What is it about?
This study found that loneliness fluctuates significantly day-to-day and isn't just a fixed personal trait. People who feel lonelier on average in daily life or experience more day-to-day fluctuations in loneliness show biological and physical signs of faster aging, including weaker grip strength, slower walking, and higher inflammation. These findings suggest that addressing loneliness as it occurs in daily life, rather than just as a long-term condition, could be important for promoting healthier aging.
Featured Image
Photo by Alex Ivashenko on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This groundbreaking research is particularly timely amid the U.S. Surgeon General's declaration of loneliness as a public health crisis, as it uniquely examines loneliness as a fluctuating daily experience rather than just a stable trait. By revealing how day-to-day feelings of loneliness correlate with physical markers of aging, this work opens new pathways for developing more effective, real-time interventions that could significantly improve health outcomes across the lifespan.
Perspectives
I hope this article will contribute to changing how we think about and capture the experience of loneliness. Most people feel lonely from time to time, but we know very little about how this may impact health and aging. An ideal outcome would be for this work to encourage other researchers to zoom in on the daily level, to focus on how lonely days may be contributing to the public health crisis of social disconnection.
Stephanie Wilson
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Lonely days: Linking day-to-day loneliness to biological and functional aging., Health Psychology, May 2025, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/hea0001426.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
