Raising Awareness and Fighting Loneliness Through Art

PT KONTAK PERKASA - Asked to name crippling health problems affecting Americans today, most people would list drug addiction, diabetes, and smoking. But what about loneliness?

PT KONTAK PERKASA - Loneliness is, in fact, a public health crisis affecting one-third of adults in the United States, says Jeremy Nobel, MD, an internist and public health crusader at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “We’re more connected — by our phones and computers — but we’re lonelier than ever before,” says Dr. Nobel. His concern stems from the fact that loneliness is as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes a day for years on end. (A 2010 Brigham Young University study found that social isolation could shorten a person's life by 15 years — roughly the same as the health consequences of smoking 15 cigarettes daily.)

But Nobel believes that he can help solve the problem of loneliness.

About 15 years ago, Nobel, who’s also a poet, established The Foundation for Art and Healing. The goal was to promote art as a kind of therapy to help people suffering from chronic diseases and trauma, including veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The foundation’s early mission was to increase awareness about the effects of loneliness, reduce the stigma attached to it, and connect people with programs where they could make art. Nobel quickly discovered that creating art — whether it be through writing, music, visual arts, crocheting, knitting, or even cooking — was more powerful than he’d initially thought.

Making Art, Making Connections

As the foundation started to evaluate the effects of its work, Nobel was struck by the number of participants who reported that their efforts in making art had in turn made them feel more connected to other people. “I realized the act of creating art can enhance everyone’s lives, not just those who are ill,” he says.

From there, Nobel shifted the foundation’s focus to raising awareness about the problem of loneliness, and to offering resources and programs to help combat it. The result is the UnLonely Project, which the foundation launched in 2016.

The UnLonely FilmFest

Among other efforts, the UnLonely Project hosts an interactive film festival, which features short films focused on different groups and demographics, such as immigrants, members of the military, minorities, older adults, students, and the LGBTQ community.

The UnLonely FilmFest organizers encourage people to watch the short films and then explore each film’s related activities and engage in discussion with other spectators.

“Poetry and painting are examples of social acts of an isolated person,” says Nobel. But, he adds, when people paint, they imagine viewers. When they write poetry, they imagine readers.

Source : everydayhealth.com