Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Loneliness can become a downward spiral.
Not all social interaction is uplifting.
I have to be careful when I'm around sweets.
What defines loneliness is our internal comfort level.
Kindness is more than a virtue. It is a source of strength.
Most parents vaccinate their kids. That is the bottom line.
The A.C.A. is not perfect, but it has helped us move forward.
Our health care workers are the heroes of the Covid-19 response.
Most people think that you need to be healthy in order to happy.
Gun violence is a problem that this country should be addressing.
Climate change poses a serious, immediate and global threat to health.
Being Indian-American, I have tremendous potential to grow facial hair.
A lot of people have misconceptions about what the surgeon general does.
My weakness is sweets. I like bread pudding and cheesecake in particular.
So my weakness is sweets. I like bread pudding and cheesecake in particular.
I have come to believe that America is a promise we have made to one another.
My journey to working on loneliness was certainly not an expected one or planned one.
I do not intend to use the Surgeon General's Office as a bully pulpit for gun control.
While loneliness has the potential to kill, connection has even more potential to heal.
We don't just want to eradicate illness. We want people to achieve their full potential.
We will not solve the addiction problem in America if we don't address social connection.
I firmly believe that everybody in America needs a safe place to walk or to wheelchair roll.
When I began my tenure as surgeon general, I did not intend to focus on emotional well-being.
When we have emotional pain in our lives, we are going to seek to relieve that pain in some way.
Sometimes people get upset when you tell the truth, when you share the facts as science dictates.
For far too many people, the stigma around addiction prevents them from stepping forward for help.
Part of the reason people don't talk about their loneliness is that they feel they will be judged for it.
We forget some of the oldest medicines we have are love and compassion, and they can be deployed by everyone.
Many people feel that if they're lonely, that means that they're not likable or that they're broken in some way.
When you're in a pocket with low vaccination rates, that's when you find yourself at greater risk of getting measles.
Service is a powerful pathway of getting out of loneliness. It takes the focus off of you and puts it onto someone else.
Whenever you have large numbers of people who are dying for preventable reasons, that constitutes a public health issue.
When people tell you that you're less-than and that you don't matter and that you're inferior, you internalize some of that.
Arranged marriages are ones where you got to learn who the person is after you actually get married, which can be challenging.
We can work on sharpening our prescribing practices, working with clinicians to ensure we're treating pain safely and effectively.
The amount of sleep you get has an impact, not just on how you feel the next day, but it has an impact on your long-term health as well.
It turns out the most powerful way we can turn the tide on chronic disease is something we have been doing for millennia: That is walking.
If you use that time where you're alone in ways that bring you joy and peace, then that solitude can have a really positive effect on your life.
As all of us know, health is deeply intertwined with culture: what we eat, how active we are, how much we sleep. These are rooted in cultural norms.
Without strong communities, we cannot pull together during times of hardship. Our diversity turns from a source of strength to a source of conflict.
Emotions are a source of power, and that's what science tells us. But many people I encounter have been led to think of emotions as a source of weakness.
I'm calling for a cultural change in how we think about addiction. For far too long people have thought about addiction as a character flaw or a moral failing.
Addiction is a chronic disease of the brain and it's one that we have to treat the way we would any other chronic illness: with skill, with compassion and with urgency.
Our nation absolutely has what it takes to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic that's claimed tens of thousands of our loved ones. We have the talent, resources and technology.
There's a tremendous sense of shame that people who are lonely feel. I say that as someone who felt ashamed of being lonely as a child and even at points during adulthood.
If you're very introverted, you prefer to spend much of your time alone, and when you do connect, you'd rather get together with one or two close friends than face a crowd.
A few colleagues and I began Doctors for America with a simple belief that physicians should play a leadership role in designing and running our nation's health care system.
We can't underestimate the power that we have as individuals to provide the support that people need to provide that transition from a place of pain to a place of possibility.
In fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence rather than anything else. So it's important that we not stereotype folks with mental illness.
Empathy has the power to bring together people who would otherwise never meet. It has the power to teach us and to reach us in moments of isolation when we think nobody understands.