--- title: 5 Ways Loneliness Can Hurt Your Health description: There's nothing wrong with solitude. Being lonely, however, can harm your health. Here are five ways loneliness can be dangerous. canonical: https://time.com/5009202/loneliness-effects/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-13T20:04:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T18:06:40.837Z article:section: Health og:title: 5 Ways Loneliness Can Hurt Your Health og:description: There are benefits to feeling connected, research shows og:url: https://time.com/5009202/loneliness-effects/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ccc99aa2bcc5221/6988e497bc6cfc27bc3e3ceb/lonliness.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5184 og:image:height: 2916 og:image:alt: Young Woman Sleeping og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 5 Ways Loneliness Can Hurt Your Health twitter:description: There are benefits to feeling connected, research shows twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ccc99aa2bcc5221/6988e497bc6cfc27bc3e3ceb/lonliness.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 5 Ways Loneliness Can Hurt Your Health > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Nov 13, 2017 8:04 PM UTC  Photo Taken In Sarasota, United States Photo Taken In Sarasota, United StatesGetty Images  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Nov 13, 2017 8:04 PM UTC There’s nothing wrong with living alone, and there’s surely nothing wrong with enjoying solitude. Being lonely, however, is a whole different matter. Not only does it feel terrible, it can also harm your health. Here are five ways [loneliness can be dangerous](http://time.com/4741049/loneliness-health-risks/). **—Elevated cortisol:** Loneliness can cause stress, which your body interprets as danger. In response, it releases the hormone cortisol, explains [Julianne Holt-Lunstad](https://fhssfaculty.byu.edu/FacultyPage.aspx?id=jh67), a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University. In occasional bursts, cortisol gins up your cardiovascular and immune systems, up-regulates your metabolism and more. That’s fine intermittently, but chronically elevated cortisol can dysregulate those same systems, contributing to heart disease, diabetes, cancer and more. **—Chronic inflammation:** We tend think of inflammation as the overheated, reddened skin around a bite or a wound. That’s part of the inflammatory process, but so is a more systemic release of blood proteins that prep the immune system to deal with danger or injury. As with cortisol, loneliness-related stress can cause inflammation to become chronic, says [Dr. Robert Waldinger](http://www.massgeneral.org/doctors/doctor.aspx?id=18879), director of Harvard University’s [Adult Development Survey](http://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/). And as with elevated cortisol, that can lead to a host of diseases. **—Poor diet:** Not everyone who spends a lot of time alone eats a pint of ice cream straight from the container and calls it dinner. But people who live together are likelier to cook together or go out to for meals together — and to put more thought into what they eat, too. Choosing and preparing your meals carefully is less likely when you’re alone and lonely — as many studies, including [ one in the _International Journal of Eating Disorders_,](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eat.20221/full) have shown — especially if you’re trying to medicate sadness or depression with food. **—Too much booze:** There are few things that are better at preventing you from pouring yourself just one more than having someone around to ask you if you really need one more. It’s far too much to say that loneliness drives people to drink, but people are likelier to practice moderation in all things when they’re accountable to someone else. As with food, if loneliness leads to depression, excess drinking can be a quick but dangerous route to trying to feel better. This is especially so among people who are middle-aged and older, according to a [2016 study in the _Journal of Aging and Health_](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0898264315589579). **—Too little exercise:** Life on the couch binge-watching TV can look awfully tempting when there’s little else to keep you engaged. But it’s a bad go-to when the loneliness is constant. Holt-Lunstad says that [exercise](http://time.com/collection/guide-to-exercise/) is one of the most effective ways to address loneliness-related gloom. Even a brisk walk can make a significant difference — not least because it puts you in the company of other people. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5009202/loneliness-effects/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5009202/loneliness-effects/"},"headline":"5 Ways Loneliness Can Hurt Your Health","datePublished":"2017-11-13T20:04:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T18:06:40.837Z","description":"There are benefits to feeling connected, research shows","url":"https://time.com/5009202/loneliness-effects/","keywords":["Research","healthytime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ccc99aa2bcc5221/6988e497bc6cfc27bc3e3ceb/lonliness.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jeffrey Kluger","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ccc99aa2bcc5221/6988e497bc6cfc27bc3e3ceb/lonliness.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Young Woman Sleeping","caption":"Young Woman Sleeping","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5009202/loneliness-effects/","name":"5 Ways Loneliness Can Hurt Your Health"}}]}] ```