Between confinement, curfew and barrier gestures, many French people suffer from loneliness this year.

To break it, however, it only takes a phone call of ten minutes, a few times a week, recalls doctor Jimmy Mohamed on Europe 1 Monday morning. 

It doesn't take much to break loneliness.

A simple phone call to a family member or friend is always beneficial, especially in these times of a pandemic.

This year, in fact, loneliness has become a real public health problem, recalls Doctor Jimmy Mohamed on Monday morning at the microphone of Europe 1. But according to him, the solution is quite found to overcome it: a phone call to the isolated people four to five times a week. 

Actions, barriers, curfews, confinement… We have reduced our social interactions in recent months.

So much so that some French people have fallen into real loneliness, which, as we know, is a real public health problem.

When you are alone, you sleep less well, you eat less well, you increase your anxiety, you go out less and therefore you are simply less healthy.

People who suffer from loneliness are also more likely to have medical problems than others, including cardiovascular disease.

Less anxiety after four weeks of calls

To break the isolation, however, there is a simple solution: call people on the phone.

According to a recent study, phone calls can, after just a few weeks, reduce anxiety and symptoms of loneliness.

To conduct this research, the scientists observed young people aged 17 to 23 calling isolated people between two and five times a week, mainly those over 65 living alone.

The call was to last ten minutes at most.

We realized that after only four weeks, the people called were better, had less anxiety, less stress, less depression.

>> Find Jimmy Mohamed's column every morning at 8:37 am on Europe 1 as well as in replay and podcast here

From this study, we can draw two strategies.

The first would be a setting up by the health authorities of a call program for isolated people.

At the individual level, we could take a little of our time to spend a little less time on social networks to have real exchanges.

An authentic exchange since what is interesting about the study is that what works is not just to make a phone call to find out if people are okay, it is to take a genuine interest in their problems. .