Cort

So oftentimes that itself is just the biggest shift — and it's not as though we're not connected and then we suddenly get connected. It's more that we're realizing and recognizing how incredibly intertwined our lives are with so many other people and things and places and memories. All of this stuff is shaping our experience in every moment, but we just kind of lose sight of that. So it's not even that we're getting connected — we're just realizing that we are connected. That's the big shift: just shifting into that relational space.

Cort

Hey Richie, welcome back for another episode of Dharma Lab. Good to see you.

Richie

Great to see you. Happy to be here.

Cort

So we're here to discuss what is, if not the, certainly one of the most commonly cited scientific studies — especially during the pandemic, when social disconnection became a hot topic. It's this finding that social disconnection — feeling lonely, isolated, alienated, all these different flavors of not feeling connected to the people in your life or to wider society — is toxic. Not only for our mental health and emotional wellbeing, but also, as we'll talk about, for our physical health. The meme you hear all the time is that social disconnection is as toxic as smoking — specifically, smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

I wanted to talk about that today. It's a huge thing in our lives and in our society. Maybe we could start by diving into how prevalent this actually is — that it's reached epidemic levels. What do we know about how widespread these tears in our social fabric are?

Richie

There have been a number of surveys looking at the prevalence of loneliness and social isolation, and depending on what you read, you'll hear varying estimates — but they're all very high. A recent study done in the United States has shown that 76% of Americans report moderate to severe levels of loneliness. These are extremely high numbers. They've been increasing over the years, were certainly exacerbated by COVID, but they're not due to COVID — they preceded it, and they didn't go back down to baseline after COVID. They're still rising. It's really concerning, because these feelings of loneliness and social isolation, as we'll talk about, are not just subjective experiences — they have important consequences for people's lives.

76% of Americans report moderate to severe loneliness — numbers that preceded COVID, weren't caused by it, and haven't come back down.

Cort

Those numbers are staggering. 76% — if you think about that as a health concern, imagine some illness where three quarters of the population were affected. It's kind of mind-boggling how widespread this is.

Richie

It is — and that's precisely what motivated then-Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in 2023 to issue what was the first health advisory ever issued by a Surgeon General of the United States on the health impact of loneliness. Never before had loneliness been called out as a public health issue. This was really the very first time.

Cort

One of the shocking things about the study we'll be discussing is its tie to physical health. Of course we all know that struggling in our relationships feels horrible — but the take-home message here is that it's a physical health issue as well, and just as important to physical health as all the other things we hear about constantly. What's surprising is that you just don't hear about this. If you go to your doctor, they'll ask whether you smoke, check on your diet, your exercise, whether you're overweight. How often do they say, "Hey, how are your relationships? Here are some things you could do to bolster feelings of connection"? It doesn't happen. So maybe we could dive into the physical health piece of this — because I think it's just not intuitive, even though the data is pretty clear.

Richie

Before I get to the study, let me say one thing about that disconnect — it's really a historical consequence of a divide between mind and body that has been around in Western thinking since the time of the Greeks.

Cort

Right — this goes way back to the roots of the Western philosophical tradition.

Richie

Exactly. It's a very pervasive dichotomy that has resulted in modern Western medicine being so fractionated — specialists in different organ systems, without thinking about how those are all connected to one another, and to the mind and the brain. The data on loneliness is really part of a larger picture that is beginning to help us appreciate how factors like loneliness relate to what we think of as systemic biology — biology in the body, below the neck. Our moods, emotions, and demeanor, through activation of different networks in the brain, have communication with the body that influences our physical health. And it's important to recognize that this is a bidirectional pathway — the body also influences the mind and the brain, in some cases even more than the other way around.

Cort

We need to bookmark that for further discussion, because my mind is suddenly spinning. It totally reminds me of maybe the central guiding principle of Buddhist psychology — interdependence. It's essentially systems thinking for the spiritual path: the idea that no phenomenon exists on its own, whether a thought, an emotion, or an instance of suffering. It's all part of a complex web of causes and conditions. To really work with your own mind in a healthy way, you need that systems perspective. But let's put a pin in that and come back to the study. So — back to the meta-analysis. What's behind the "15 cigarettes a day" finding? How true to the actual data is that?

Richie

This is a meta-analysis published in 2015 by Holt-Lunstad — a hyphenated name — and we'll put a link in the bio for anyone who wants to read it. It aggregated findings from 46 different studies involving almost 2,000 total participants — 1,970-something. They examined the relationship between different measures of loneliness and social isolation and their relationship specifically to mortality, and to premature mortality. They were also able to account for a number of other known risk factors — things like smoking and exercise — to isolate the unique effects of loneliness and social isolation after controlling for those variables.

The big bottom line is that loneliness and social isolation is a very significant risk factor for premature mortality. The data actually show that it is a more significant risk factor for premature mortality than smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day — which is kind of astounding.

Loneliness and social isolation is a greater risk factor for premature mortality than smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day — across 46 studies involving nearly 2,000 participants.

Cort

And that itself was at the top of the list relative to obesity, diet, exercise — all the things we commonly think of as the main drivers of physical health.

Richie

Talking about obesity specifically — loneliness is more than double the risk factor of obesity for premature mortality.

Loneliness is more than twice as significant a risk factor for premature mortality as obesity — yet it gets a fraction of the public health attention.

Cort

That's shocking. And if you think about how the healthcare system is designed around specific risk factors — obesity being the obvious one — these days, with all the GLP-1 inhibitors, this is big business. Nobody's found the business model for kindness and compassion. I don't want to get too jaded and skeptical, but why hasn't this become as prominent in our public health conversation as it should be, given the data? We're talking about large-scale epidemiological data involving hundreds of thousands of people. These aren't small studies.

Richie

One of the silver linings in findings like these is that loneliness and social isolation is actually something we can address ourselves. We are genuinely in control of our own minds, and we can make a difference in our experience of loneliness — which may in turn have all kinds of beneficial downstream effects on the kinds of outcomes we see in the research.

Cort

I'd love to talk about the practice side. But first — do we know the mechanisms through which loneliness impacts our physical health to such a degree? If you think about poor diet or lack of exercise, the connection to health outcomes is fairly direct and intuitive. But why would feeling lonely have such a huge effect on our physical health, even our risk of dying at any given stage of life?

Richie

The most honest answer is that we don't fully know. But there are mechanisms we can point to as likely contributors. One has to do with stress reactivity — and specifically with something we've studied extensively at the Center for Healthy Minds. One of the ways we think about resilience is in terms of how quickly we recover from adversity. People who recover quickly are more resilient; people who recover more slowly are less resilient. And when we are lonely, for a variety of reasons, we recover more slowly. That's something that, accumulated over time, can be really toxic to our physical health.

Cort

Let's go back to what you said a moment ago — that these are largely experiences within our control. We can influence how connected or disconnected we feel at any given point in time. When it comes to connection, if we hold the idea that it's a skill — something you can practice and train — that's very much echoed in contemplative and meditative traditions. What does the science say? Is there evidence that you can directly intervene on that feeling of connection?

Richie

Yes — there is evidence that we can directly intervene. There's a whole category of meditation practices within the domain of what we call connection practices. They include practices to cultivate kindness toward others, compassion, appreciation, and gratitude. These can be really simple and quite short — and they don't have to be formal meditation practices. They can be things we sprinkle through our everyday life. These simple practices can really help us feel more connected to those around us, even people we don't know. They're very accessible.

Cort

I'm a complete nerd when it comes to meditative systems, and I've been fascinated over the years by different models for training these skills. The idea of kindness or compassion as a skill — something you learn and practice — appears across many traditions. In the Buddhist tradition, there's a very systematic process where you start where it's easiest to feel connection. The first thing you learn is how to trigger that feeling of connection.

If you were to spend time with Tibetans, they'd be talking about their mothers all the time. Tibetan culture treats mothers almost as deities. For Tibetans, that's the easiest anchor — you think of your mother and the love you've received. Of course, when Tibetan teachers came to the West, they quickly learned that we have slightly more complex feelings about our parents, so they adapted. But the key is: start with whatever is easiest. Your pet, a child, a dear friend — whatever brings you that feeling of connection. You start there.

Cort

Then the practice is to gradually extend from that starting point. You don't immediately jump to your most complicated, difficult relationship. It's a very methodical expansion — you learn to elicit and savor that feeling of connection, then extend it a little further each time. It's almost like pushing the boundaries of your care and compassion outward, further and further, until eventually — if you do this for a lifetime — nothing is left out. You go beyond the people you already know to what you might think of as neutral people — though they're only neutral because you don't know them yet. That might be the barista at your coffee shop, or a clerk at the grocery store. And then eventually even people who are difficult for you. In the Buddhist tradition, ultimately all beings — all forms of life.

This is years, even decades of practice. But it's all in service of taking something like kindness and treating it as a skill — something malleable. There are centuries, even millennia, of accumulated wisdom in these traditions on how to do this. That wisdom is in pretty short supply today.

Richie

And the science shows that if you take people who have never meditated before and teach them exactly the kind of skill training you're describing — starting with someone easy and close to you, then gradually expanding — but do this for just two weeks, no more than 30 minutes a day, a maximum of seven hours total — your brain can actually change.

We've shown that, and there's other research confirming it. It really doesn't take that much to get these networks in the mind and the brain going — and we often say that's because our inherent nature is actually to be kind to others. Research indicates that even very young infants show a proclivity toward kindness. But it requires nurturing for that to be strengthened, made robust, and extended. That's exactly what this training builds upon.

Just two weeks of practice — no more than 30 minutes a day, seven hours total — is enough to produce measurable changes in the brain. The capacity for kindness is inherent; it simply needs to be trained.

Cort

That fits perfectly with the meditative view — that it's actually quite easy to make the shift from feeling disconnected to feeling connected. The challenges are twofold. One is simply remembering to do it. Out of habit, we get caught up in our conditioned modes of being in the world and just forget. We're running a script in our minds all the time — and usually it's not the compassion and kindness script. The other challenge is that it's a lot easier to make that switch than to sustain it. So a lot of the practice is almost learning to savor — to stay in that place of connection, to rest in it, to immerse oneself in it.

Even as we're talking right now, I've had these little moments throughout our conversation. People watching have probably been wondering what's over your left shoulder, Richie. Those are katas — white silk scarves, a beautiful tradition in Tibetan culture. When you meet someone, or when someone returns from a trip, or when you're meeting an important person — if you go to meet the Dalai Lama, for instance — you offer them a silk scarf, and they offer one back. That first connection is an act of generosity, where each person gives something to the other.

And I'm guessing those are katas you've received from the Dalai Lama?

Richie

Yes — a small sample of them.

Cort

I imagine you have twenty pounds of them in a closet. But it's a perfect little example of what you're talking about — just as you were speaking, I saw those, as I do every time we talk. Knowing they were likely given to you by His Holiness, I immediately had a memory of seeing you two together — touching heads, the traditional Tibetan greeting — and just the love and affection between you, every time I've seen you interact. It immediately put me in a feeling of connection. Just a moment, not even a deliberate reflection — but it sparked that warmth.

That's an example of just that little shift in perspective — noticing something that elicits warmth, affection, kindness, whatever flavor of connection — and doing that throughout your day. It doesn't require sitting down, closing your eyes, and meditating. It's just that little shift. And over time, as you've often said, it moves from being a fleeting state to a more enduring trait.

Richie

One of the things you mentioned, which I think is so important, is that this is a very simple prescription — and yet we often forget to do it when we get caught up in the activities of daily life. So the question becomes: are there things in your daily life that can serve as natural reminders?

For me, one always-helpful reminder is eating. We all eat — typically a few times a day. That's an opportunity. One thing we can do when we eat is simply reflect on all the people it took to have fruit on our plate, and allow a sense of appreciation and gratitude for being able to have food that sustains us. It also helps us experience a sense of interconnection. It's a simple connection practice we could do every single day, just in our own mind — takes a few seconds.

Another example: I travel a lot for work — I was just in New York this week. Changing planes in the Detroit airport, rushing from one gate to another, I remembered: here I am in the airport — this is my laboratory for connection practice. Everyone around me is also stressed, getting between planes. Just looking at them, recognizing that they're the same as me, wishing them to be happy, to be free of suffering, sending a little smile. And if there's an opportunity to help — taking someone's luggage and putting it in the overhead rack — you do that. Those are the kind of everyday moments that, done regularly, really do add up.

Cort

It's amazing. As many of you who've listened before know, I struggled with a lot of social anxiety early in life. I have vivid memories of being surrounded by other people and feeling totally alone. And there's really interesting science behind this — often it is the perception of loneliness and disconnection that's more predictive of important mental health outcomes than the more objective reality of how many people you're physically surrounded by.

Someone observing me at those moments might have said, "He's surrounded by people — his friends, people he knows and likes. He must be feeling very connected." But I wasn't. I felt profoundly disconnected, even in college surrounded by people I knew. I've also had experiences of being completely alone — long periods of solitary retreat, sometimes not talking for months, not seeing anyone for extended stretches — and felt profoundly connected.

The external circumstances aren't totally irrelevant — they also matter. But how we feel about our situation may be the most important thing. And what you just shared — the airport story — is a perfect illustration: so often we move through life absorbed in our own inner world, lost in our thoughts, loosely connected to what's going on around us. The shift is suddenly opening up to all the connections we already have — to everything around us, or even beyond our immediate surroundings, like the people who prepared our food. So it's not even that we're getting connected — we're just realizing that we already are. That's the big shift.

"It's not even that we're getting connected — we're just realizing that we already are." The practice isn't creating connection from scratch. It's learning to see what's already there.

Richie

To frame this as a scientific question: is it the subjective experience of social isolation or connection that's the key determinant, or is it actual physical proximity to others?

Cort

Like how many people you meet and interact with in a given day?

Richie

Exactly. And the research is mixed. There are some studies that clearly find it's the subjective experience that is the key determinant. The big meta-analysis by Holt-Lunstad on loneliness and premature mortality showed that the effects on increased mortality among people who are lonely or socially disconnected occurred independent of which measure was used — so these effects seemed to be present across different ways of measuring the construct. We don't fully understand it yet. Part of it may simply be a measurement issue. Sometimes people assume that scientists studying loneliness all share a common understanding of how to measure it — but that's still very much an evolving area of science in its own right. Some of the disagreement in the literature may at least partly reflect differences in how these constructs are measured.

Cort

So fascinating. I think one thing we can all agree on is that this is an incredibly urgent public health need right now. The scale of social disconnection — individually, but also between different groups, cultures, countries, political factions, religions — the list is long, and the suffering it creates is tragic. This may be one of the most urgent things to work on in our era. The fact that there are ancient practices that can widen the circle, that can loosen the rigidities of disconnection — this is not a luxury. It's a necessity for us as a species. Any final thoughts?

Richie

I very much agree that it's an extraordinarily urgent problem of our time. And I'd add: changing it is easier than we think. By doing these little things — sprinkling them through our daily life and doing them consistently — the research shows, and our experience as practitioners confirms, that it really can make a difference.

Cort

So important, Richie. A wonderful discussion. Hopefully all of you listening found something of value here, and we hope to see you soon for another episode of Dharma Lab. Take care.

Richie

Thank you.