You can have plenty of friends and still feel it. You can spend most of your time alone and never be bothered by it.

Loneliness is a hard thing to pin down.
But according to a new study, loneliness -- simply being sad as a result of feeling alone -- is contagious within social networks, like catching a bad cold.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago, the University of California-San Diego and Harvard University, was published in the December issue of The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
John Cacioppo, a University of Chicago psychologist and a leading scholar on loneliness, has said that loneliness can be “transmitted” from a lonely person to an­other person, even one who may not be in direct contact with that lonely individual. He said one of the study's most stunning findings was “an extraordinary pattern of contagion that leads people to be moved to the edge of the social net­work when they become lonely.”
The study followed more than 5,000 residents of Framingham, Mass., who were participants in the Framingham Heart study be­tween 1991 and 2001. Researchers regularly asked participants to fill out questionnaires that, in addi­tion to addressing medical history and physical health, measured their depression and loneliness.
Since loneliness has been shown to be a precursor to both physical and mental diseases, Cacioppo said it's important for peo­ple to recognize it -- in themselves and others -- so that no one is iso­lated from a social network.
That's something Barbara Fer­guson, director of the Total Life Connection Physical Therapy and Counseling Center in Montgom­ery, has seen firsthand. When in­terviewed during last month's “Emotional Fitness Walk” in Montgomery -- a first-time event that she organized -- Ferguson said she has worked with clients who assume they are suffering from physical ailments when in fact their problems are symptoms of emotional issues in their lives.
Under the surface
But loneliness can be hard to recognize, prevention and medical expert Dr. Margaret Lewin said. She cites phenomena such as groups of women who work together having synchronized menstrual cycles as an example of how our bodies and minds are affected by those within our social circles -- even when we are not conscious of it.
It's not a perfect analogy, she said, but “there is a lot that goes on that we are not in touch with.”
The researchers found that the origin of the loneliness “contagion” was as much biochemical as emotional. Sometimes loneliness is not conveyed by physical isola­tion but by much smaller signs -- a change in facial expression or in tone of voice -- that can lead a per­son to the social edge and in turn “spread” the sense of loneliness, said Lewin, who is medical direc­tor of the Miami-based Cinergy Health.
She sets up a scenario: Suppose that one member of a book club or church group withdraws from the group because she doesn't feel a connection with the others. Then, another member of the group tries to persuade her to become involved again.
The lonely person may react negatively -- snapping back, for instance -- leading the entire group to give up on her. After that, even with that slight of a change, the other members may become ir­ritable with each other. A couple of them may stop getting along with one another. Generally, a number of them become sad, isolated, lonely.
She said it's the same type of “contagion” that can easily occur in low-income neighborhoods, where adolescents, one by one, step away from their academic paths, abandoning the schoolroom norms. Tempted by their peers who are increasingly involved with drugs and crime, they end up on the outskirts of society.
Reversing the trend
Health experts maintain that emotional fitness is a vital component of physical health. And now that science has found that loneliness, like the flu, can be spread, is an outbreak at hand?
Helping lonely friends and loved ones in our lives is one way people can counteract loneliness, Lewin said. One unexpected method is to engage that person in the act of giving -- of volunteering their time, for instance. For the lonely person, giving -- a way of interacting that doesn't involve in­debtedness -- might be easier than accepting.
Lonely people aren't likely to seek interaction, but it's what they need, she said. If you want to get a lonely friend out of the house and gradually back into the social circle, you might choose to take him to a movie or a concert rather than to dinner or a party. The activity is non-verbal, yet still interactive. And so it helps.
Some of the loneliest people are seniors, experts said. As people reach their 80s and 90s, friends begin to die, and their social circles shrink.
But that could possibly change with the aid of modern technology.
Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Sociology Department are studying the effect of social networking -- the Internet kind -- on residents at assisted living facilities throughout the state, with the college students teaching seniors not only how to use networking skills, but in some cases how to turn on the computer.
These are simple actions that may just transform the seniors' lives, according to Dr. Shelia Cotten, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at UAB. She said the study's purpose is to determine whether training older adults to use computers and the Internet can enhance their quality of life.
Cotten said the research aims to discover whether using Internet social networks will decrease loneliness and ultimately help lower the rate of depression among seniors.
Perhaps the first step in con­quering your own loneliness is to acknowledge it, the researchers said. One positive perspective to come out of the loneliness study is the realization that in your lone­liness, you are not alone. (Source: montgomeryadvertiser.com)