With COVID-19 cases still soaring across the U.S., it can be tempting to just ride the winter out on the couch, binging on Netflix. But psychologists say it’s important in 2021 for us all to keep up human contact.
“Isolation and particularly quarantines and lockdowns have been associated with increases in distress, depression, anxiety,” says Dana Rose Garfin, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine’s Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing.
Social isolation and loneliness, Garfin notes, are also associated with health effects, including coronary heart disease, stroke and even premature death.
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