When I was an international student, whenever someone in our community got sick, people would rally around them. "Being alone abroad is tough enough," we would say. "Being alone and sick is even worse." We would visit their apartment, cook meals, and pray with them. And the student who had been bedridden would often bounce back surprisingly fast, as if the presence of other people had restored something essential. For years, COVID-19 made these visits impossible, replacing human contact with mandated distance. But in Korean culture, hearing that someone is sick has always been a call to action: you make the time, and you show up.
The Destructive Power of Loneliness
There is a Japanese word, hikikomori, for people who withdraw from society completely, shutting themselves inside their homes for months or years. In Korea, the equivalent term is eundunhyeong oettori — roughly, "reclusive loner." A 2023 Korean government report surveyed 15,000 young adult households (ages 19-34) and found that 2.4 percent qualified as recluses with no special reason — no pregnancy, no disability — for staying home. Applied to the broader youth population, that works out to about 244,000 people. In 2021, alarmed by the numbers, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced a support package offering up to 650,000 won (roughly $500) per month in living expenses, medical costs, and educational support to help them re-enter society.
What is the difference between isolation and solitude? Isolation is being alone against your will and feeling the pain of it. Solitude is being alone by choice, a deliberate retreat into your own company. Isolation generates negative emotions; solitude can foster positive ones. We feel lonely when we want connection but do not get enough of it. Isolation should be avoided wherever possible. Solitude, if you can embrace it, should be enjoyed.
The health effects of loneliness are serious. Social isolation has been compared to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, or drinking six glasses of soju — Korea's popular clear spirit, each roughly as strong as a stiff cocktail. Loneliness raises the risk of premature death more than physical inactivity or obesity.1
Early research linking loneliness to cardiovascular disease found that unmarried men and women had a 50 percent higher rate of heart disease and an 18 percent higher mortality rate than married individuals. At the time, these findings were controversial. They are not anymore. Study after study has shown that loneliness weakens the immune system, increases cardiovascular risk, and raises both cancer incidence and mortality. The evidence is now broadly accepted. One study of 200 breast cancer patients found that those who reported feeling lonely experienced significantly more pain, more depression, and greater fatigue.2
Lonely people face higher risk for a wide range of diseases, and their mortality rates are considerably elevated. Experts used to attribute this to the usual suspects — elevated stress hormones, chronic inflammation, the unhealthy habits that tend to accompany social disconnection. But a newer explanation has been gaining ground: loneliness erodes the social skills a person needs to escape it. The erosion deepens the isolation, and the isolation deepens the erosion, creating a vicious cycle that pulls people further from health and connection with each turn.3
Oxytocin: A Friend When You Are Lonely
What role does oxytocin play in all of this? Experts increasingly believe that low oxytocin may be the trigger — the mechanism by which loneliness translates into disease. The lonelier and more isolated a person becomes, the lower their oxytocin drops. And low oxytocin further weakens sociability, amplifies negative emotions, and undermines both the formation of new relationships and the maintenance of existing ones. This is not a virtuous cycle. It is a downward spiral.
Do people with genetic mutations in the oxytocin receptor experience more loneliness? A 2009 German study says yes. Those with receptor mutations reported significantly greater social loneliness and feelings of isolation. And since the partners of people with low empathy also tend to feel lonelier, the effects of oxytocin extend beyond the individual. It influences whether healthy relationships form and last, which in turn affects disease rates and mortality in ways we are only beginning to understand.4
The encouraging flip side: the more people you see, the more meaningful relationships you build, and the more you engage in activities where you support each other, the more your oxytocin rises. And that rising oxytocin will help protect you — from loneliness and from the health problems that come with it.
An Israeli research team invited sixty-three elderly participants to play a "mirror game" — a simple exercise that stimulates the brain's mirror neurons by having partners copy each other's movements. Every participant enjoyed it so much that they forgot, at least for a while, that they had been lonely. And here is the key finding: the emotional improvement corresponded directly to changes in salivary oxytocin. As oxytocin went up, loneliness went down. The effect was stronger when participants felt closer to their game partners — the more connected they felt, the bigger the oxytocin increase and the more their loneliness faded.5
Given all of this, I feel confident saying that one of the best ways to break the cycle of loneliness and disease is to raise the oxytocin in our bodies. To anyone who thinks, "I'm just naturally introverted — I probably have some kind of receptor mutation — happiness is not in the cards for me — I'll just live alone" — please do not give up. Research shows that even naturally quiet, introverted people experience more joy when they do enjoyable things with others.6