Lonley Adults & Break Brain

Do lonely adults live longer? Dangerous Dave talks about a study that says it is possible. Plus, working to much can break your brain.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Please, he's deeper in the din with dangerous deed. Well,
did you know that spending extra time with grandma could
be killing her? Not really? But is she better off
watching reruns of Golden Girls and Matt Locke. Comprehensive new
study of four hundred thousand older adults receiving care in
their homes found that the lonely older adults have an

(00:21):
eighteen to twenty three percent lower risk of dying within
a year compared to the non lonely seniors. A study
conducted in Canada, Finland and New Zealand, participants alla had
nurses visit their homes with daily activities like bathing, dressing,
and managing medications. Loneliness was common for people in the situation.
Between sixteen and twenty four percent reported feeling only. Scientists

(00:43):
tracked them for one year to see who died when
controlling for dozens of mortality factors, including age, gender, health conditions,
stuff like cancer, heart failure, cojective functions, and pain levels.
Two things they pointed out, researchers said there was a
chance at social scene were deteriorating health may be less

(01:03):
likely to report feeling lonely. That's because they're too ill
to recognize or articulate their social needs. Not everybody faces
immediate health risks due to loneliness, but there could be
a quality of life aspects for social isolization, and that
leads to lonelier people being more resilient than you would expect.
Maybe they're just waiting around for you to show up

(01:24):
so they can tell you off in the You know,
people used to scoff at the idea of taking a
mental health day at work, but some people still do.
But here's another reason to abandon the attitude that you
shouldn't because you should. A new study found that working
too many hours can literally change the structure of your brain.
Researchers scan the brains of one hundred and ten healthcare workers,

(01:46):
split them into two categories, overworked and not overworked, and
to find overworked at fifty two hours a week or more.
They found that working that much can cause a significant
change in parts of the brain associated with executive function
and emotional regulation. It can mess with your decision making skills,
cause you to get emotional or even fly off the handle.

(02:07):
It can also affect your memory or attention span or
something like that. I don't remember anyway, They did look
at long term effects, so they suspect that being overworked
for years isn't great for your mental health. Duh, And
especially if you work through the weekends and never take
a vacation. Well, that's it. I'm going to have to
take a couple of days off, you know. As a

(02:27):
matter of fact, I've gotten to the point where I've
actually had to go back to the gym and start
working out again so I don't get so exhausted by
pushing these buttons to they can. For another episode of
Deeper in the Den with Dangerous Dave Light here