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What I take from this article is that social interaction is extremely important to ones health, and it's something that we largely taken for granted. In the ag

• BatFastard 9y ago
  Its not too late! Socialize more, exercise everyday, and take something for depression! Learn new things, I had a rough spell a few years ago which took its toll. Now what I find is I have to walk the razors edge everyday. Make sure I sleep enough, eat right (low carb and fasting), exercise twice a day. If I dont I start to lose the edge.
  • rubicon33 9y ago
    Absolutely! I should mention that I have already covered the basics, which is why I strongly believe this is a social problem. I have: - Seen a doctor, gotten blood tests done, and verified all is "normal" - Eaten very healthy, home cooked meals since I started WFH. - Exercise 4-5 times a week. I am in "good" shape, and I am looking at registering to run my first marathon soon. - Drink lots of water. Mostly avoid alcohol.
    • BatFastard 9y ago
      Go to some meet ups, join a church, coach something... Good luck!
      • derekp7 9y ago
        I really wish there were good community organizations that bring people together like a church, but weren't religious based. I guess that's what organizations such as the Moose lodge, or Lions club attempt to fill?
        • mythrwy 9y ago
          Agreed. Religion is a non starter for me but I would like to find some community groups doing good things with good people. I know about meetup.com etc but I'd like to have ties with something a little deeper. Preferably something without political and especially without supernatural overtones. I see there being a big need for this in the modern world.
          • geden 9y ago
            I find that sport fills this function for me. After being a very cerebral, non sporty child I was lucky enough to find sports I really enjoyed (badminton & tennis) in my late teens. When I've moved from city to city I've joined a good local badminton club and played in local leagues. With that has come vigorous exercise AND social interaction. Latterly its also brought the opportunity to contribute to local community through coaching my club's juniors. I find this challenging in a very rewarding way.
  • mmel 9y ago
    >"Take something for depression" What happy pills do you recommend?
    • zdkl 9y ago
      No. Pills. For real, I'm not trying to be cute. Unless you're pronounced clinically depressed by a couple doctors, one should avoid the official benzo & related "happy pills". One thing that might help, is try to make some hippy friends. You're not expected to become one of them, but they have a lot to share, wink wink.
    • jumanchiss 9y ago
      Red pill, it's not "happy" per se but it's what most people need these days.
    • lentil_soup 9y ago
      Don't just take pills, see a therapist.
    • bluetwo 9y ago
      The problem with medication for depression is that they generally have only ever been proven to help in cases of severe depression. They don't help with mild depression, but doctors are allowed to prescribe them for anything they see fit. I believe they have been over prescribed. There are related issues, like racing thoughts and anxiety, which are different and not all that uncommon. Lorazepam is actually pretty effective for these issues.
  • Caveman_Coder 9y ago
    > "eat right (low carb and fasting)" Do you have any evidence that your recommendation is the "right" diet?
    • graphitezepp 9y ago
      There is lots of evidence for lots of different diets being healthy, people have different dietary needs. However those things are pretty universally good ideas. Obligatory quick google links: Fasting: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4257368/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4257368/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4274578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4274578/ Low Carb: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3595318/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3595318/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989112/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989112/
• aaron-lebo 9y ago
  You mention that this is anecdotal, anyway, but stress to yourself that it is anecdotal. You sound depressed and you mention that social interaction might be the cause, but is it not possible that you are finding your work unfulfilling, that's causing depression and the rest follows? I only say this because I've worked long stretches more or less alone with limited social interaction (didn't have a wife around) and didn't suffer any of those symptoms, but that's an anecdote for you. I did suffer those symptoms when depressed, though, and that didn't take solitude. Some people are very happy with solitude and there's no hard rule that it affects everyone the same.
  • rubicon33 9y ago
    Yes, I would caution anyone who reads my post from drawing a 1:1 correlation with their life. That has strictly been my experience and even as such, I of course can't be 100% sure about the origins of my current situation. It's a bit of a chicken/egg situation. Yes, right now I struggle to find fulfillment in my work. But did that develop because of solitude which induced depression or did the lack of fulfillment develop naturally and cause the depression itself? It's difficult to say for sure, even as the person experiencing it. I can only speak to what I know of myself and my situation. I was a developer for ~3 years before I started WFH, and never felt like this. The product I worked on then, wasn't any more interesting than the current one. It's true though that the first few years of work carried with them a novelty and enjoyment that was bound to fade. But I think my happiness then was more than just that. Even off days felt successful if I was interacting with the team. > Some people are very happy with solitude and there's no hard rule that it affects everyone the same. Definitely agree. We're all different, and some people surely do thrive in this kind of environment. Interestingly, I would have told you I was one of those people. I'm naturally an introvert so this lifestyle was very comfortable at the outset. Too much of a good thing though...
    • ObeyTheGuts 9y ago
      I was dat solitude guy, maybe 10 years alone with just rare random interactions, but then i found people that are on same page as me and oh boy! Massive difference! I feel reborn, problem was that i prefere be alone than with people who have different world wiev as they just suck ur energy and piss u off, while once i found people on ma page it was pure joy.
• biofox 9y ago
  You just described my life with uncanny accuracy. I have suspected for some time that my problems were due to social isolation, but I have been too apathetic to make an effort to do anything. You've just given me the motivation to change that. Thank you!
  • sillysaurus3 9y ago
    I wish there were a Tinder for friends. It's a shame no one would use it.
    • pmiller2 9y ago
      There is, but it's called meetup.com. You don't have to just go to tech/networking meetups, you know. :)
      • abrookewood 9y ago
        Second this - meetups are pretty good for a variety of topics, not all of them tech related.
      • Kurtz79 9y ago
        I also recommend it, and cannot see anything wrong in going to tech/networking meetups, it should be anything you are interested in and won't feel out of place attending.
      • mavhc 9y ago
        meetup.com is good, met a new friend there a month ago. Also invite all the local people on Facebook you are "friends" with to actually hang out.
    • jfabre 9y ago
      Try https://www.me3app.co/ https://www.me3app.co/
      • Zorlag 9y ago
• deleted 9y ago
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• xor1 9y ago
  After college, I had a NEET period of roughly 6 months. I would see friends maybe once every other week because I was somewhat depressed about not being able to find a job and had to be dragged out of the house, and the only people I spoke to regularly in person were my parents. I went to my first meetup (for programming) towards the end of that period before getting my first job, and I felt all of the stuff you described. It was really jarring, but I knew what was going on, so I didn't freak out. I'd read about how solitary confinement affects peoples' intelligence, especially their ability to formulate speech, and I figured I had a diminished version of that which only took effect when talking to strangers. It took about a week of work and interacting with people other than my parents on a regular basis for me to feel normal again.
  • Emilie656 9y ago
    Im making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... >http://ow.ly/iBXm30dNtIZ http://ow.ly/iBXm30dNtIZ
• amenghra 9y ago
  By spending most of your time at home, your immune system probably dials down. I noticed I was falling sick when I took a short break from work and was mostly home. Everything returned to normal once I resumed my normal work schedule.
  • kbart 9y ago
    You should probably check your home for toxic materials, especially if that's an old building. Short stay at home shouldn't affect your health or more so immune system.
    • pantalaimon 9y ago
      Don't underestimate the connection between physical and mental health though.
  • Double_a_92 9y ago
    The immune system also get weaker when big stress is suddenly gone. E.g. I usually got sick after exams or in the first days of holidays...
    • goldfeld 9y ago
      Maybe it's just washing itself?
• quickthrower 9y ago
  Thanks for the heads up. This is something that I've wondered about with working from home. I think I'd like 1 or 2 days per week at home and rest in the office for ideal ratio.
  • andyjohnson0 9y ago
    I've been working at home on Monday and Friday, with the other days in an open-plan office, for the last twelve years. Its a good ratio that works well for me.
• curiousgal 9y ago
  I often come across similar comments and they scare me. I share a lot of similarities and I am only in my early twenties. I decided to take a gap year and take part of an exchange program abroad.
• b3lvedere 9y ago
  There are times i just don't like having people around me. Then i want to do stuff i really like in my own pace/peace. Sometimes that is tending to my little garden, toying around with a Raspberry Pi, tv or gaming or whatever. Is that the comfort you're talking about?
  • pantalaimon 9y ago
    As long as you also have times where you go and meet friends, I don't see how this would be a problem.
• circlefavshape 9y ago
  Yikes. I'm just about to start a new job working from home fulltime. My wife's been expressing her concern that the lack of social interaction might be difficult for me, I guess I better heed her and join up with some sort of social group (was thinking musical theatre)
  • ck425 9y ago
    Having done musical theater as my main hobby for almost 8 years I can thoroughly recommend it for that exact purpose. There's something about singing with folks and sharing a stage that leads very quickly to strong deep social bonds. It's also a nice contrast to my tech friends I find.
  • aws_ls 9y ago
    Don't worry too much, each person is different. I am WFH'ing for a good several years now, and largely enjoy it. Also, I believe, in my case pros outweigh the cons. Lucky to have a family, which does help a great deal in this situation. But, I do sometimes worry about it, but as a result compensate for it - exercising to stay fit/lean. Also, always try to be on the cutting edge of tech - HN/similar is great for that. Edit: Just to add two more points: 1) Social networks: One might think, that they will help in this situation. But again, its different for everyone. I find, in my case their use is detrimental. So after having disconnected from them totally (save a pseudonymous twitter a/c for news/venting), I find it more peaceful, also I found my friendship with good friends has improved. And Facebook friends withered off. 2) Another thing, I learnt a few years ago, some people need social interactions to re-energize where as for some people it is solitude. Are you the type, who if goes for a walk in the park, and when people try to hold a long conversation, do you like it? Or would you rather be left alone after greeting/short-conversations. I definitely, am the second type. (If I am portraying my personality to be totally anti-social, then that's inaccurate. As my social needs are fulfilled well, by family and friends. May be if I had less of that, then would definitely like to have long talks with strangers in the park. Each person has different situation and needs, that's the key point).
• palerdot 9y ago
  What is your age?
• hdhzy 9y ago
  Just like children's IQ and foot size are strongly correlated the answer in their and in your case can be just attributed to age (you said "I've been working from home for a number of years"). Not saying that's the solution but I'm glad you said it's an "anecdotal experience".
  • sammoth 9y ago
    Except, you know, how they said that they are seeing improvements after reversing some of the isolation. Oh and the study in the article.
    • hdhzy 9y ago
      People see improvement even after taking placebo. I haven't read the paper yet but on first glance it looks like an observational study. I know it's cliche but correlation does not imply causation and observations are just that, drawing conclusions after facts. It's still an interesting study though...
• gaius 9y ago
  Have you thought about getting cats?
• mi_lk 9y ago
  Do you exercise on a regular basis? I think I've learnt from Coursera's Learning How to Learn that interaction with people and exercise have similar effect to our brain cells, that both will help generate new cells (I don't know the details, but you probably get the idea). So that's what I figure how to keep myself sane if I would enter a period of almost-to-none daily interaction with people. The one probably can't replace the other, but I'm curious if you would still have those symptoms with regular exercise.
• ycombinete 9y ago
  I had this exact same experience. It was detrimental to every aspect of my life. Moving back to office work was one of the best decisions that I've ever made. If not the best one. Before I started working from home I used to consider myself an introvert, who was good with/preferred being alone. But that was always against a back-drop of living a relatively social work and home-life. Once I started working from home my tendencies towards introspection, and insulation, which were tempered by my social life, became dominant and I ended up becoming insidiously depressed without even noticing it. Change your job/workplace man, it'll change your life.
• m3kw9 9y ago
  Working from home messes you up in more ways than you notice. One is that you tend to eat more and the other thing is it can stress you your will power bencause ther are so many distractions. One last thing is you move walk around as much as you do, your brain needs blood flowing, oxygen. Ever heard of drowning causing brain damage? Extreme analogy but that's because of lack of oxygen, I'm sure less than optimal oxygen can't be as good
• kutkloon7 9y ago
  I'm having the same experience. I have been working on my thesis for the last year. My university is in a different city, and everyone working on something related is in another country. This made it hard for me to make progress and this has had the effect of me isolating myself even more (I haven't made enough progress to have a beer with friends and not feel bad about myself). Although I have never been sick for the last year, I recognize all the other symptoms to some degree. For an assessment, I took an IQ test a while ago. I used to be really good at number sequences, acing them or at least getting 95% right. I think I got about half of them this time, which was quite shocking. Once I finish this thesis (my supervisor keeps trying to convince me to postpone my graduation - a student working on a very similar problem has spent more than 2.5 years now, and has not graduated yet) I want to spend more time on my social life again.
• wdbbdw 9y ago
  In the last six months I've moved to a new apartment in another part of town, I changed jobs, and I graduated from grad school. My social life has been severely disrupted! The change in work was maybe the most dramatic since I moved from a highly social environment to being isolated in an office by myself (and on a floor with taciturn colleagues). It's only been a few months, but I already see some mild forms of the symptoms described in the parent comment. Now, being in grad school, working full time and having a toddler did a lot of the work in atrophying my social connections over the last three years, but this spring delivered a knock-out blow. Luckily, I'm attentive to my mental health and generally a proactive person, so I've outlined steps to try and at least get into another job (Cracking the Coding Interview... groan). I've also started scouring the internet looking for ideas to start developing my community ties: - Our local YMCA has programs for families that we'll be taking advantage of, including free babysitting once a month(!!!) - There's a local collective of volunteer "civic hackers" that I'll start hanging out with after summer's over. - I just saw, somewhere above in this comment thread, a mention of meetup.com. It's now open in another tab. - I'm even leaving comments on the internet, such as this! Anyway, just wanted to share (edit: formatting).
• kevstev 9y ago
  I went from very brutal environments (massively stressful jobs in algorithmic trading, generally sitting on loud trading floors with late hours, weekends, etc) to working remotely and found almost the opposite. Instead of being sick several times a year- we would literally watch colds and other illnesses work their way up and down the rows, I instead got sick maybe once a year. Solving problems in a nice quiet room with no coworker conversations around me improved my ability to concentrate and do the hard things 10x. Social interaction is a mixed bag. My last two jobs I was surrounded by a bunch of people who hated their work, and we only really bonded over the fact that we would rather be literally anywhere else. My remote coworkers all get along great, and it would be nice to spend more face time with them, but I have an active personal social life so that helps. I think you are missing a big piece here though- and that's activity. I take my dog on long walks and generally like to bike around town (I live in a city) but it requires much more of an active effort. Luckily I eat a lot better and much less than I used to. I don't keep junk food or really any prepared foods in the house. YMMV.
  • reckoner2 9y ago
    The quality of social interaction is very important. None of the relationships you described seemed overly healthy. The study shows that it was good, warm, reciprocal relationships that factored into improved mental health. I work on a trading floor as well, and while I do enjoy it, I put in lots of work to have healthy social relationships outside of work.
  • skzo 9y ago
    It's almost as if a balanced life is good for you
  • surak 9y ago
    These studies try to point out that things are binary, but its not of course. You have to remember what they are measuring in general, stable vs. unstable. For example, drinking is bad when it becomes destructive. Two-three bottles of red wine per week is ok, unless you do it to forget things.
• heydonovan 9y ago
  It's frightening how accurate this describes my situation as well. Went 3+ years working at a startup where essentially we were one giant family, everyone hung out after work, and I rarely had time to myself. Everything technical was super easy to digest, I was exercising every other day, and I was on top of my game. Now most of my days are spent working from home, and the only human interaction are the cashiers at the grocery store. I'm tired all the time, focusing is difficult for me now, and I feel like I've become slower with anything that requires mental effort. What's the solution here? Don't work from home? Hang out more?
  • flamedoge 9y ago
    Deep Work you pay small price to get intense focus whatever that small price may be. go isolate yourself in a room or go to a library or co-working space. take a long pensive walk.
  • visakanv 9y ago
    > and the only human interaction are the cashiers at the grocery store Why is that? Even Elon Musk spends times with his kids. What's keeping you from spending time with people you care about?
• MicroBerto 9y ago
  Think about it. What's the WORST way you can punish someone? Solitary Confinement. Even in a prison with the most vile scum in the state, the worst thing you can do to a person is to remove them from the others. That speaks volumes to me, personally.
• eiffel31 9y ago
  Have you considered looking at full-spectrum lights which may have some influence on your symptoms? Did you health check include Vitamin D check?