To feel less lonely, get crafty

Plus: The case for weight-neutral medicine

View this email online December 10, 2023 Support This Newsletter Hello! As the holiday season unfolds, traditions bring us together and remind us of what we hold dear. For many of you, NPR and this newsletter are a cherished part of your daily ritual, much like these seasonal joys. As your newsletter writer, I’m inviting you to include NPR in your holiday traditions by supporting the network that enriches lives all year long. Let’s celebrate the tradition of independent journalism and storytelling that touches millions of hearts and minds every day. Every dollar makes a difference. Please donate today. by Andrea Muraskin, NPR Health Newsletter Writer This week: If loneliness won’t leave you alone, try making something. Plus: A new film lays out how reducing period stigma could lead to a measurable difference in the lives and health of girls and women. And: Some physicians make the case for taking the focus off patients’ weight.  Feeling alone? 5 tips to create connection and combat loneliness Christopher Furlong/Getty Images On the Netflix adult animation show Big Mouth, gym teacher “Coach Steve” is an affable dullard with few friends. In one scene, Steve visits a student’s house to fix a pipe in the kitchen. Wine glass in hand, the student’s mother leans in seductively. “Steve, do you ever get lonely?” she purrs. “No! I remain lonely!” Steve replies matter-of-factly.  I think about that scene a lot. While loneliness isn't a constant for me, it can feel like something of a default state. In a Surgeon General’s report released in May, about half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. And lack of social connections is linked to risk of chronic illness, heart attacks, strokes, and early death.  While feeling lonely isn’t new, changes in societal norms over the last century have made some people more vulnerable to those feelings, says Dr. Jeremy Nobel, author of the new book Project UnLonely. "A hundred years ago, your identity was almost fully defined by your gender, your religion and your status," Nobel told NPR’s Allison Aubrey. Now, people have more freedom to chart their own course and create their own identities. The tradeoff is, that can make finding belonging more challenging.  Nobel promotes creative expression as a bridge to social connection. Even a solitary artistic pursuit, he says, can decrease a person’s sense of loneliness by allowing them to express their identity and feelings. Research shows making art or viewing the art of others reduces stress and releases feel-good chemicals in the brain.  Creating in a group is even better, because the work provides a basis for social connection. Nobel’s non-profit Foundation for Arts and Healing partners with community-based organizations to develop evidence-based group art programs, which can include music, painting and drawing – but he says the sky’s the limit in terms of what you can make. And if you don’t see yourself as an artist, that’s totally ok. Here are five things you can do to get creative and strengthen your sense of social connection. Plus: Lonely people may process the world differently subscriberid%%--> Newsletter continues after sponsor message 'Periodical' filmmaker wants to talk about PMS, menopause and the tampon tax Carrie Lynn Schreck/MSNBC Films I went to a public elementary school where education was never separated by gender. That was until one day in 5th grade, when the girls were sent to one classroom and the boys another. Two different booklets were handed out, and our teachers explained the imminent changes to our respective sexes.  I was already experiencing some of these changes, though my emotional maturity lagged behind the physical, and I felt embarrassed about it. If these things had to happen – especially the monthly bleeding part –  at least the boys didn’t have to know, went my thinking at the time.  But boys grow up to become men. And it turns out not educating males about the female reproductive system has consequences. For example, the “tampon tax.” Twenty-one states tax menstrual products as non-essential items. Activists around the country are working to reclassify these products as essential, so that they’d be exempt from taxation like food and toilet paper. In the course of talking to state representatives, one lawyer learned that many of the male lawmakers didn’t understand how menstruation worked. They thought it was possible to “hold it in” like urine, until you have a break to go to the bathroom and release it. That’s one revelation featured in Periodical, a new documentary about the social and political movement underway to destigmatize menstruation and menopause. Fresh Air host Tonya Mosley spoke with filmmaker Lina Lyte Plioplyte about how opening up the conversation on these topics could make a real difference in the lives of half the population. Things like making period products more affordable, regulating harmful chemicals used in their manufacture, and helping people going through the ups and downs of perimenopause feel better understood.  Ready to get real? Read the highlights or listen to the full interview here. Plus: This is the period talk you should have gotten Some doctors are ditching the scale, saying focusing on weight drives misdiagnoses Megan Farmer/KUOW People with larger bodies often report that when they go to the doctor, their problems are ignored or written off as an inevitable result of their weight. Having a higher body mass index is correlated with heart disease, diabetes, certain types of cancer and other conditions. But this year the American Medical Association adopted a new policy around BMI, acknowledging that it’s an imperfect measure of body fat across populations.  And a growing number of health care providers are going further than that: practicing what they call weight-inclusive, or weight-neutral, medicine, as KUOW’s Eilis O'Neill reports.  For Seattle family medicine physician Dr. Tess Moore, a weight-neutral practice includes having blood pressure cuffs and gowns in a variety of sizes. Moore says she recommends nutrition and diet changes to her patients without the goal of losing weight, pointing to research that shows most people with obesity who lose weight gain it back within a few years. Instead, she chooses to focus on a patient's long-term health and make "recommendations that are much more likely to be sustainable."  Other providers say that encouraging weight loss is appropriate for certain conditions, as long as the topic is approached in a respectful manner.  Learn more about the new approach. Plus: Could weight-loss drug Ozempic have mental health side effects? Before you go: Sesame Workshop Muppets from Sesame Workshop help explain opioid addiction to young kids ​​​​​​​ Why we faint: A newly discovered pathway between the heart and brain may explain it Black Americans expect to face racism in the doctor's office, survey finds A little electric stimulation in just the right spot may bolster a damaged brain ​​​​​​​ Help Keep the Conversations Going. Support the NPR Network and stand for trustworthy journalism that keeps you informed, enlightened, and connected. Your donation fuels in-depth reporting, unbiased insights, and thought-provoking stories that matter.  Join us in sustaining an essential source of knowledge and perspective for a brighter future. Act now with your support today.   Donate We hope you enjoyed these stories. Find more of NPR's health journalism online. All our best, Andrea Muraskin and your NPR health editors Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WUFT 89.1 (edit station). What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: shots@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Goats & Soda, Daily News, Best of NPR and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Health emails. 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