“I realize I sound very existential right now, but I’m telling the truth.”

For most people, the scariest part of getting old is being lonely. When we are young and caught up in the daily grind, it’s easy to overlook the fact that our elderly family and neighbours feel isolated. Truth is that when a person gets old and loses most of their friends, or they simply reach a point where physical limitations make it hard to leave the house and socialize, they can easily spend most of their time indoors and alone.

Sadly, loneliness does far more than just weigh heavily on a person’s emotional well-being. That constant feeling of disconnection leads to a condition of hyper-vigilance, flooding the system with stress hormones and driving up systemic inflammation. The result of such a biological wear-and-tear is toxic and causes immense damage to the person’s immune system and increases the chances of having a stroke, type 2 diabetes, and heart problems.

As reported in a study by the World Health Organization, the effects of loneliness are staggering—surpassing the dangers of obesity and matching the mortality risks of smoking 15 cigarettes a day—and are linked to an estimated 100 deaths every single hour globally.