Hello and welcome to Iway with Jameela Jameela. I hope that you are doing okay. We are now weeks and weeks into this fucking lockdown and this pandemic and I know from what I'm hearing about online and from friends that people are starting to fray at the edges couples starting to break up while stuck in quarantine together and some people are not in a couple not being driven mad with their families because they're having to isolate completely on their own.

And that's why I thought today's chat would be perfect because it is about loneliness, which I know so many of us are struggling with in this moment.

Even if you are with other people, you can still sometimes that can make you feel even lonely or you're just so far away from your friends and your family and you are missing human touch.

I got the chance to speak to Vivek Murphy who is the surgeon general of the United States or he was the surgeon general of the United States.

He is an absolutely brilliant man who has done a study on loneliness and the impact that it has on our lives, not just emotionally but also physically, the impact it has on our actual health and the longevity of our lives.

He's gone around the world to learn as much as he can about it and I was able to learn so I've never felt dumber in my life.

I've never felt more of a stupid person than when sitting opposite someone who has this prestigious job and level of knowledge.

But I learned so much from him he broke it down in a way that even I could understand and it made me really, really think about the changes that I need to be making in my life to prolong it and to fill it up more.

I'm such an introvert, I'm someone who naturally like a kind of house cat can just slink off and be away from people for weeks at a time.

So therefore I'm actually doing okay during this crazy time. But because of that it means that I have learned how to hyper normalize my own loneliness in a way that it doesn't feel uncomfortable to me.

But speaking to Vivek really made me think twice about that and also think twice about whether or not I'm checking in enough with the people that I love and making sure that they are not lonely.

It's such a stigmatized conversation that we don't think about enough and people are afraid to put their hands up and admit that they're lonely.

And I think that this is a great way to start destigmatizing that conversation.

He has a book that's coming out this week it's called Together and it's wonderful.

And he's wonderful and I just really hope that you learn something from this episode and enjoy it.

Lots of love sending you so much fucking love. I can't believe what is happening and I know that the news is so stressful and I just hope that you're safe.

So I am joined by Vivek H. Murphy. He is an author, he is a position and was the 19th Surgeon General of the United States. He has talked to me about loneliness. Hello Vivek.

Hello Jameela, how are you? I'm great. I'm so happy to have you here. I'm really happy to be having this conversation.

Over our way we are huge fans of yours and this subject couldn't be more important. I think to our community considering that this is predominantly a mental health movement.

And I think that loneliness is one of the pillars of the things that are creating mental health issues in our society and in our world today.

And so that's why you having written this book which we're here to talk to me about. It's called Together, the healing power of human connection in a sometimes lonely world is a sort of perfect topic.

And I wanted to start off by just asking you why you wrote this book.

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