Anonymoususer1234

Anonymoususer1234

Experienced
Apr 13, 2023
216
I read in some pop-psychology article a couple years back (I can't recall the the specific source) that chronic loneliness is worse for physical and mental health than smoking 30 cigarettes per day. I'm sceptical to say the least. Loneliness can't give you cancer.
 
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Nori

Nori

Nori
Dec 23, 2023
21
Your body buckles and falls apart under stress for sure. When I was super bad into my ED I ended up getting some necrotizing gum shit that my dentist was shocked to see. Said that it had to have been influenced from the stress of my ED and just my stress in general. 30 cigarettes is a lot though so I dont know about that in a race with stress haha.

Either way, your body definitely does get affected by reoccurring stress, so chronic loneliness messing you up makes sense. If I can recall correctly there is a link with stressa and cancer btw
 
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sick.faery

sick.faery

Mar 18, 2021
284
i heard loneliness is as bad as smoking 15 cigs a day..
 
ijustwishtodie

ijustwishtodie

death will be my ultimate bliss
Oct 29, 2023
5,215
I think it depends on the severity of loneliness experienced. For mild cases of loneliness, I really doubt it. For more severe cases of loneliness, I definitely believe that this is the case. Also, I think it depends on how much one craves friendship too. Humans are social animals but some crave more friendship and connection than others do. Also, in the case of loneliness, it can be more detrimental than just not having people to talk to. Loneliness also means relying on things alone which is really difficult to do. Loneliness means that you have to rely on yourself to de stress during a stressful situation (and stressful situations are inevitable in life) and some, or maybe most, people tend to calm down with a friend or partner

I don't really know anything about how people are happy but, if I were to give an assumption, I'd assume that most people are happy because they aren't lonely, because they have, or they think they have, people who care of them and people who they can rely on during hard times (which, once again, hard times are inevitable in life)
 
Slow_Farewell

Slow_Farewell

Warlock
Dec 19, 2023
709
I smoke, and honestly i've never attempted to correlate smoking with loneliness.
Generally speaking I smoke more if i dont have anything to do, but not because during those moments i feel "lonely".
 
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Rogue Proxy

Rogue Proxy

Enlightened
Sep 12, 2021
1,316
Considering that it's pop-psychology article, I certainly wouldn't take it as gospel. In fact, the article's title stinks of scaremongering.

For starters, does this article clearly differentiate between being alone vs. being lonely? Solitude isn't synonymous with loneliness. Someone can still engage in regular human interactions, have various types of relationships (e.g. platonic, familial, professional, romantic, sexual, ect.), and easy access to various social benefits, but deep down, be just as miserable and unhealthy or even worse than in solitude. There are individuals who are highly introverted, loners, asocial, and/or have little to no social orientation towards humans, and are very much healthy. Some even thrive the best alone, and gain various benefits from solitude (e.g. more peace and calmness, less stress, little to no distractions, greater creativity and imagination, more energy, more freedom, more independence, greater self-knowledge, ect.). For romantic and sexual relationships, there are many who aren't interested in them and are in good to excellent health. Cases in point, asexuals and aromantics. In short, human interactions and relationships aren't the health panacea for everyone.

Keep in mind that these studies focus on average neurotypicals. So far, I haven't found any non-biased, peer-reviewed scientific articles on individuals who thrive in solitude and/or aren't socially oriented to humans. One of the challenges could be locating enough asocial humans for a good sample size. Perhaps there isn't enough funding or motivation to conduct these observations. Nevertheless, the dearth of research in asociality and alternative social orientations leaves a significant gap in fully comprehending human psychology and even health.

Bottom line, everyone has different psychological and social needs. Not everyone experiences negative health consequences from lack of human contact or relationships.
 
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TheSpookyNameGuy

TheSpookyNameGuy

There's nothing here..
Apr 30, 2023
646
Either way ill take that loneliness and raise you some cuban cigars.

Nothing i enjoy more than being a recluse with a tub of H.Uppmans
 
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Disappointered

Disappointered

Enlightened
Sep 21, 2020
1,283
I believe it could easily be true for certain people. Aside from the quantity of cigs mentioned, it is true for almost all people that being lonely takes a toll on both mental and physical health and will shorten their lives on average. The people who live longest are usually happy campers who found something to do in life that they enjoyed and are entrenched in a community. I wouldn't be surprised if whether they smoke or not turns out to offset their good health to such a negligible degree as to be irrelevant.
 
EvisceratedJester

EvisceratedJester

|| What Else Could I Be But a Jester ||
Oct 21, 2023
3,652
So, I've never heard that claim before and decided to look it up. One of the first things to pop up were media articles claiming that "loneliness as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day". I got curious and decided to look into where they were getting this claim from. An article by the CBC sourced it from "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation" by The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community.

I decided to search specifically for the word "smoking" and I came across the claim on page 4, titled "Letter from the Surgeon General". Then I went down to the references and googled the study they were citing. I Skimmed through the study and then searched for the words "smoking" and "cigarettes" and couldn't find this claim anywhere. At first I was confused and then I looked again and found where they got that claim from:

nihms840818f1.jpg


However, the paper mentions:

In evaluating these statistics, it is important to note that structural and functional measures are weakly correlated (20–30% shared variance) suggesting that (1) these measures tap into different aspects of relationships with potentially different pathways to health; (2) there may be a larger prevalence of those who lack social connectedness on at least one dimension; and, (3) those who lack social connectedness on multiple dimensions may carry greater risk. Thus, current estimates of severity are conservative and assessing the risk conferred by lack of social connections should be done in a multi-factorial manner.

The researchers themselves never explicitly made the the whole "15 cigarettes" claim. It seems as though the claim was made by Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy and news articles and pop-psych sites just ran with it and claimed that it was from WHO for some reason.

So it seems as though the claims surrounding around the idea of "loneliness is worse than smoking" comes from some literature review.

Here it is, if you want to read it:
 
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TheShadowKing

TheShadowKing

≽^- ˕ -^≼
Dec 5, 2023
178
Both can lead to death 🤷🏽‍♂️
 
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Suicidebydeath

Suicidebydeath

No chances to be happy - dead inside
Nov 25, 2021
3,559
I read in some pop-psychology article a couple years back (I can't recall the the specific source) that chronic loneliness is worse for physical and mental health than smoking 30 cigarettes per day. I'm sceptical to say the least. Loneliness can't give you cancer.
The stress alone slowly kills you.
 
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N

Nofuture1234

Member
Jan 25, 2024
59
I would rather be better looking and taller and have a girlfriend who's attracted to me and also only have 5 years to live, than live the life I'm doomed to now. If I could have that I wouldn't be actively, deliberately destroying my mind and body with drugs if that was attainable to me.
So I would say absolutely.
I read in some pop-psychology article a couple years back (I can't recall the the specific source) that chronic loneliness is worse for physical and mental health than smoking 30 cigarettes per day. I'm sceptical to say the least. Loneliness can't give you cancer.
Wouldn't that be nice if it did give me cancer.
 
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K

Kit1

Enlightened
Oct 24, 2023
1,099
Loneliness is supposed to be worse than smoking, drinking, drugs and is apparently more destructive than any of those and causes health challenges and early death.
 
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NumbItAll

NumbItAll

expendable
May 20, 2018
1,104
Two different kinds of problems I think. As someone who is chronically and hopelessly lonely, I don't think I would take up smoking in exchange for a gf because smoking is disgusting. I'd probably trade 10 years off my lifespan for a gf though.
 
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Rapière

Rapière

On the brink
Jul 7, 2022
249
Reversed causality. Health issues cause loneliness much nore than loneliness causes health issues.
 
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Disappointered

Disappointered

Enlightened
Sep 21, 2020
1,283
Reversed causality. Health issues cause loneliness much nore than loneliness causes health issues.
But loneliness in itself is still terrible for physical health to the point that comparing it to smoking isn't inappropriate. A lot of people are lonely because of factors other than their physical health and I believe they will, as a result, end up with worse physical health and a shorter lifespan. The shorter lifespan is the only upside.
 

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