliness. They demanded more attention from health professionals about the relation between loneliness and various health risks. They also demanded more concern among people about loneliness and the impact, especially to elderly people.

About 1 from 10 elderly people in the world suffers for chronic loneliness, which is increasing the risks of depression and lack of sport activity, as well as bad eating habit.

According to Andrew Barnett from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which supported the Campaign to End Loneliness, only 1 from 5 person out of 2,200 respondents who has ever read or heard of information about the risks of chronic loneliness. Now, more than a half numbers of 75 years old people are living alone.

“We have to consider emotional and psychological implications about the growing numbers of elderly people,” Barnett said.

The World Health Organization also judges loneliness as the contributor of health risks with higher impact than smoking, and the same with diabetes. There are also many scientific reports that show positive correlations between loneliness and degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer.

Recently, the increasing case of loneliness among elderly people is mainly caused by the growing rate of life expectancy, while at the same time many families often decide to live separatedly, once they get settled, married, having new job, or having children.