Even before the Covid pandemic began in 2020, chronic loneliness was a private experience of profound anguish that had become a public health crisis. Since then it has reached new heights. Loneliness assumes many forms, from enduring physical isolation to feeling rejected because of difference, and it can have devastating consequences for our physical and mental health. Jeremy Nobel founded Project UnLonely to bring creativity as well as social and medical strategies to address this societal problem.
In his book Project UnLonely: Healing our Crisis of Disconnection (Avery, 2023), Dr. Nobel unpacks our personal and national experiences of loneliness to discover its roots and to show how we can take steps to find comfort and connection. Dr. Nobel brings together many voices, from pioneering researchers, to leaders in business, education, the arts, and healthcare, to lonely people of every age, background, and circumstance. He discovers that the pandemic isolated us in ways that were not only physical, and that, at its core, a true sense of loneliness results from a disconnection to the self. He clarifies how meaningful reconnection can be nourished and sustained. And he reveals that an important component of the healing process is engaging in creativity, a powerful opportunity he shows us can be accessed by all.
Ron Winslow, a former long-time medical and science reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, is a freelance medical and science journalist.
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