- Brother’s heart-wrenchingly honest obit for 76-year-old sibling’s hard, lonely life goes viral: ‘He didn’t fit in’ New York Post
- A little life: Heartbreaking obituary tells story of man bullied at school for being shy, shunned as an adult Daily Mail
- Almost no one spoke to Brian when he was alive — but his obituary? It’s making people talk KARE 11
- A Forgotten Man -Outpouring Of Heartfelt Comments For Minnesota Man Minnesota’s New Country
- A lonely life ends. A brother writes a ‘brutally honest’ obituary. INFORUM
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Lonely
Amy Schumer on her battle with endometriosis: It’s a lonely disease
Amy Schumer recalled her battle with endometriosis in a preview clip of the docuseries, The Checkup: With Dr. David Agus. She described her condition as a “lonely” struggle.
New Delhi,UPDATED: Dec 14, 2022 15:00 IST
Amy Schumer opens up on battle with endometriosis.
By Daphne Clarance: Last year, actor-comedian Amy Schumer revealed she was battling endometriosis, a disease characterised by tissue growth outside the uterus. She underwent a hysterectomy and an appendectomy in an effort to treat the disease.
In the preview clip of the docuseries, The Checkup: With Dr. David Agus, Amy opened up about her experience with the condition which she described as a “lonely” battle.
“It’s a lonely disease. You tell someone you get really bad cramps, and they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s being a woman,’ and you’re like, ‘No, it’s irregular,'” she said.
Reflecting on her struggle, Amy said that she was in “so much pain” her whole life, not just the week of her period.
“I’ve been in so much pain, you know, my whole life, not just the week of my period. It’s during ovulation. I would hopefully get a good week a month where I wasn’t in pretty significant pain, still trying to achieve, still trying to go through life. It’s been really difficult,” she recalled.
After the treatment, she said that she felt great. “I felt like a new person. It was incredible,” she told Dr Agus in the clip. “I feel like someone lifted this veil that had been over me and I just felt like a different person and like a new mom,” she added.
Amy shared a post in September 2021 after her surgery and wrote, “If you have really painful periods you may have #endometriosis.”
According to the World Health Organisation, endometriosis is a disease in which a tissue is formed outside the uterus that causes a chronic inflammatory reaction. It may result in the formation of a scar within the pelvis and the other parts of the body.
This condition causes painful periods, fatigue, depression, anxiety, abdominal bloating and nausea, pain during and after sexual intercourse and painful urination.
Amy Schumer talks about her ‘lonely battle’ with endometriosis
Fighting a health battle can often be a lonely experience even if you are surrounded by loved ones, because essentially, you are the only one who is undergoing the treatment and everything else that is associated with it — the emotional setback and the physical trauma.
Stand-up comedian and actor Amy Schumer once again talked about her painful journey of dealing with endometriosis, and what the experience was like for her. For the unversed, the condition leads to heavy and painful periods with symptoms gradually worsening over time. It can be accompanied by pain in the lower abdomen, lower back, pelvis, rectum, or vagina during sexual intercourse or defecation.
Endometriosis happens when the uterine tissue that normally is inside the uterus, grows outside of it, disturbing other organs.
Schumer, 41, had to undergo a hysterectomy and an appendectomy for it, in September 2021. She had shared a picture and a video of herself on Instagram informing her followers that she underwent a surgery for endometriosis.
“So, it is the morning after my surgery for endometriosis and my uterus is out. The doctor found 30 spots of endometriosis that he removed. He removed my appendix, because the endometriosis had attacked it… There was a lot, a lot of blood in my uterus and I’m, you know, sore and I have some, like, gas pains,” she had said.
Now, as seen in a preview clip for her appearance on the Paramount+ docuseries, ‘The Checkup with Dr David Agus‘, the comedian called the health condition a “lonely battle”.
“You tell someone you get really bad cramps, and they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s being a woman’, and you’re like, ‘No, it’s irregular’. I’ve been in so much pain my whole life — not just the week of my period. It’s during ovulation. I would hopefully get a good week a month where I wasn’t in pretty significant pain, still trying to achieve, still trying to go through life. It’s been really difficult.”
Schumer, however, stated that she “felt like a new person” after her treatment. “It was incredible. I feel like someone lifted this veil that had been over me and I just felt like a different person, and like a new mom.”
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Feeling Lonely? What We Want From Our Relationships Can Change With Age
Summary: Expectations of what a person expects from an interpersonal relationship change significantly as we age. Researchers say that many people still feel lonely, even when they don’t spend too much time alone.
Source: Duke University
Not everyone’s holiday plans resemble a Hallmark card.
If the “most wonderful time of the year” isn’t your reality, you’re not alone. You might have an idea of a festive picture-perfect holiday season, but what actually transpires doesn’t always measure up.
And that’s where loneliness comes from, says King’s College London graduate student Samia Akhter-Khan, first author of a new study on the subject.
“Loneliness results from a discrepancy between expected and actual social relationships,” Akhter-Khan said.
Together with Duke psychology and neuroscience Ph.D. Leon Li, Akhter-Khan and colleagues co-authored a paper on why people feel lonely, particularly in later life, and what we can do about it.
“The problem that we identified in current research was that we haven’t really thought about: What do people expect from their relationships?” Akhter-Khan said. “We work with this definition of expectations, but we don’t really identify what those expectations are and how they change across cultures or over the lifespan.”
In every relationship, we expect certain basics. We all want people in our lives who we can ask for help. Friends we can call on when we need them. Someone to talk to. People who “get” us. Someone we can trust. Companions with whom we can share fun experiences.
But the team’s theory, called the Social Relationship Expectations Framework, suggests that older people may have certain relationship expectations that have gone overlooked.
Akhter-Khan’s first clue that the causes of loneliness might be more complex than meets the eye came during a year she spent studying aging in Myanmar from 2018 to 2019. At first, she assumed people generally wouldn’t feel lonely — after all, “people are so connected and live in a very close-knit society. People have big families; they’re often around each other. Why would people feel lonely?”
But her research suggested otherwise. “It actually turns out to be different,” she said. People can still feel lonely, even if they don’t spend much time alone.
What efforts to reduce loneliness have neglected, she said, is how our relationship expectations change as we get older. What we want from social connections in, say, our 30s isn’t what we want in our 70s.
The researchers identified two age-specific expectations that haven’t been taken into account. For one, older adults want to feel respected. They want people to listen to them, to take an interest in their experiences and learn from their mistakes. To appreciate what they’ve been through and the obstacles they have overcome.
They also want to contribute: to give back to others and their community and pass along traditions or skills through teaching and mentoring, volunteering, caregiving, or other meaningful activities.
Finding ways to fulfill these expectations as we get older can go a long way towards combating loneliness in later life, but research has largely left them out.
“They’re not part of the regular scales for loneliness,” Li said.
Part of the reason for the oversight may be that often the labor and contributions of older people are unaccounted for in typical economic indices, said Akhter-Khan, who worked in 2019-20 as a graduate research assistant for a Bass Connections project at Duke on how society values care in the global economy.
“Ageism and negative aging stereotypes don’t help,” she added. A 2016 World Health Organization survey spanning 57 countries found that 60% of respondents said that older adults aren’t well respected.
Loneliness isn’t unique to older people. “It is a young people’s problem as well,” Akhter-Khan said. “If you look at the distribution of loneliness across the lifespan, there are two peaks, and one is in younger adulthood, and one is an old age.”
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, world leaders began sounding the alarm on loneliness as a public health issue. Britain became the first country to name a minister for loneliness, in 2018. Japan followed suit in 2021.
See also
That’s because loneliness is more than a feeling – it can have real impacts on health. Persistent loneliness has been associated with higher risks of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease and stroke, and other health problems. Some researchers suggest it’s comparable or riskier than smoking and obesity.
The researchers hope that if we can better understand the factors driving loneliness, we might be better able to address it.
About this relationship and aging research news
Author: Robin Smith
Source: Duke University
Contact: Robin Smith – Duke University
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Open access.
“Understanding and Addressing Older Adults’ Loneliness: The Social Relationship Expectations Framework” by Samia C. Akhter-Khan et al. Perspectives on Psychological Science
Abstract
Understanding and Addressing Older Adults’ Loneliness: The Social Relationship Expectations Framework
Loneliness is an experience resulting from a perceived discrepancy between expected and actual social relationships. Although this discrepancy is widely considered the “core mechanism” of loneliness, previous research and interventions have not sufficiently addressed what older adults specifically expect from their social relationships.
To address this gap and to help situate research on older adults’ loneliness within broader life span developmental theories, we propose a theoretical framework that outlines six key social relationship expectations of older adults based on research from psychology, gerontology, and anthropology: availability of social contacts, receiving care and support, intimacy and understanding, enjoyment and shared interests, generativity and contribution, and being respected and valued.
We further argue that a complete understanding of loneliness across the life span requires attention to the powerful impacts of contextual factors (e.g., culture, functional limitations, social network changes) on the expression and fulfillment of older adults’ universal and age-specific relationship expectations.
The proposed Social Relationship Expectations Framework may fruitfully inform future loneliness research and interventions for a heterogeneous aging population.
Webb Is Giving Us a Stunning New Look Into This Lonely Dwarf Galaxy : ScienceAlert
The James Webb Space Telescope Early Release Science (ERS) program – first released on 12 July 2022 – has proven to be a treasure trove of scientific finds and breakthroughs.
Among the many areas of research it is enabling, there’s the study of Resolved Stellar Populations (RSTs), which was the subject of ERS 1334.
This refers to large groups of stars close enough that individual stars can be discerned but far enough apart that telescopes can capture many of them at once. A good example is the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte (WLM) dwarf galaxy that neighbors the Milky Way.
Kristen McQuinn, an assistant professor of astrophysics at Rutgers University, is one of the lead scientists of the Webb ERS program whose work is focused on RSTs. Recently, she spoke to Natasha Piro, a NASA senior communications specialist, about how the JWST has enabled new studies of the WLM.
Webb’s improved observations have revealed that this galaxy hasn’t interacted with other galaxies in the past.
According to McQuinn, this makes it a great candidate for astronomers to test theories of galaxy formation and evolution. Here are the highlights of that interview.
Regarding WLM
The WLM is roughly 3 million light-years from Earth, which means it’s fairly close (in astronomical terms) to the Milky Way. However, it’s also relatively isolated, leading astronomers to conclude that it hasn’t interacted with other systems in the past.
When astronomers have observed other nearby dwarf galaxies, they have noticed that they are typically entangled with the Milky Way, indicating that they are in the process of merging.
This makes them harder to study since their population of stars and gas clouds cannot be fully distinguished from our own.
Another important thing about WLM is that it is low in terms of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium (which were very prevalent in the early Universe). Elements like carbon, oxygen, silicon, and iron, were formed in the cores of early population stars and were dispersed when these stars exploded in supernovae.
In the case of WLM, which has experienced star formation throughout its history, the force of these explosions has pushed these elements out over time. This process is known as “galactic winds” and has been observed with small, low-mass galaxies.
JWST Images
The new Webb images provide the clearest view of WLM ever seen. Previously, the dwarf galaxy was imaged by the Infrared Array Camera (IAC) on the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST).
These provided limited resolution compared to the Webb images, which can be seen in the side-by-side comparison (shown below).
As you can see, Webb’s infrared optics and advanced suite of instruments provide a much deeper view that allows for individual stars and features to be differentiated. As McQuinn described it:
“We can see a myriad of individual stars of different colors, sizes, temperatures, ages, and stages of evolution; interesting clouds of nebular gas within the galaxy; foreground stars with Webb’s diffraction spikes; and background galaxies with neat features like tidal tails. It’s really a gorgeous image.”
The ERS Program
As McQuinn explained, the main science focus of ERS 1334 is to build on previous expertise developed with Spitzer, Hubble, and other space telescopes to learn more about the history of star formation in galaxies.
Specifically, they are conducting deep multi-band imaging of three resolved stellar systems within a Megaparsec (~3,260 light-years) of Earth using Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Near-Infrared Imaging Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS).
These include the globular cluster M92, the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Draco II, and the star-forming WLM dwarf galaxy.
The population of low-mass stars in WLM makes it especially interesting since they are so long-lived, which means some of the stars seen there today may have formed during the early Universe.
“By determining the properties of these low-mass stars (like their ages), we can gain insight into what was happening in the very distant past,” said McQuinn.
“It’s very complementary to what we learn about the early formation of galaxies by looking at high-redshift systems, where we see the galaxies as they existed when they first formed.”
Another objective is to use the WLM dwarf galaxy to calibrate the JWST to ensure it can measure the brightness of stars with extreme accuracy, which will allow astronomers to test stellar evolution models in the near-infrared.
McQuinn and her colleagues are also developing and testing non-proprietary software for measuring the brightness of resolved stars imaged with the NIRCam, which will be made available to the public.
The results of their ESR project will be released before the Cycle 2 Call for Proposals (27 January 2023).
The James Webb Space Telescope has been in space less than a year but has already proven itself to be invaluable. The breathtaking views of the cosmos it has provided include deep field images, extremely precise observations of galaxies and nebulae, and detailed spectra from extrasolar planet atmospheres.
The scientific breakthroughs it has already allowed for have been nothing short of groundbreaking. Before its planned 10-year mission is over (which could be extended to 20), some truly paradigm-shifting breakthroughs are anticipated.
This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.
James Webb Space Telescope peers into lonely dwarf galaxy
The most powerful space telescope currently operating has zoomed in on a lonely dwarf galaxy in our galactic neighborhood, imaging it in stunning detail.
At around 3 million light-years from Earth, the dwarf galaxy, named Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte (WLM) for three astronomers instrumental in its discovery, is close enough that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can distinguish individual stars while still being able to study large numbers of stars simultaneously. The dwarf galaxy, in the constellation of Cetus, is one of the most remote members of the local galaxy group that contains our galaxy. Its isolated nature and lack of interactions with other galaxies, including the Milky Way, make WLM useful in the study of how stars evolve in smaller galaxies.
“We think WLM hasn’t interacted with other systems, which makes it really nice for testing our theories of galaxy formation and evolution,” Kristen McQuinn, an astronomer at Rutgers University in New Jersey and lead scientist on the research project, said in a statement from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, which operates the observatory. “Many of the other nearby galaxies are intertwined and entangled with the Milky Way, which makes them harder to study.”
Related: Magnificent Pillars of Creation sparkle in new James Webb Space Telescope image
McQuinn pointed out a second reason WLM is an intriguing target: its gas is very similar to that of galaxies in the early universe, without any elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.
But whereas the gas of those early galaxies never contained heavier elements, the gas in WLM has lost its share of these elements to a phenomenon called galactic winds. These winds stem from supernovas, or exploding stars; because WLM has so little mass, these winds can push material out of the dwarf galaxy.
In the JWST image of WLM, McQuinn described seeing an array of individual stars at different points in their evolution with a variety of colors, sizes, temperatures and ages. The image also shows clouds of molecular gas and dust, called nebulas, which contain the raw material for star formation within WLM. In background galaxies, JWST can spot fascinating features like massive tidal tails, which are structures made of stars, dust and gas created by gravitational interactions between galaxies.
JWST’s main goal in studying WLM is to reconstruct the dwarf galaxy’s history of star birth. “Low-mass stars can live for billions of years, which means that some of the stars that we see in WLM today formed in the early universe,” McQuinn said. “By determining the properties of these low-mass stars (like their ages), we can gain insight into what was happening in the very distant past.”
The work complements the study of galaxies in the early universe that JWST is already facilitating, and it also allows the telescope’s operators to check the calibration of the NIRCam instrument that captured the sparkling image. That’s possible because both the Hubble Space Telescope and the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope have studied the dwarf galaxy before, and scientists can compare the images.
“We’re using WLM as a sort of standard for comparison to help us make sure we understand the JWST observations,” McQuinn said. “We want to make sure we’re measuring the stars’ brightnesses really, really accurately and precisely. We also want to make sure that we understand our stellar evolution models in the near-infrared.”
McQuinn’s team is currently developing a software tool that everyone will be able to use that can measure the brightness of all the individually resolved stars in the NIRCam images, she said.
“This is a bedrock tool for astronomers around the world,” she said. “If you want to do anything with resolved stars that are crowded together on the sky, you need a tool like this.”
The team’s WLM research is currently awaiting peer-review.
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Being Sad and Lonely Accelerates Aging More Than Smoking
According to Deep Longevity, the effects of mental health can be as important as physical health on the pace of aging. In fact, vulnerable mental health has a stronger effect on the pace of aging compared to smoking.
Deep Longevity has bridged the gap between the concepts of biological and psychological aging. According to the new aging clock, vulnerable mental health has a stronger effect on the pace of aging compared to a number of health conditions and smoking.
As we age, molecular damage accumulates and contributes to the development of aging-related frailty and serious diseases. These molecular processes are more intense in some people than in others, resulting in a condition commonly referred to as accelerated aging.
Fortunately, it is possible to detect the increased pace of aging before its disastrous consequences manifest by using digital models of aging (aging clocks). These models can also be used to derive anti-aging therapies at individual and population levels.
Research confirms: Psychological issues can accelerate your pace of aging. Credit: Fedor Galkin
According to the latest article published in the journal Aging-US, any anti-aging therapy needs to focus on one’s mental health as much as one’s physical health. An international collaboration led by Deep Longevity with US and Chinese scientists has measured the effects of being lonely, feeling unhappy, or having restless sleep on the pace of aging and discovered it to be substantial.
A new aging clock trained and verified with blood and biometric data of 11,914 Chinese adults is featured in the scientific paper. This is the first aging clock to be trained exclusively on a Chinese cohort of such volume.
AI to connect psychological and biological aging. Credit: Fedor Galkin
Aging acceleration was detected in people with a history of stroke, liver and lung diseases, smokers, and most intriguingly, people in a vulnerable mental state. In fact, feeling unhappy, hopeless, and lonely was demonstrated to increase one’s biological age more than smoking. Living in a rural area (due to the low availability of medical services) and being single are two additional factors associated with an accelerated aging process.
Therefore, the authors of the paper conclude that the psychological aspect of aging should not be overlooked either in research or in practical anti-aging applications. According to Manuel Faria from Stanford University:
“Mental and psychosocial states are some of the most robust predictors of health outcomes — and quality of life — yet they have largely been omitted from modern healthcare.”
Alex Zhavoronkov, the CEO of Insilico Medicine, points out that the study provides a course of action to “slow down or even reverse psychological aging on a national scale.”
Earlier this year, Deep Longevity released FuturSelf.AI, an AI-guided mental health web service, that is based on a preceding publication in the journal Aging-US. The service offers a free psychological assessment that is processed by an artificial intelligence algorithm and provides a thorough report on a user’s psychological age as well as current and future mental well-being. Deepankar Nayak, the CEO of Deep longevity affirms,
“FuturSelf.AI, in combination with the study of older Chinese adults, positions Deep Longevity at the forefront of biogerontological research.”
Reference: “Psychological factors substantially contribute to biological aging: evidence from the aging rate in Chinese older adults” by Fedor Galkin, Kirill Kochetov, Diana Koldasbayeva, Manuel Faria, Helene H. Fung, Amber X. Chen and Alex Zhavoronkov, 27 September 2022, Aging.
DOI: 10.18632/aging.204264
About Deep Longevity
Deep Longevity developed the Longevity as a Service (LaaS)© solution to integrate multiple deep biomarkers of aging dubbed “deep aging clocks” to provide a universal multifactorial measure of human biological age. Deep Longevity is owned by Hong Kong Stock Exchange listed Endurance Longevity (SEHK:0575.HK).
Being unhappy or lonely speeds up aging — even more than smoking
HONG KONG — Being unhappy or experiencing loneliness accelerates the aging process more than smoking, according to new research. An international team says unhappiness damages the body’s biological clock, increasing the risk for Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart disease, and other illnesses.
The team reports that they detected aging acceleration among people with a history of stroke, liver and lung diseases, smoking, and in people with a vulnerable mental state. Interestingly, feeling hopeless, unhappy, and lonely displayed a connection to increasing a patient’s biological age more than the harmful impact of smoking.
The findings are based on the first “aging clock” study of its kind, trained and verified with blood and biometric data from almost 12,000 Chinese adults.
“We demonstrate psychological factors, such as feeling unhappy or being lonely, add up to one year and eight months to one’s biological age,” says study author Dr. Fedor Galkin from start-up Deep Longevity Limited, according to a statement from SWNS.
“The aggregate effect exceeds the effects of biological sex, living area and marital and smoking status. We conclude the psychological component should not be ignored in aging studies due to its significant impact on biological age.”
Aging clocks can catch the problem early
The international team’s tool bridges the gap between the concepts of biological and psychological aging. It shows mental health has a stronger effect on the pace of aging compared to a number of health conditions and lifestyle habits. Molecular damage accumulates and contributes to the development of frailty and serious diseases. In some people, these processes are more intense — a condition scientists refer to as accelerated aging.
Fortunately, researchers say the increased pace of aging is detectable by modern science before it results in disastrous consequences. These “aging clocks” can also help create anti-aging therapies on individual and large-scale levels. However, any treatments need to focus on mental health as much as physical health, the researchers note.
The team measured the effects of being lonely, having restless sleep, or feeling unhappy on the pace of aging and found it to be significant. Other factors linked to aging acceleration include being single and living in a rural area, due to the low availability of medical services.
“Mental and psychosocial states are some of the most robust predictors of health outcomes — and quality of life — yet they have largely been omitted from modern healthcare,” says corresponding author Manuel Faria, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, in a media release.
Loneliness is global issue that’s spreading
Last month, a worldwide study found loneliness increases the risk of cardiovascular disease by almost a third. A Harvard University analysis described 18 to 22-year-olds (Gen Z) as the “loneliest generation.” Data also suggests loneliness increased during the pandemic, with young adults under 25, older adults, women, and low-income individuals feeling the effects the most.
Co-author Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, CEO of Insilico Medicine, adds the “clock” provides a course of action to “slow down or even reverse psychological aging on a national scale.” Earlier this year, Deep Longevity released an AI-guided mental health web service called FuturSelf.AI.
It offers a free assessment that provides a comprehensive report on a user’s psychological age as well as current and future mental well-being.
“FuturSelf.AI, in combination with the study of older Chinese adults, positions Deep Longevity at the forefront of biogerontological research,” says Deepankar Nayak, CEO of Deep Longevity.
The findings appear in the journal Aging-US.
South West News Service writer Mark Waghorn contributed to this report.
Prince Harry Makes Lonely Departure From Balmoral, Suggesting the Bitter Royal Feud Has Outlived the Queen
Prince Harry departed Balmoral Castle on Friday morning the same way he had arrived—alone.
The prince, who spent just over 12 hours at Balmoral, has become estranged from his family since he and his wife, Meghan Markle, left their status as working royals and gave a series of interviews condemning the family and the institution, and making accusations of racism.
A clearly upset Harry arrived at Balmoral at 8 p.m. Thursday, 90 minutes after the queen’s death was announced.
Although only Charles and his sister Anne were said to be at the queen’s bedside when she died, peacefully, yesterday afternoon, the announcement of her death was delayed until other members of the family had gathered at Balmoral.
Prince William, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, and his wife, Sophie, all flew to Scotland together on an air-force jet, but, incredibly, Harry was not on board, despite the fact that he was at his house in Windsor with Meghan, which is just a few hundred yards from William’s house (and not far from either Edward or Andrew’s homes).
He arrived hours later and was in the air, on a commercially rented plane, when the death announcement was made.
Mystery also surrounded his wife Meghan’s movements. Despite an initial announcement by Sussex-friendly journalist Omid Scobie that Meghan would be going with Harry to Balmoral, Scobie subsequently issued a correction to say she would not.
The palace has not clarified what happened, however the BBC’s royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell gave voice to widespread speculation that she was told to stay clear, saying, on air: “She might not be terribly warmly welcomed, to be perfectly candid about it.”
A little over 12 hours after Harry’s arrival, at 8:30 a.m. local time, he was photographed texting on his phone while being driven out of the gates of Balmoral Castle, in photographs carried by MailOnline. He was then seen boarding a jet at Aberdeen airport, apparently comforting an airport staffer.
Peter Summers/Getty Images
Harry’s solitary pilgrimage to and from his grandmother’s deathbed is no accident. The choreography represents a clear message from King Charles: Harry is an outsider, a second-tier royal now.
The Daily Mail reported the plane he used was “owned by the commercial jet leasing company Luxeaviation UK.”
His ruthless treatment will only serve to reinforce speculation of ongoing bad blood between Harry, Meghan, and the rest of the family.
A former royal staffer, as The Daily Beast previously reported, told The Royalist: “I’m sure they will all put on a good show for the funeral, just as they did for Philip’s. But that occasion very much failed to bring the brothers together in any meaningful way. This won’t be any different.”
Harry and Meghan’s isolation from the rest of his family comes after Harry’s camp said this week, before the queen’s death, that, far from being snubbed by the royals, Harry had made no effort to reach out to William and was refusing to do so until William apologized for his part in what Harry sees as unacceptable treatment of him and Meghan prior to their departure from the family.
Harry and Meghan were in the U.K., by chance, having arranged a number of charity events in England and Germany this week.
Scobie said on Twitter this morning that Harry would “of course” remain in the U.K. until the queen’s funeral, which is likely to be on Monday, Sept. 19.
Online cultural events can benefit lonely older people, study shows | Mental health
We remember it all too well from the first lockdown. The obligatory weekly Zoom quizzes and the stream of cultural events held online.
While most of us can head down to the local pub again and delight in the return of good old Sunday quizzes, some people are still stuck at home. And research suggests online cultural activities such as museum tours can significantly improve the mental and physical health of elderly people who are homebound.
“Our study showed that art-based activity may be an effective intervention,” said Dr Olivier Beauchet, a professor at McGill University in Montreal and lead author of a study published in Frontiers in Medicine.
Social isolation and loneliness, which are often more acute in older people, are as bad for health as long-term illness and can lead to premature death. Successive lockdowns during the pandemic only made things worse.
Researchers suggest that just one virtual trip to the museum a week could foster social inclusion and improve the physical and mental wellbeing of seniors.
The team recruited 106 community-dwelling adults aged 65 and older to investigate the potential health benefits of art-based activities. Half of the participants attended weekly online museum tours followed by an informal discussion, while the other half did not participate in any cultural activities before or during the three-month study period.
The people who joined the visits recorded improved feelings of social inclusion, wellbeing and quality of life, as well as reduced physical frailty, compared with those who did not attend the guided tours.
More than 2 million people aged over 75 live alone in England, and more than a million say they sometimes go for more than a month without any social contact, according to the charity Age UK.
“This study shows that with adequate infrastructure, age-friendly access and technical support, digital technology can benefit the mental health and wellbeing of older people,” said Prof Yang Hu, of Lancaster University.
The necessary technical guidance is often lacking, however, which is why virtual contact left older people feeling lonelier than with no contact at all during the pandemic.
“Unfortunately, older people are often left to their own devices to navigate technology use,” Hu said. Unprepared and lengthened digital exposure could lead to stress and burnout in people who are not familiar with technology, he added.
Dr Snorri Rafnsson, of the University of West London, said:“With adequate support, the potential of scaling this kind of intervention up is great.”
Not everyone has access to online resources and activities, however. “There are huge barriers for older people living in the community – lack of internet, knowledge and support, financial issues and so on,” Rafnsson said. “Studies show that those who have family around them, and a supportive social network, are more likely to take up and use online technology.”