When You Don’t Have a Reason to Get Out of Bed Every Day

The epic of loneliness and isolation skyrocketed during and after lockdowns

Isolation is deadly. Deaths from Alzheimer’s and related dementias jumped 18 percent after 2020 lockdowns began, new research shows.

• A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows the pandemic caused 359,352 direct deaths. That total doesn’t include a greater 451,777 “excess deaths” related to Alzheimer’s and a host of other causes during the same period.
• Nationwide, deaths jumped 19 percent above normal from March 15, 2020, through Jan. 9, 2021.
• In New York, the state attorney general found the state under-reported nursing deaths by 50 percent during the pandemic.
• Deaths of Despair — related to alcohol, drug overdoses, and suicide — grew anywhere from 10 to 60 percent, according to new University of Chicago research by economist Casey Mulligan, who warned:

“Presumably social isolation is part of the mechanism that turns a pandemic into a wave of deaths of despair.’’

Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton first described “deaths of despair” among middle-aged non-Hispanic whites in 2015 research that estimated deaths from suicide, alcohol poisoning, overdoses, and cirrhosis of the liver had nearly doubled since 1999.

“You can’t take a pill for loneliness,” University of Michigan gerontologist Sheria Robinson-Lane told Bridge Michigan, which found Alzheimer’s deaths jumping in 2020 to a six-year high.

Around the world, more than 4 billion living under lockdowns or later restrictions saw daily routines disrupted, everything from shared meals to hair care to exercise to church to socializing to visits with friends and family.

Imagine waking up every morning with no reason to get out of bed

Loni lost her husband to suicide decades ago. She fell to the ground and asked for the strength to do everything she needed to do.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.”― Stephen Chbosky.

She still had kids and a mother to care for, so she grew her faith and hopefully carried on. Eventually, her mother died, and the girls grew up, starting lives of their own in other states. With time, getting out of bed grew more and more difficult.

She’d lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. Or she’d stay there looking at her phone, watching videos, texting people. Health issues helped her receive government support. Then the pandemic hit, declaring her “non-essential,” someone who should stay home.

All her reasons to get out of bed went away too: no church services, no events, no restaurants, no movies, no gyms. The news and politics only added to her anxiety. Winter came, and the cold and the snow and the ice all whispered the same message: stay in bed.

She isn’t alone. A record 77 percent of Americans last month told pollsters their nation is having “an existential crisis,’’ with people questioning the meaning, purpose, and value of everything.

Her governor similarly said to “stay safe, stay healthy” by avoiding family Christmas and other holiday gatherings. With time, every challenge seemed insurmountable:

• Even selling her old trucks seemed unachievable (state offices handling such instructions now require special appointments with weeks of wait times).
• Running errands like going to the store suddenly took two or three times longer as the slow-moving world moved slower.

Psychologist Robert Wicks, the author of Riding the Dragon, has worked with depressed people who couldn’t get out of bed, who could barely move. He stresses that activity and depression rarely stay together. He tells people to “just show up” to move, get outside, focus on the next 15 minutes, and do something.

“Any idiot can face a crisis — it’s this day-to-day living that wears you out” — Anton Chekhov.

Alzheimer’s patients weren’t allowed to move — or to have visitors

When you have Alzheimer’s, it’s even harder. You aren’t sure who the people around you are or where you are, or where the people who matter are.

Mainly, all you know is that you “need to get home” and that you aren’t yet there. During the pandemic, visits were cut off, and patients were told to “Zoom” or look out the window.

Sometimes, families weren’t even allowed to gather at death beds or to have the kind of funerals they needed to grieve properly. So the visitors — even when they are family — look more and more like outsiders or strangers.

Good sleep, Mahatma Gandi taught, is a bit like dying when you sleep and being reborn when you wake up. But what if you don’t have a reason to wake up?

Increasingly, research from a host of disciplines shows a definite link between isolation and declining physical, mental and spiritual health. What’s left to help? After years of decline, sales of cigarettes and alcohol grew again in 2020.

In ideal conditions, nursing home residents know the odds are they will die where they are. They regularly experience new losses, losing friends, spouses, and loved ones, as well as the basic ability to do things they could do before.

Emotional health is directly related to chemical and physical changes impacting our general well-being, Robinson-Lane, told Bridge Michigan:

“Add on top of that, all of these different layers, being further socially isolated as a result of the pandemic. It absolutely does create more depression, more anxious spaces for individuals that can ultimately contribute to their death.”

Loneliness and isolation are considered chronic, leading to a host of other health declines, including hypertension. Loneliness and isolation were already at epidemic proportions, jumping from 54 percent to 61 percent nationwide, even before the 2020 lockdowns, research from Cigna found.

The highest rates were among younger people, with researchers stressing:

“Imagine a condition that makes a person irritable, depressed, and self-centered, and is associated with a 26 percent increase in the risk of premature mortality.”

Father Adam Maher, who himself had the virus and ministers to patients, teaches:

“The enemy wants to isolate us. The devil’s like a sniper. It’s easier to pick you off when you’re alone and isolated… When you’re in a community, you have brothers and sisters who can build you up, encourage and console you.”