Loneliness could be in your genes, may run in the family
Teams from the Free University in Amsterdam and the University of Chicago looked at data on 8,000 identical, and non-identical, twins.
They found genetics had a significant influence on loneliness.
The researchers, whose study appears in Behavior Genetics, said it showed helping lonely people was not simply a matter of changing their environment.
Loneliness has been linked to heart disease as well as emotional problems, such as anxiety, self-esteem problems and sociability.
The researchers suggest that loneliness may stem from prehistoric times, where hunter-gatherers may have deliberately shut themselves away from others so they did not have to share food.
That would have meant they were better nourished and therefore better able to survive and have children.
But they added that the strategy had a downside, in that it also developed dispositions towards anxiety, hostility, negativity and social avoidance.
In the study, the twins, who have been surveyed regularly since 1991 when they were aged 13 to 20, were asked if they agreed or disagreed with certain statements, such as "I lose friends very quickly" and "nobody loves me".
The researchers compared the responses of adults in identical, and non-identical, twin pairs, all of whom had been brought up in the same households.
They found less difference in loneliness ratings between identical twins.
They suggest this means that genes play a major role in determining whether or not people will experience the feeling throughout their life.
Professor Dorret Boomsma, who led the study, told the BBC News website: "This kind of knowledge will help because it shows it's not as simple as saying that if you change someone's environment, it will have the same effect on everyone."
But Dr Arthur Cassidy, a psychologist at the Belfast Institute, said people could learn behaviours from their families.
"They may have a very pessimistic outlook and interpret things in a very negative way, so people can learn to become pessimistic and therefore to become lonely.
"But it is possible to unlearn behaviour, using Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and psychotherapy."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4426184.stm
Published: 2005/11/11 11:40:29 GMT
© BBC MMV
# posted by Unknown : 9:22 AM
From: amykerr1978@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: Road Trip Nightmare
Date: November 8, 2005 11:23:32 AM PST
To: rkerr3@bigpond.net.au, amanda.l.marshall@us.pwc.com, amy.c@millison.com, timkerr21@yahoo.com.au, dalehoughton24@hotmail.com, and 5 more…
Hi Everyone
Sorry about the group email but this story needed to be relived only once. Yesterday was the road trip for Hell.
It all started bright and early at 7:30am yesterday morning when we awoke to the first major snow in the village and around our house. This said my roommates who are from Queensland went mad and thus we were late picking up the rental car. We finally left at 9am and arrive in Vancouver at 11am to pick up one of Tammy's friends. We then departed for the US board and finally arrive at around 12:30pm, we then spent 45 minutes waiting to be processed into the US. Finally through the board we travelled along the highway looking for a "Ross dress for Less", this store stocks cheap designer clothes which are end of season or last season stock. Not much fun really, some of the guys needed new shoes and jackets etc. We finished up here around 2:30pm and we then went to find a Walmart so the guys could get their digital pictures developed, here we finally grabed some lunch at McDonald's and I picked up a couple of items. We left here around 4:30pm and went looking for a Safeway store to pick up what Karl said would be cheap alochol, well finding the Safeway probably cost us more than the difference we saved (more on this a little later). The second problem with Safeway in Washington state is that they can't see hard alochol so we couldn't pick up any of the good stuff, so one of the safeway employees sent us to a grog store which he said would be open until 7pm but actually closed at 6pm and we arrived at 6:05pm.
After this we headed back to the Canadian board and went looking for the Costco (bulk supermarket) to get what the main purpose of the trip was the food and household stuff for the month. At the boarder we were taxed for the beer (as such making it more expensive in the US than Canada, the tax is $0.75 per can and in order not to pay tax you have to be out of the country for 3 days). Finally back in Canada we found the Costco and did the shopping and then we headed back (?) to Vancouver. This is were some of the nightmare began, we didn't actually know were Vancouver was from Costco so we just started driving what we thought was North but instead turned out to be South and we ended up back at the board so after a u-turn we were finally headed in the right direction and towards Vancouver to drop off Tammy's friend (Ben) and pick up some more alochol. We dropped of Ben and headed for Whistler at around 11pm.
It was at this time that the nightmare became hell, Tammy remembered seeing a notice on the side of the road from Whistler that the road is closed between 10pm-2am for road blasting and we were only leaving Vancouver at 11pm. We kept driving and arrived at the stopping point at 11:45pm and as such we were forced to sit in the car for 2 1/4 hours waiting for the road to open. Once the road opened we had a 23km drive into Whistler in the snow which Tammy has never driven in before (she did a great job). We finally dropped Nick off and headed to our house and we finally arrived home at 2:50am.
So as the Mastercard Ad goes:
US Boarder Crossing: $6USD
Cheap Alochol: $100USD
Spending 2 1/4 hours in a car at a road block: Priceless
Well I hope you all enjoy my little road trip nightmare.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Amy
---
Can't remember an address in your address book? Enter the first few letters and Address AutoComplete will automatically finish it. Get Yahoo! Mail
---
# posted by Unknown : 12:41 PM
