The holidays amplify everything — including loneliness. In this personal episode, Erin shares strategies from psychologists, philosophers, and wellbeing researchers for navigating seasonal isolation, along with stories from listeners trying something new. Sometimes the most powerful antidote to loneliness isn't a conversation. It's a place.

Her research established that loneliness carries health risks equivalent to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Now Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad — one of the world's leading scientists on social connection — joins Erin to explore how the built environment shapes our social lives, and why fighting loneliness requires looking beyond the personal to the places we inhabit.

Three in five working Americans report feeling lonely. Most of us look inward for the cause. But what if the design of our cities — the streets we can't walk, the stores that closed, the parks that were never built — is one of the least-examined contributors to that loneliness? This episode explores the built environment's role in the loneliness epidemic.

Loneliness isn't just an emotional experience. It's a physiological one — with measurable effects on sleep, immunity, cognitive function, and lifespan. This episode lays out the surprising science of what chronic disconnection does to the human body, and why addressing loneliness requires looking beyond individual effort to the environments we move through every day.