Ideas in Action: Helping fight loneliness, writing one letter at a time.
It’s hard to believe that since 2020, COVID-19 has so profoundly affected all our lives and still it is finding ways to redefine our lives in significant ways. At the beginning of the pandemic, life as we knew it was brought to a halt. There were daily reminders of the dangers illness posed to daily life. Confined to our houses and unable to see friends and family for extended periods of time, we were lonely . We all were. Loneliness has been a problem in many communities for a long time. The pandemic made it worse. As humans, we crave social interactions not just for socio-emotional reasons but it turns out our brains have evolved to seek safety in numbers and as a result, loneliness is registered as a threat, triggering the “fight or flight” response resulting in raised heart rate, increase in blood pressure and blood sugar levels, extra inflammatory response and often resulting in fewer antibodies to fight other infections such as those caused by viral or bacterial pathogens. A...