Loneliness in the City: Finding Connection in Urban Life with Prof. Dr. Mazda Adli

00:00:00: As a psychiatrist, I can say that there is no comparable to boot topic.

00:00:05: Time spent in front of your doorstep is social time and helps against loneliness.

00:00:11: We need enough public places because they have a health mission.

00:00:23: I'm super excited for today's episode in which we'll be talking about loneliness in the city.

00:00:29: The two of us are recording from Berlin today, a city that you've called home for almost a decade.

00:00:37: So I'm curious to know how has living here influenced your experience of loneliness?

00:00:43: I think it changed over the years.

00:00:46: I moved here when I was just eighteen and I really enjoyed moving to a city where you could just walk around and nobody knows you and to me that felt very... freeing kind of.

00:00:59: but it definitely also came with getting used to it.

00:01:03: so it took me some time.

00:01:05: I remember in my first flat just being feeling so lonely but I think it also brought me closer to myself.

00:01:15: I kind of found out what I like to do when I'm just by myself and just became I think more confident in being alone.

00:01:25: so I think it was a good decision.

00:01:27: One thing that I actually want to talk about is the loneliness trends over time because people often say that modern life and the changes that come with it lead to social isolation and loneliness.

00:01:41: It's called the lost community hypothesis and big word.

00:01:48: But on the other hand, modern life also comes with a lot of great opportunities.

00:01:54: So I think it's not super easy to make that conclusion and also the data that we have doesn't really indicate a clear trend or increase of loneliness over time.

00:02:06: However, we might be lacking some data or we might need also more, more research and more evaluation over time.

00:02:14: So are people more lonely living in the city or living in more smaller town, rural environments?

00:02:22: It really depends on a lot of other factors.

00:02:27: There is no clear trend indicating that people are actually more lonely in the city or in rural environments.

00:02:35: And so it's really also maybe our challenge or something that we really want to try and understand what actually shapes how people connect and interact.

00:02:49: And communities obviously play a big role.

00:02:54: in that context.

00:02:55: And I know that you have a very beautiful example from your neighborhood here in Berlin.

00:03:04: Would you

00:03:05: mind sharing that with us?

00:03:06: Yes.

00:03:07: We have a WhatsApp

00:03:09: group.

00:03:10: Not only the house that I live in, but the whole four houses.

00:03:16: And I love it so much.

00:03:18: Text each other when they have like too much cake left or they will like hey Do you want to?

00:03:24: should we do a Christmas carol singing?

00:03:26: and I've never had that before.

00:03:28: I think it's a very good example on how like neighborhoods and in a city can can get more close so easily.

00:03:36: Yeah,

00:03:36: yeah, that's beautiful and obviously also such a great opportunity to get support Interaction whatever you might be seeking from the people who actually are so close to you already.

00:03:50: Apart from us as individuals, we also need structural change or structural opportunities to facilitate those encounters, connection, spaces where people meet.

00:04:06: And a field in research that also investigates these influences is the field of neurourbanism.

00:04:15: something that I find very interesting.

00:04:19: It is a very interdisciplinary approach that combines experts from different fields.

00:04:26: So obviously medicine, psychology, but also urban planning, architecture and neurourbanism investigates how urban living influences our well-being.

00:04:40: Something that is, again, so relevant and timely.

00:04:44: And

00:04:45: A very beautiful finding that I want to share here is that urban green spaces like parks or little green spaces on the streets actually have a very positive impact on our physical and mental well-being.

00:05:05: So we shouldn't close Temple of Afeld.

00:05:07: No, we shouldn't.

00:05:08: To build expensive apartments there, yeah.

00:05:10: Exactly.

00:05:11: That should be integrated into how cities are planned, public spaces are planned, and how they facilitate, as I said, people to actually meet and interact.

00:05:23: Yeah, you know what?

00:05:24: I don't want to spoil, but I really love what our guest said in this episode, that it can be beneficial if the spaces, the environment is not... done yet.

00:05:36: So kind of a work in progress space or environment.

00:05:39: But yeah, I don't want to spoil it.

00:05:41: But yeah, should we?

00:05:43: should we introduce our guest yet?

00:05:45: Or you had something else to

00:05:46: say?

00:05:46: No, that's it's perfect.

00:05:47: Okay, who's our guest?

00:05:51: Well, our guest today is Professor Dr.

00:05:53: Master Adli, a psychiatrist, stress researcher and expert on the psychology of cities.

00:06:01: He's been studying how urban living shapes our mental health and what we can do to seek connection living

00:06:08: in cities.

00:06:16: You've written a book called Stress and the City.

00:06:19: What do you think?

00:06:19: What can we do to feel less lonely and less isolated living among so many strangers?

00:06:26: Well, the interesting thing is that people who live in cities have a high risk for experiencing social isolation.

00:06:35: This may correlate with the higher amount of anonymity that we have in our big cities, which at the same time are attractive to many people.

00:06:45: Many people move to big cities to liberate themselves from the social control and order of a rural environment.

00:06:56: do not necessarily cope well with the anonymity they experience when they move into cities.

00:07:03: And this is why in the hustle and bustle of big cities, among the crowd, one may feel disconnected and this leads to loneliness.

00:07:15: Are there measures that we can take ourselves to become more resilient to that stress?

00:07:23: Well, the best antidote that helps against loneliness is social belonging is participation and this is actually what what helps us out of this trap of social isolation especially in big cities?

00:07:44: to step out of your door and connect to your neighborhoods to the people around you.

00:07:53: which at times might be a challenge.

00:07:56: And not everyone feels secure and comfortable with opening himself or herself to others.

00:08:04: But this is also what we can do as urban dwellers to be aware of the fact that there are many people out there who experience loneliness, who suffer from loneliness in the crowd, and to have an open eye and ear for this problem and also try to involve and integrate people who we might see at risk for social isolation.

00:08:34: What I found very interesting in one of your interviews,

00:08:38: you

00:08:38: talked about the perception of stress and that therapeutic approach to reducing stress can also be to try to change the patient's perception of stress.

00:08:50: Is it also possible to try to change your perception of loneliness and can that help in tackling loneliness?

00:08:59: Well, loneliness is a sub-form of stress, of social stress.

00:09:06: And surely it helps to feel more agency towards oneself.

00:09:13: This is what we can do.

00:09:14: But at the same time, it's true that loneliness can be a very, very heavy burden.

00:09:23: But what does help is social support by others, by neighbors, by parts of society, by politics at large when they become more aware of loneliness to be a relevant societal challenge and health burden.

00:09:42: And if the feeling of loneliness becomes so intense that it affects different areas of your everyday life, then of course psychotherapy may help to regain a sense of agency, to regain some feeling of self-efficacy, to be able to change something about the situation.

00:10:07: Because loneliness gets its toxicity by the feeling that you're not able to do anything about it that you're fully exposed to this problem.

00:10:19: Getting this notion, getting this sense of self-efficacy would be an important target in psychotherapy for example, except for social skills of course that also can be trained to make it easier to connect to others.

00:10:38: Another thing that I found very interesting was that brain scans show that the same areas in your brain light up or react when you are in pain than when you are lonely.

00:10:50: We all know that we have painkillers, we have antidepressants.

00:10:54: What role does medication play in treating loneliness?

00:10:58: Well, there is no loneliness pill, unfortunately.

00:11:03: But I also wouldn't expect loneliness to go away by a pharmacist.

00:11:10: ecological intervention because it's a social phenomenon.

00:11:15: Well, loneliness can be seen as a sort of biological alarm signal in the brain, in the mind, which signals and indicates that the level of cooperation has fallen under a critical cutoff so that we are not participating adequately and this can lead to a survival risk from an evolutionary point of view.

00:11:48: Therefore, loneliness is in fact something like a soul pain.

00:11:53: And it's absolutely interesting to realize that the same brain regions are active.

00:12:04: when you feel social isolation or loneliness like the interior singular cortex are active during physical pain.

00:12:13: You live in a city yourself, I think.

00:12:15: So what are some measures or projects that you see or that you maybe are part of that inspire you and give you maybe also a positive outlook on what we can do against loneliness?

00:12:28: Well, one thing that we all can do against loneliness is to do what we both are doing now, to talk about it, to raise awareness.

00:12:43: Talking about loneliness is a very important step to pull this topic out of the taboo zone, to make it easier to speak about it, and this might motivate others to To talk about their loneliness.

00:13:00: and because actually as a psychiatrist who I am I can say that there is really no comparable to boot topic To loneliness.

00:13:13: it's much easier nowadays for people to talk about depression to talk about anxiety to talk about Substance abuse but talking about loneliness is enormously shameful.

00:13:26: so talking about it helps.

00:13:28: and then of course we need enough public place that attract people, that motivate people to spend their time with others.

00:13:40: We need an urban and neighborhood design which motivates people to step out of their doorsteps because time spent in front of your doorstep is social time and helps against loneliness much more than time spent behind your locked door.

00:13:57: So there is also a lot in urban design which we can do and in our research in neurourbanism where we do a very interdisciplinary and actually also transdisciplinary approach we try to also understand which public places help people to connect to others and help to build up a good social cohesion within the urban society, our research results indicate into the same direction.

00:14:35: We need enough public places because they have a health mission.

00:14:39: Can you already give us an example of your findings, what these spaces could look like?

00:14:45: It seems to be attractive for people if a public place is somehow incomplete.

00:14:58: If there is some kind of affordance for people to participate in how a public space is used, how it's shaped, so this sense of incompleteness, this might sound counterintuitive, seems actually helpful for people to spend time on them.

00:15:23: That's super interesting.

00:15:25: So, as we all know, loneliness is incredibly complex and subjective.

00:15:30: But if somebody is listening now and they feel a bit overwhelmed by their loneliness and they don't know where to start, what advice would you give to someone listening right now who feels overwhelmed by their loneliness?

00:15:46: Well, a good idea is to open yourself to someone.

00:15:54: talk to someone, if it might be a family member, it might be a neighbor, it might be someone from your church community, some kind of fellow, or also your doctor could be a good person to start talking about it.

00:16:18: And another practical advice is to Walk out of your door and just try to engage into a mindful walk around your neighborhood.

00:16:35: Ask yourself whether you know how the other people that might share the same house with you, how their names are.

00:16:46: Do you know all the names on the bell plates outside the house?

00:16:53: know which shops exactly are in your street.

00:16:58: Do you know who works in those shops?

00:17:03: Do you know how many trees there are in your street?

00:17:08: if there are any?

00:17:09: So, become and be mindful about details, social details, design details, environmental details.

00:17:19: This is already a good start to engage and participate in your neighborhood and a good basis for a sense of belonging to develop and grow.

00:17:37: One thing that I've listened to in one of your interviews and that I thought was so interesting was that you said that commuting makes you a bit more lonely because you spend so much time going from your home to your workplace.

00:17:51: But you're a big defender on biking to work.

00:17:54: Absolutely.

00:17:55: I don't have a car.

00:17:56: I only have a bike that I am happy to use every day to go to my workplace, to my clinic and back.

00:18:05: And of course, I must say, I'm lucky enough to live in a bikeable distance to my workplace.

00:18:12: And not everyone has this privilege.

00:18:14: I'm absolutely, absolutely aware of that.

00:18:20: It's true that commuting for long times is time which you have to pay for by social connectedness to others, by time you can spend with your family, your friends, etc.

00:18:38: So often enough I'm asked if it's a good idea to move outside a big city, maybe to escape from the noise and the stress of inner city life.

00:18:55: And that's where I often respond.

00:18:58: Well, it might be attractive to live in a greener environment, but it also comes with a social price.

00:19:07: And that's the risk of being a bit more isolated from others.

00:19:16: So for all of us who are living in big cities and who heal us, you say, it's fine.

00:19:20: You can stay living in your city.

00:19:22: Absolutely.

00:19:23: And I also do not want to conclude without saying there is a lot of stress in our cities, but cities at the same time come with an enormous advantage for the people that live in them.

00:19:37: They offer better access to to education, better access to health systems, very good access to culture.

00:19:45: And all of that is called the urban advantage.

00:19:51: And we have to be very aware of that.

00:19:53: But there's also a downside, which is a higher amount of social stress.

00:19:59: Loneliness and social isolation being one of the forms of urban stress.

00:20:05: We have to be aware of that.

00:20:09: But city living still also comes with a lot of advantages for

00:20:15: us.

00:20:17: Thank you so much.

00:20:18: Maybe one last question if you allow me to.

00:20:20: Go ahead.

00:20:22: Is there anything coming up for you in the next months or the next year that you are particularly excited about?

00:20:27: Well, I look very forward to the newly initiated Einstein Circle that we have initiated in Berlin, a circle funded by the Einstein Foundation to develop an urban mental health strategy, together with researchers from different disciplines, from the urban studies, from neuroscience, medical studies, psychology, geography, social sciences, et cetera, but also with a lot of urban stakeholders, with policymakers, with civil society representatives.

00:21:06: to work on such a strategy which we urgently need for our urban environments.

00:21:13: because if it's true that by two thousand fifty two-thirds of people around the world will be living urban and if it's also true that city living comes with a double risk for schizophrenia for example then it's absolutely urgent to have something like a strategy like that, which we have not to date.

00:21:38: So this is something that I'm very excited about.

00:21:42: And I'm also excited to put more research focus on the value of cultural places in our cities, all the museums, the galleries, the theaters, the cultural exchange centers etc.

00:22:05: that form an important part of the urban advantage and who probably also have a health mission without being very aware of that and this is something that I would like to put more research focus on.

00:22:23: I wish you all the best with that and thank you so much

00:22:25: for taking part in this.

00:22:27: Thank

00:22:27: you, you're welcome.

00:22:28: Thanks again to Professor Dr.

00:22:30: Mastar Adli for this.

00:22:31: amazing conversation.

00:22:32: I really enjoyed it.

00:22:33: I also really enjoyed this episode.

00:22:35: Thank you so much, Lia.

00:22:36: Me

00:22:36: too.

00:22:37: Thank you, Anja.

00:22:38: I hope that you enjoyed this episode as well.

00:22:41: If you want to know more about loneliness in the city and also find more resources, we put them all in the description box.

00:22:48: We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode and also your remedies for loneliness in the city.

00:22:55: Please also share which topics related to loneliness you'd like to hear more about.

00:23:00: I'm Lea,

00:23:01: I'm Anja

00:23:02: and this is

00:23:06: Lonelyless.