Chicago (AFP)
Just three weeks ago, you could see Shelley Howard six days a week at one of Chicago's restaurants or bars, sipping a drink with friends. Today, like millions of other people on Earth, this American spends his evenings alone at home because of the coronavirus pandemic.
At 73, Mr. Howard, of a very sociable nature, regularly published photos of his animated evenings, often showing him distributing handshakes and hugs.
But with the confinement and closure of all non-essential businesses, this graphic designer in the music industry, who lives alone, is almost in isolation, cut off from almost all human contact.
"I am someone who likes to hug others, and people like me. But that's how it is," he resigned.
His experience is the same as that of many others around the world, depressed by the loss of daily physical contact that was taken for granted and that scientists consider vital.
"What happens with touch is a very physical change," says Tammy Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami's faculty of medicine.
"The nervous system is slowed down. The heart rate decreases, the blood pressure too, the brain waves go towards more relaxation, and that provokes the fall of cortisol, which is the stress hormone".
- Video calls -
Lilia Chacon, director of communications for the city of Santa Fe, in New Mexico, is also nostalgic for the time when she had human contacts in her life.
Ms. Chacon, 65, lives alone and works from home.
"It's crazy what your reality can quickly change. I watch TV, I see people sitting together at a table, all embracing each other, and I say to myself: + Oh my God, it wouldn't happen like that today +, "she said.
To make up for the lack, she says that she uses video calls with her friends.
"We find ways to maintain friendships and intimacy. I make it a point of honor to use (video calls) FaceTime, to stay in touch with my friends visually, not just through calls. And it helps, "she says.
Older people are particularly affected because they are very vulnerable to the coronavirus and often live alone.
Mary Carlson is a neurobiologist at Harvard Medical School. She became a sensation deprivation specialist after studying babies who had grown up in understaffed Romanian establishments in the 1990s.
"I encourage people to have social interactions through vision and hearing," she says. "For those living alone, technology allows these phone and video interactions to compensate for this necessary and limited period of touch restriction."
Mary Carlson reassures those who are worried and wonder if they will remember how to interact normally after the pandemic.
"I always give the example of Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison," she explains.
"We all know that when he came out, we saw him on TV and we heard all the things he said, and he hadn't lost his social skills or his sensitivity to others at all."
- Pets -
While not a substitute for physical contact with other people, Tammy Field of the Touch Research Institute, for example, advises people living alone to sit on the floor and stretch, wash in the shower, walking to stimulate sensory receptors.
Charlotte Kullen, 46, who runs a PR firm in Manhattan, lives alone and works from home. For her, it is the duration of the restrictions that is starting to be a problem.
Because although she survived cancer and suffers from an autoimmune disease - and as such she appreciates containment measures - "a month with us is one thing, but if that lasts 18 months, it will be another. "
In Chicago, Shelley Howard compensates by promoting a friend's salon concerts on social media.
He also relies on the presence of his two cats. "It is not the same thing but one sleeps under my arm, so I spend ten hours glued to this living thing, which breathes," he said. "And the other one sleeps on my knees or on my chest. So I am in contact with living beings".
© 2020 AFP