I subscribe to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fitness newsletter that provides daily content on health and fitness. There was a deep connection that resonated with me in this morning’s newsletter articles. The first was on this study regarding the early mortality rate of those who are lonely and isolated socially in comparison to those who are socially and physically connected to others in their neighborhood, as well as with family and friends. The second story was about the health value of getting up and walking around every hour so rather than sitting for more than 2 hours straight.

In our suburban nation we sit in our cars to go anywhere. We then sit at our desks to do the majority of our work. And we sit at home and watch tv or doom scroll through the bitter end of social media as we once knew it. We sit and drive to sit a lot. And it isolates us from engaging with people on street corners, in public and private places, and at work (we don’t go to church, or social clubs, or the library, or post office anymore). We have transitioned daily need trips, such as picking up milk, eggs (too expensive!), newspaper (what is that?!), and dry cleaning (we don’t wear hard pants anymore) to online shopping that is delivered.

We’ve isolated ourselves in our homes and it has obviously become bad for our physical and mental health. It’s easy to see that we’re not healthier, happer, or wealthier in our new post-industrial, online lifestyle…

So what can we do about it? I recommend following this manifesto: https://www.cnu.org/who-we-are/charter-new-urbanism