To Your Health: Human interaction key to a healthy lifestyle
By Gillian Slade on January 20, 2020.
gslade@medicinehatnews.com
A fast food restaurant in town, one often frequented by seniors, is currently undergoing reconstruction for automatic ordering machines to be installed.
One set of automatic check-outs in a supermarket was soon doubled in capacity while the number of cashiers was reduced at a supermarket.
Perhaps because of the extreme cold this week my thoughts turn to seniors and people with chronic illnesses that means they spend an awful lot of time alone at home. That isolation exacerbates feeling of loneliness and depression and the consequences are detrimental to physical health too.
As a society we know the value of human interaction but we continue down a path limiting it more and more. It is as though we could not be bothered to look at the consequences, we just blindly continue with ever increasing technology without another thought.
We have heard numerous stories of people who live in isolation making a huge effort to go to the supermarket once a week to buy some provisions. The highlight, and perhaps the motivation to go to the trouble to get there, has been the reward of a friendly smile and a few words with a cashier.
It may only be a few words while the cash register is tallying up the purchases but for the person returning home alone it may be food for thought for days. It is the fact that someone perhaps even remembered their name. There may be a cashier who noticed they were shopping on a Thursday when the normal day is Wednesday.
“I missed you yesterday, Jack,” tells the person someone cares about them.
People with families in the city often forget that there are seniors without children, period. There are seniors whose children live on the other side of the country or across the world.
My comments on technology and automation does not relate only to the older members of society.
We already know that young people have issues with anxiety, partly as a result of heavy use of smart phones. They no longer have a comfort level when it comes to the art of conversation.
This trend is affecting us all and there are mental and physical health consequences.
I remember taking a bus ride from a small village in England about a decade ago and was astonished to discover that the people on the route behaved as though they were members of a club.
As someone climbed on board others would call out their names, inquire about their neighbours, commented if they’d failed to take the bus a few days earlier and so on. They were watching out for each other.
Watching out for each other is extremely important and I encourage you to reach out to someone you have not seen out and about in the cold weather.
It is also important for each of us to raise awareness of the possible long term consequences for moving away from a people friendly society.
Many of those consequences are health related.
Here’s to a more caring society where we talk to each other in person and here’s To Your Health.
To Your Health is a weekly column by Gillian Slade, health reporter for the News, bringing you news on health issues and research from around the world. You can reach her at
gslade@medicinehatnews.com or 403-528-8635.
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