From Isolation to Purpose
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Older adults are more likely to suffer from social isolation. Loneliness is increasingly being recognized as being bad for our health. The good news is that mattering and belonging can flip the script. Our series explores these and other related concepts.
In the summer of 2023, Vancouver Island resident Linda Fedun was feeling pretty lonely, even though social distancing measures had been lifted the year before.
“The pandemic started it, but it was when my back pain became serious that things got really bad for me,” says the 63-year-old retired daycare worker. “I couldn’t really go out. I’d be out for half an hour and then I’d have to go home in tears.
“Social isolation is hard,” she adds. “Especially since it’s just me and my two cats.”
Many older adults in Canada can relate. It’s hard to pin down exact numbers, but Statistics Canada has estimated about 30 percent of older adults are at risk of experiencing social isolation and, in 2019 and 2020, almost one in five reported feeling loneliness.
Social isolation is defined as having both a low quantity and quality of contact with others. It’s marked by an absence of mutually rewarding relationships and can lead to poor health, loneliness, emotional distress, and other negative health outcomes.
For some, that feeling is chronic. For Fedun, things improved after the doctors figured out a treatment plan for her osteoarthritis last October and she could finally reconnect with her community and get back to things like taking regular walks. One of these took her by an encampment she hadn’t even realized existed, even though it was only a few blocks from her home. There, she recognized an old acquaintance who told her she and her partner had been unhoused for months.
“I went right home and started looking for what I could spare,” says Fedun. “And then I realized it’s more than that. They needed much, much more than that.”
Fedun started asking for help from neighbours through her Nextdoor app, a social networking site that helps people connect with local folks for potlucks, buy-and-sell, and other exchanges. Members of her community responded enthusiastically with food, warm clothing, and propane for a Coleman stove. She organized pick-ups and drop-offs and connected with an advocate for the unhoused who gave her a “crash course” on housing insecurity. The pair launched a Go Fund Me campaign to help their unhoused friends get an apartment.
Social isolation is a thing of the past for Fedun and, perhaps unsurprisingly, so is loneliness. “I have a sense of purpose now,” she says.
For many, though, the answer isn’t as simple as getting back out, largely because social isolation and loneliness are two different things.
Social isolation and loneliness—what’s the difference?
“Social isolation is objective, such as the number of people in your life and how often you interact with them,” says Eddy Elmer, a Vancouver gerontologist and research consultant specializing in aging and mental health. “Loneliness, on the other hand, is more subjective. It’s the feeling that there’s a mismatch between the relationships you want and those you actually have, whether in terms of quantity or, especially, quality.
“One person can be fairly isolated but not feel lonely, whereas another can have a large social network, but feel quite lonely,” Elmer continues. “It all depends on their unique social needs and expectations.”
Since they’re two distinct problems, they require completely different approaches. And, generally speaking, it’s easier to reverse problems associated with social isolation than it is to help people overcome chronic feelings of loneliness.
“It’s probably normal to have some degree of loneliness from time to time,” says Dr. David Conn, a geriatric psychiatrist who works at Baycrest Health Sciences and the University of Toronto. “But for people who feel intense, chronic loneliness, the origins of that are often rooted in early life relationships and how they feel about people in general.”
Despite not being interchangeable, both social isolation and loneliness are associated with a range of negative health outcomes. In older adults, social isolation is correlated with frailty, cognitive decline, and depression, as well as increased chances of a premature death.
“The key word here is ‘correlated’ because establishing causation is not straightforward,” says Elmer. “But studies find that both loneliness and social isolation are associated with increased inflammation, weakened immune function, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and poorer sleep quality.”
That last symptom may be an important piece of the puzzle. According to the evolutionary theory of loneliness, poor sleep is part of a “hyper-vigilant” state triggered by social disconnection. In a nutshell, for early humans who lived in smaller hunter-gatherer tribes and had to work together closely for survival, being alone was dangerous. Loneliness is an unpleasant emotional response that might be an adaptive mechanism, since the pain of being alone can serve as a biological signal to restore social relationships and get back to safety.
Vancouver gerontologist Eddy Elmer: You can be isolated and not lonely; you can also have a wide social circle and still feel lonely. It all depends on one’s needs and expectations.
Mattering is good for the grey matter
Even though way fewer sabre-toothed predators are prowling around these days, being a member of a clan is still the safer and healthier choice for most people. A recent study from Carleton University found that higher belongingness is connected to better health outcomes for people of all ages—but particularly for older adults.
“What we found was that older individuals who felt they belonged to their neighbourhood were about six or seven percent healthier than people who didn’t,” says Mehdi Ammi, Associate Professor at Carleton’s School of Public Policy and Administration. “Belonging reduced most chronic conditions and was preventative in arthritis and anything connected to chronic stress.”
Social psychology proposes that high levels of belonging can help chronic stress, so it may offer a protective benefit to folks who feel like they have a place at the table. Though some positive psychologists say that while belonging is a good start, an even stronger protective benefit can be seen in people who feel like they matter.
“Belonging is fitting in and having a place,” explains Gordon Flett, Honorary President of the Canadian Psychological Association 2024-2025 and former York University Canada Research Chair. “Mattering is feeling a sense of significance and value within that place. For example, a person could be part of a community, but still feel they’re not being taken seriously.”
The correlation between loneliness and the feeling of not mattering is very robust, he says. “The research about loneliness and the elderly show that there are just too many people who don’t have any meaningful engagement of a prolonged nature with the people who matter to them,” Flett continues. “And they’re left to feel lonely. And when people feel alone and insignificant at the same time, we call that ‘double jeopardy’.”
Conversely, mattering is thought to provide a buffer of sorts that protects individuals from significant stress, whether it’s caused by loneliness, caregiving, loss of independence, and even financial issues.
“The bottom line is that knowing people value and care about you is very comforting,” says Flett. “And I think it also means that you’ll be more likely to ask people for help when you need it.”
It can be difficult for older adults to feel valued and have a sense of meaning, especially in North America, where the culture valorizes youth, fails to provide age-inclusive spaces or age-friendly cities, and views health as an individual responsibility as opposed to a collective one. All these things are factors in widespread loneliness amongst Canada’s older adult population.
While we wait for societal changes, many older adults who have the ability are finding ways of aging in community and generating mattering experiences for themselves. For some, that might be grandparenting. For others, it might be volunteering to help other older adults.
“My wife’s uncle Derek, who almost made it to 100 and lived by himself his whole life in Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan, was well-known for his volunteer work,” Flett offers. “He delivered Meals on Wheels to people younger than him into his 90s because he was in great shape.
“I once asked him if he ever felt lonely and he cut me off. He said, ‘Not for a second. Because I know there’s people out there who care. And I can get to them, and they can get to me’.”
Further reading: Home Alone: Aging without support is becoming more prevalent for older people in Canada. How can we stem the tide?
Author: Christine Sismondo is a Toronto writer who hopes to one day live with friends in a communal living project modelled after The Golden Girls. Since it was her idea, she gets to be Dorothy.
