You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talk SED. Be you longsome tonight? Do you miss.
Are you sorry?
We drifted?
Does your mammal misty bray?
When I kissed you?
When I kissed you?
And my producers worried that my MIC's on?
I know my MIC's on. Tara's deliberately crooning along there.
Welcome back to the Weekend Collective. If you've missed any we had an interesting discussion with both David Symbol and Duncan Webby's Justice spokespersons for Labor on the Treaty Principles bill.
You can go and check that out.
Look for the Weekend Collective wherever you wherever you get your podcast, actually not where the podcast, go to iHeartRadio. That's the easy way to do it. You can go to the news Talks'd website as well, and we get these hours loaded as quickly as we can once they have concluded. But right now it's time for a change of change of temperature or a change of subject at
least the health up and my guest is psychotherapist. He's host of the Nutters Club, is regular guest on my show, and we're very grateful for that and his name is Carl McDonald.
Hello, Kyl, how are you very well? Did you want to join him with Elvis?
Then? I mean it's a very soothing way to get into the r, wasn't it.
No, I wouldn't want to ruin your ratings singing.
I don't know.
I think you know you can get away with it to be sunfishal.
I wouldn't try and imitate Elvis really seriously. I just love the fact that Tyra was protecting pointing at me, going the red light up, your MIC's on. It's like, I know, it's right, poor thing. I must stress around.
So it's quite nice to be sung in.
So I quite like that.
It's a nice way to welcome a gaest welcome.
Yeah, thank you.
Now we want to talk a little bit about loneliness, and actually because the study that found fifty nine percent of kis over the age of sixty five, just on an age basis, and it felt recently lonely or socially isolated fifty nine percent of people retirement age basically, and the question about loneliness, it's been the other word that's been used to describe it, I think is it's epidemic proportions, which actually I'm not surprised about.
I don't think why is that because I think.
I think that I know, they just think we're living I'm not sure if we're living as social as lives as we may have done. Is it just me I'm reflecting on But I don't know, Maybe I think that maybe, oh god.
I don't want to mention COVID, but I.
Think but I think that was a kind of breakaway to it which we haven't quite in our social habits. Just I mean, I think in the number of times that you might have friends around for dinner and all that sort stuff. I don't know our sociability, whether that's got anything to do it, but I'm certainly not surprised that people as they get older and the expression ever decreasing circles. Yeah, But firstly, I guess, what's the difference between being alone and loneliness?
Yeah?
Great question, because it's important to define some of the terms that they use in this research. So the first thing to be really clear about is when we talk about and there's actually a lot of research and we can touch on some of the other sort of areas
of concern and what we're sort of seeing globally. But the first thing to define is that when we talk about these studies into loneliness, we're talking about the subjective experience of feeling lonely, right, So what we're not talking about the negative impact of being alone per se, because all of us might spend some time alone day to day or week to week or maybe even you know, in terms of how we structure our lives, and the capacity to feel a sense subjectively of feeling lonely obviously
differs from person to person. So that's the first thing to be clear about. When we talk about these studies, we're talking about people who would report feeling lonely, and of course we can define that a little bit further, which basically means not having enough social contact or not enough time with other people in their lives.
What about people who are loners?
Yeah, well, I mean again, so if your choice is to be alone and that's not subjectively distressing to you, in fact that your preferred way of living, then actually we don't tend to see the same negative effects. Now, you know, psychotherapists love blurry and we.
Love the love we lovery.
We love the blurry bits in between the gray bits that the nuance. So one of the things that's hard to tell sometimes is if we spend a lot of time alone, we can become habituated to not experiencing loneliness. So one of the things to be really clear about is that that isolation can become habitual to the point where actually we feel as if we don't have any option. And what's really quite hard sometimes is to get people to actually get in tune with how they feel about being alone.
Okay, so is it a problem if people get habituated to being lonely because if they are used to it and they don't have a perception that there's anything wrong, is there anything wrong?
Yeah, that's the loop, right, Yeah. Yeah, So it is about being able to be really honest with ourselves and and sort of you know, ask ourselves the question, am I just accepting this because I don't think anything else
is possible? And furthermore, are what we're seeing things like, for instance, depression, perhaps substance abuse, drinking, you know, are we seeing other things show up that may be a way to cope with a subjective, subjective feeling of loneliness because what we note them, and that the research that we're talking about today is really clear about this is that actually the health effects of prolonged loneliness are quite severe potentially, you know, the classic studies sort of compared
it to smoking in terms of its lifestyle impact and cardiovascular risk stroke risk. Because what we know is that being lonely, if we want to be with people and we can't be with people, causes stress, which leads to cortisol, which is the wholemone of stress, and prolonged cortisol exposure is really harmful for those lifestyle so called to the lifestyle factors of physical health.
And I guess if you are lonely, then maybe you might not as be motivated to go out and exercise, which is a way of counteracting stress as well, and all those sorts of things and doing. And also the cause is the fact loneliness might mean that you may be substance abuse or something for or whatever.
Ye as a way to feel better, which is you know why most people end up abusing substances. So you mentioned COVID, I would say that there's another sea.
Where I felt a it lazy when I did that. By the way, it's still in the back of it.
It's a factor. It is a factor that the other sea word, which is really important is community. So one of the factors that has led to a breakdown of community is COVID. But we know that the thanks the one have been tracking this way for quite some time.
And you know, I think common sense wise, we can sort of think about this, right, the things like night classes not being as available, you know, people not having as much spare time perhaps, you know, two full time plus incomes in a household, leading to less contact socially and outside of the sort of the work life. Working from home of course convenient and pragmatic for a lot
of people, but also isolates us from colleagues. And I think we can sort of keep listing those things, can't we When we think about what's actually broken down that incidental social community, you know, whether it be volunteering or attending a church or going along to a sports club and getting involved in things, those things have been eaten away, I think over the last decade.
I think that's yeah, I think you've nailed it.
Actually, what is what I should have said slightly more eloquently myself? Can you be lonely when you're surrounded by lots of people.
Yeah, that's one of the other tricky bits of this. Right, So often I don't.
Mean in a crowded street. I mean, for instance, you might be running an organization and the buck stops with you and you've got lots of people reporting to and all that sort of stuff, but essentially isolated maybe or unsupported or anyway.
Yeah, so that's again when we get into the nuance of it, right, I think you can actually potentially be in an unhappy family environment and feel lonely. So feeling lonely does not necessarily mean being alone either. That's the other take on this. A better way in some ways of defining what we're talking about is do you feel connected to other human beings?
Right?
And connection can be small amounts, so it can be as simple as, you know, a yarn with someone at the supermarket or while we're filling the car up with gas, or it can be more meaningful connections in our life. And so again, when we think about that breakdown of community that I think, you know, we've seen in the western world at least over the last decade, being able to shop from home, being able to have things delivered, you know, so much of our life now can be
delivered to our doorstep. That once we get into that pattern of avoidance of not going out and interacting socially and with our community, then loneliness can grow as a byproduct of those choices.
We would love to hear from you eight hundred and eighty whether you are lonely or you've actually overcome it, or what what did you notice? What did you notice or what triggered you to actually do something about it, because as Kyle has mentioned, it's something you can become. I think that the word was habituated too. You get used to your isolated isolation, then you suddenly think, well, you know, you know, you get used to your routine and your pattern and your pattern in your daily life
and looking after yourself. And have you have you broken that habit or broken that isolation? And how did you do it? But also how do we keep rebuilding? Because I think we are gradually establishing our sense of community. But I do think that that's that it's something that we have suffered from ever since COVID, the breakdown of community. Maybe you're not belonging to clubs that you might have
belonged to or organizations and things like that. I'd love to hear from you if you've got any questions you want to talk to Kyle about or you want to ask Kyle, then we'd love to hear from you as well. Eight hundred and eighty ten eighty text nine to nine two which I think we might go to the break now'll be back in just to take give us a call.
Highs Fob.
Hello, Well, what the hell is this? This is apparently it's a song about loneliness? What acorn?
What is it? Econ? I never heard of it.
We could give you some helium you can sing along with.
It here doing a show if we did a show with just a bunch of helium balloons.
Anyway, Hello, if you joined us, I hope you're not feeling so lonely this hour because we keep You're keeping us company, We're keeping you company. But this is the health of Umpton Beverage. Car McDonald's my guest. We're talking about dealing with loneliness, and just before I go to my first caller, I think that one of the questions will be worth exploring is how do you avoid loneliness
as you get older? Because fifty nine percent of kiwis over the age of sixty five feeling lonely or social number. That's I mean, that's two out of three almost. Yeah, okay, six out of ten, four out of three out of five.
There we go.
That's about as far as I can reduce that good three fifths.
There we go.
Right, let's take some calls, Yannie, Hello, Hello to you both.
Great song, great song?
Which one the Elvis one or that last song?
The last one just now, the Helium one. It's an awesome song. Should hear the whole thing. It's so great. It's not all just like that. But anyway, Yeah, I'm sixty seven, and I see it in a little bit of a different way because I am a survivor of Lake Ellis and abuse and kids. So I've chosen to be alone, live alone because I don't trust people at all. And so I, yeah, I live alone. I choose my
times when I see people and I don't. I don't go to cafes, I don't go to nightclubs because I just can't cope with all the noise and the people around me. But I have to say that I am not lonely as such. I quite. I have a great relationship with myself and I do talk to myself a lot. But I know that a lot of other people do that anyway, that sometimes.
The only way to guarantee intelligent conversation.
I find, well, that's right, and I sort of just you know, ask myself things and the and then I answer, you know, I do a lot of things, like I walk an hour and a half every morning.
You know, where does your social connection come from? Do you bump into people? Do you just not need it?
I just don't need it, I do, though, I go. I've just started, actually, which is very weird, started going to a friend's house for dinner every now and again. And it's something I haven't done for years. And we play cards. Oh my god, and and and it's fun. And I come home and I think, oh my god, I really enjoyed that.
Good.
I wouldn't want to do it all the time.
I just.
What you're doing a wonderful job of illustrating. And thanks so much for calling in and letting us know how it works for you, because I think what what you're outlining really clearly is actually, when we look at what this looks like at an individual level, it's about listening to ourselves and being honest for ourselves and recognizing that loneliness is a feeling points out when our life is of balance, and particularly I think when it comes to
as we move through life, that need might change. I mean, you know, most of us know that, for instance, teenagers and young people are generally to you thrash a stereotype generally more social, right, and that's partly a life and stage thing. But what we also know is that actually that need to be social to have a wide group of friends changes for all of us over life and
is different for each individual. So listening to yourself and connecting with a friend and starting to be just that little bit more connected to people.
Sounds like a great plan.
Thanks very much, thanks to you call.
You and niece really appreciate it.
Jan, Hello, Hi there.
I have three points. First one, some people are introverted and love their own company, don't like being in crowds or a socializing, so they're very happy on their own prefer it. And the extraverted people absolutely have to socialize the ways they feel unhappy and disconnected, et cetera. The second point, more people should be able to have pets which keep them company, and places like race homes and villages and elderly people on their own it should be facilitated.
Instead of all those dogs in Auckland, eleven thousand of them being killed by the council, they should have all been rehomed to good family.
I agree with you about pets. They're incredibly important when it comes to feeling a sense of connection.
What's your third one?
Jan the third one? Since I've been here in long than new some communities around here's sound probably even in the world. If you weren't born here and grew up here, you're not accepted. That's it. You could be here for ten years and you still won't be accepted. Yes, the first thing they ask you were you born here? And if you're not, that's it. You can't shut out from any sort of social connection, say snub you and very snobby. And that's how I found it. And a lot of people well.
Actually yeah, I mean I think, yeah, I think I think there would be people who feel that if they've come from a different country that it might take it might actually sometimes be a bit of a struggle.
Oh, it's hard to re establishing a network when you when you're from when you immigrate into a different country. But I think you know, particularly when we come we come back to the research around the fact that this is being recognized as a problem for those as they move into the later part of life. I think one of the really important things is to make sure that you maintain the capacity to be what I call a joiner.
Make sure you're someone who's a joiner. And what I mean by that is that you're willing to join things, and that includes being able to try new things. So I think I say that because if you have the unfortunate experience of feeling like you're not welcome in a particular group or community or activity, don't give up. Keep trying because I think I'm sure that that happens. I'm sure that that you know that to the nature of social groups and people is that they sometimes can be
a bit rough, not very welcoming. But keep trying. I think it's really important.
Actually, is.
It harder to form friendships as you get older?
Do you think as well?
Because people relationships come and go and friendships sometimes fall apart and things like that. In terms of do you think we are are we good at forming friends as we get older as well?
Or because there's one.
Thing to have acquaintances and people you know, Yeah, I mean, I know, truckloads of people. But in terms of the number of people I'd count as close friends, I mean, that would be a reasonably small number.
But maybe that's is that everyone.
I think it's pretty normal. I mean, I think when we look at one of the weird things about social media is this idea that we have hundreds or even thousands of friends. It's kind of ridiculous, right, what the brain research tells us. Actually, interestingly enough, we're not really capable of having meaningful connections with much more than a
handful of people. And then even wider friends, that upper number seems to be somewhere around one hundred something, So you know, when we think about sizes of community, that
makes sense. But just coming back to what you're saying there is the developmental research tends to suggest that we tend to get less flexible generally mentally flexible, I mean as we age, and so that ability to keep working at being open, engaging with new ideas, learning new skills, musical instruments, going to singing lessons, anything that can teach us a new skill later in life is incredibly important for that mental flexibility, and that includes making new connections with people.
Is that because we just aren't exercising those muscles, because when you're growing up and learning, and you are exercising those muscles all the time, because that's part of being young and growing up and learning, excuse me, learning new things. Whereas there's I might argue, in a very simplistic method manner, that maybe there's a level of complacency that you get
settled with what your life is. This is what I do for a job, these are my hobbies, and these are my friends, and so you actually don't practice those muscles. It's like, I quote this all the time. It's quite from Pride and prejudice, where mister Darcy says to miss Bennety says, I don't converse well with others, and she says, well, I don't play the piano very well. But I take that to be my own fault, given that I don't practice. Absolutely, there is something in that, isn't there That age is
not necessarily sarily the reason. It's what comes along with age in the way you approach things.
Yes, although I think that what's also true is that that makes it sound negative, which so let's talk about the positive flip side of that, which is that what tends to happen as we age, as we rely more on experience as a shortcut to know how to be in different situations. So that accumulation of experience often makes us really really good at doing the things we've done before, and it's hard to do things that are new. But the personality researchers talk about, this variable called openness to
experience is something you can measure. You can measure it across life, and it's one of the things that tends to predict. We can predict that most people's openness to experience goes down over life, starting from whatever setpoint you start at when you're younger, of course, so you know, very flexible people will tend to just be a little bit less flexible in older age.
Okay, let's take some more calls. Edward Hello, Oh.
Hi guys, with learning assiety from a different angle. I'm an only child and my wife died recently. We were married for nearly nearly fifty ideas, but we didn't we didn't any children, so of course now I have no one. So what I do to climbat out as I walk and everyone that I meet I talked to briefly, and I volunteer a lot. About half half a dozen different groups,
and I'd get my social connection from me. But it would be nice to have a lady friend, just just someone to have coffee worth, maybe go to the movies, have the meal together, just just degree are in, just just a real real friend.
Yeah.
But yeah, now that's how I deal with it. I'm quite happy with my with my own company, but but it would be nice to have a have a friend.
How long ago was it that your your wife passed away?
Two years?
Okay?
Yeah, Actually that's an interesting one, doesn't it. As you get older and relationships break up or you're breathed, yeah, estepish your relationships.
What do you reckon?
Well, let me just say, first of all, I think you're doing everything right in terms of what the standard sort of if you like advice is that don't for one moment underestimate those those small little moments of contact that you describe when you're out walking and you might say a low to someone or have a brief on those are actually really very important. And volunteering is a great way to get involved and to use our expertise in our time for the benefit ourselves and others. So
well done for that. The main thing, of course, is to make sure. If you are looking for a partner, to make sure. And I say this to anyone of any age. First thing you've got to do is make sure you're around people, because that's how we meet. So keep up the good ones.
I don't know if you.
Can go on things like Bumble or Tinder when you are slightly more advanced years and we don't know what the age, there's no age. Have you explored dating sort of in a apps orce sort of sight.
I was rather hoping that the the also working or I help out and there might be someone there or someone might know somebody. Yeah. I think back to the days we had nieces and nephews and all that kind of thing, and we usually had Christmas Day at air place and yet had a dozen people there. It was marvelous. And now on Christmas Day I go fishing. Oh I love it nice. Yeah, because Christmas Day just reminds me maybe what you don't have.
Maybe someone, maybe one of your nieces and nephews. And listening, so I heard Uncle Edward on the radio. He's looking for a date. Let's see what we can do.
I got a niece in Australia. She's the closest. Yeah, okay, I've got now so yeah, she's all your way away. But come here's that. I see you.
Thanks for that, Hey, Edward, good on you, mate, Thank you for your call. Actually, you know what, this has reminded me, and it almost makes me feel a bit guilty because, in the context of overnight talkback, which I do as well, it's a massive community and sometimes it'll probably make me be a bit more cautious about hanging up quickly on an irritating caller, because you know what, they are a massive community.
Yeah, fair enough, I completely agree. I mean, obviously nut as Clutters Club Sunday night from eleven pm to one am tune in tonight. We often talk about it as a community because it is, and I think for a lot of people, listening to the radio overnight is a great way to combat loneliness and to feel more connected.
Actually, well, you know, the example just before we move on, the example of what an amazing community that was is you'll recall when Bruce Russell passed away, Because that happened while you guys I think, were on air, it did, But the reaction on talkback to Bruce's passing amazing. When I had to go on and do the first sort of session of talkback one it was we thought it was after it because it was in the holiday. I
think it was in holiday. I can't quite remember what was going on, but I had to go on the next morning and we opened the lines and we hadn't opened the lines. We thought no one's calling, and it.
Was twenty four hours.
Every single host basically was the massive reaction to it. And it's just a sense because there was he was his own community.
To his callers.
And it's a good reminder to us, I think sometimes as opposed to me hitting the flush button irritating caller, which I will do once every two or three months, might have to make it once every three or four Anyway, Look tell you what, we will take a moment. We'll come back with. Got a bunch of callers. Please hold on, Gloria, Andrew, and Andrew and I will be back with you in just a minute. This is the week in collective the Health News talk said, be talking about loneliness.
Give us a call, Rush, Oh Fools, Rush that songs for Edward Fools Rush in We're Angel's Fear to Tread.
We were talking about that in the last before the last hour. Actually, krr's looking confused. That's me, is it?
I was wondering if you were going to tell me who it was. So thank you for doing.
That's me with the Buddy Children's Big Band in Hollywood, going back to that's over twenty years ago. Pretty fun anyway, the swing version of me. Anyway, Thank you, Tyra. Well, we'll save with the tim beverage now until it's Christmas song time and we have flogged the hell out of it. We got a couple of weeks a peace Gloria, Hello.
He's hello. The gentleman before who said about going out and doing voluntary work and there combat the loneliness and everything. That's a really really good idea, isn't it. Yep? Absolutely, because this thing, you know, mental health and loneliness and all that. When you get to know the people, often it's they're just they've shut themselves off from society and
it's just not good. And you know, when you get you get out and get involved and give you give of yourself to help other people, you just get so much joy out of doing that, whereas if you're just focusing on yourself all the time, you know, it's all a bit boring, whereas if you know, you get out and about and help other people. You know, we all need each other. That's the whole thing. You can't sit
around the house all day doing nothing. Yeah, so that's one way of looking at I'm not talking about clinical depression. That's something that's totally different.
And I understand and you're absolutely right that sense of contributing actually makes us feel better.
It does. We feel part of society, you know, we feel part of family, you know, Yeah, we feel feel part of the community. And my other take on this and as also, we have somebody who really wants to be our friend toe our spiritual values. That's God, but we don't want to know him. And that's really sad because when we know God, we've got somebody else that we can talk to and he understands us. And often when we know God, we usually join up in a
church group. Now, I know you're going to get everybody ringing in and saying to change.
I hope not.
I think that's the reason a lot of people go to church.
I think it's for the people.
Absolutely, you raise a really important point and it's one of the things I thought was interesting. It was included in the research because I'd be interested as to whether people who have a faith and a connection to God actually experienced loneliness in the same way. Of course that the very practical part is what you're raising that actually, what it tends to lead to for a lot of people is actually a sense of community with other human beings too, which is really important.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what. Yeah, absolutely, And you know, you go to a church and there's usually at least most church have ever at one hundred people, so you've got a huge that's the other thing. It's interesting because you've got people from all different walks of life with all that do all different occupations, and it's incredible you can know and yeah, so.
That's good advice.
And I think actually the other bit of advice, which I think is quite useful there is when you are lonely and you're focused on the way you're feeling that it's maybe sometimes counterintuitive to focus on other people, but by thinking of doing you know, thinking about connecting or helping other communities in a community, or doing some volunteer work and thinking about helping others, you do get that reward back pretty quickly. I think without focusing on yourself.
That's another times you have saying it. You could probably put that better for me, couldn't you?
Come No, I think you're absolutely right. And actually, interestingly, one of the things again talking about why why are we talking about this and why is this more becoming more of a problem. We also know that volunteer voluntary age and so you know there's a wide range of charities and organizations that rely on volunteers are struggling to find people, and that the number of people who are willing to volunteer has also been steadily decreasing over the
last few years. So again when we think about you know how to overcome that. If you're out there listening and you find yourself alone a lot of the time and not liking it, Google volunteer when whatever city you're in voluntary agencies, or go and talk to the Citizens Advice Bureau often in your local library, or see ap to orgdor in Z and they'll be able to put you in the right direction.
Actually that good because it gives you a choice of things you might be There might be things you think are could volunteer for that, but that doesn't really excite me that particular.
Cause but you'll find something absolutely that will excite and often then of course people who share some of the values.
Yeah being go see this is why we get you in Kyle. You know it's good grist for the mill mate.
Happy to help.
Andrew? Are you talking to us Andrew and he's talking to someone else he needs to work out, Tya, if you could just go and mention Andrew that we were quite keen to chat him. I think he's responding to someone else next to what he's talking about, Yes, while he's waiting die Hello, Oh hi.
Guys, Hey, good topic. Look, I think some people forget for elderly that there could be obstacles like poverty or ill health yep, where you know, some people could be they could have a little bit of money but not enough to go out and actually join in some of the things that cost a bit of money. And the other part is with the health factor. Some people might
be mobile but not as mobile to do things. So for me, I love walking and I'm always talking people or you know, their little dogs run up to me and we have a good old chin wag. So you know, I like to talk and help people out in the community wherever I can, and I remember back to a cousin and his wife who were just amazing as they aged.
They still love trampines that do really big walks up in the hills, and they also did ballroom dancing, which is yeah, and when you think about it, like they were that wasn't expenses And I remember they used to, you know, like they took my mum when she's elderly along, you know, to a couple of those dances, which were fantastic because you would know tim with your music, it is a great spirit lifting, you know, modem for really lifting people's spirits up and connecting socially.
Yeah, it's probably one of those things that when you're busy as a singer and things like that, I might have taken it for granted until you find yourself, you know, doing other mind you I've stepped into a pretty social job with talk back. But yeah, I mean, yeah, that's music is Music's a great way to connect with peace.
I think, yeah, just a little thing. One of the things I did my elderly mum's care and as she was aging, some things had become more difficult. She has amazing pianist and a great singer, and so when we're up in Nelson. We met this lovely lady who ran this fantastic ukulele group and they used to get together on Sunday afternoons. So we started going and the first couple of times are seriously, it was the best fun.
And there was a huge group of people, all different ages, and even people who would be walking past the hall or the room where you know, everyone was, they were just coming and it had that energy which lifted spirits. So I don't know, maybe we should have more of that sort of stuff and people, including those who are feeling a bit lonely.
Yeah, it's a fantastic suggestion. There's actually quite a bit of research into and you were like, in terms of singing together in groups, ukule groups, singing groups, choir as
you know. I mean, obviously that's an aspect of church for a lot of people, but that's there seems to be a particularly deep sense of connection when we are actually in sync with other people, whether it be through singing or playing musical instruments, which is even sort of more emotionally satisfying than conversation.
Actually, I'm going to mention I'm funny enough on the on the music front. I'm doing a Christmas concert with the north Shore Brass Band the Holy Trinity on the seventh of December. And you know, one of the reasons I'm really looking forward to it is just getting in front of a bunch of you, an audience, a live audience with an amazing I mean, it's a community organization at north Shore Brass and just yeah, a bit of Christmas, bit of community spirit, all of the above.
You know, Well, let me just check another helpful suggestion out there too as well, because the caller mentioned, what if your health problems, you can't get out of the house. So there's a service that a lot of people may not know about called the Saint john On's Caring Caller Service.
And it's both sides, right, So you can volunteer to do it and you can apply apply to the program to be part of it, and it's basically a regular phone call from a person on a regular basis for those elderly who might struggle to get out of the house or struggle to connect with people. Eight hundred Saint John's is the way to get hold of them, and it's a great service. We've talked about a lot on the Nuttis Club over the years. It's a very practical way to both help and to be helped.
Good stuff, Right, We are going to be back in just a moment. It's eleven and a half minutes to five News talks, there'd be and welcome back news talks, there'd be week and collective. There's no excuse for that song. I don't mean it's a bad choice, but it's just not related to our topic. It's just just a good old banger from time to time built the city on rock and roll.
Let's carry on with the cause.
Talking about learning was Loneliness with psychotherapist and the host of The Night of Club, corm mac donald Andrew. Hello, Yeah, I h.
I apologize I was talking to the next neighbor, but hey, look, I really have sort of understood the subject for some time, and the fact that I've lived in quite a few different countries and as soon as you get there, it's just alone, you don't know anyone, et cetera. And it's but I think some of the.
People on the show already have brought up some really good ideas. It's just about you know, stepping out a comfort zone and and like literally being a pain in your own ass.
Yes, well, I think we can let your way with that one, Andrew set you're basically saying you've got to push yourself out of your comfort zone.
You've got to really really go, and you don't have to worry about what other people.
Think you can. Just you can, because you know you'll pick and choose, other people will choose you, and then you'll pick and choose between those people.
I agree.
And the capacity to tolerate noble disappointment is really important in that process, isn't it that? Actually, like I said earlier in the hour, the important thing was being a joiner someone who can join and do new things, is to keep going, keep trying, and make sure no matter what happens, you just keep going, keep trying the next thing.
Hundred thanks, really really good advice.
Yep, thanks Andrew. Actually a lot of people sort of say I'm not very good at conversation. It's like I just say, what, just be honest.
I do.
Remember this was in a context of updating someone saying I saw someone once and they thought I really should go and talk to her, Yeah, and couldn't think of anything say so he said, actually went up and said, I've been trying to think of an excuse to come up and say, lady, and I couldn't.
So Hi nice, I thought genuine?
Is it honestep, authentic or where you go?
The best advice if you're not sure what to say is just be really interested in the other person.
Again, very good advice. Julianne.
Hello, Yeah, Hi Tim, You're my favorite talk show host. I'm finally ringing in to talk to you. I'm seventy five and I'm associated with Age Consume and they have a professional visiting service for one hour a week and they can pick you up, take you to coffee, take you to do your shopping, and they give a wonderful service.
And it's twenty dollars to join. And the email is Age Concern at age co nak dot org dot m Z and the telephone numbers O nine eight two one eighty four and you can join up and they'll send you out all the gin. They'll email you a whole thing about all the community centers and we're going We're going to the Chatter two community seats twelve thirty most days to do an hour of aerobics. And my husband's in a wheelchair and he loves it.
Fantastic of the Age concent did great work, and of course you know that the piece and the media that we've been talking about was of course Age Concern Research. So thank you for the time that you've given and for letting us know about those resources.
And Juliane, if anyone at Google's age Concern, they'll get taken to age concern Aukland website pretty quickly, won't they, even if they can't read.
They will, and the forms there they can fill out online, they can pay their twenty dollars online and someone will contact them.
The brilliant Hey, thanks so much, Juliane, call again sometimes.
Thank you.
I will both and now all the best.
Gosh, that hour has flown by Kyle. So look, I hope we've managed to keep your company in an ironic sense with our talk about loneliness.
But any sort of final thoughts with thirty seconds to.
Go, don't be afraid of doing something new. I think that's a really important thing. Try something new, Try talking to a new person, and if you feel stuck, try to think creatively about how you can solve that problem. And if all else fails, get another brain involved, talk to someone.
Try try try again, and people can catch you on the Nutters Club tonight at what time?
Eleven pm on here on News Talks, you'd be till one am.
Excellent, We'll be back shortly with smart Money news Talks.
He'd be.
For more from the weekend collective. Listen live to News Talks. He'd be weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio