Why So Many Expats in the Philippines Struggle With Isolation

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:02]Good morning, afternoon, evening, Mike and Arlin, our Philippine journey. Thank you so much for joining us. Hey, you know what? I came across an article and it begs to bring up this question. Are you an as an expat or anywhere actually, but are you at risk whether you're an expat or not or in the Philippines or some other country at a high or could you be at a higher risk of health care issues or dementia or Alzheimer's and what would cause this and what we actually see happening. ing. Um, this is a huge study. 60,000 participants in this study. Multi-year, multi-country.

[00:00:56]So, let's just talk about it.

[00:01:06]afraid of cold, but you just want the gold. And there's no way I can beat it cuz I got no chance. No chance.

[00:01:20]She got the glitter and the fame. And I just >> All right.

[00:01:28]I brought this up because quite frankly, we see it often.

[00:01:35]I'm I'm sure you see it in personal lives and other interaction, but in the uh YouTube community, we see the telltale signs of this. Um we see it in our own subscribers. We have subscribers that would say, "Hey, I don't associate with expats. I don't associate with foreigners. I don't do this. I don't do that. We see people that put out videos that are isolationists.

[00:02:09]And the study that was conducted um the study was conducted by over 60,000 participants multi-year multi-country by large health institutions like the NIA, NIH, the Australian agent uh aging council. I mean, this is a ton of peer-reviewed information and it came back very surprising to me.

[00:02:41]The numbers, the idea wasn't surprising to me, but the numbers were surprising to me. All right, so let's just jump into it. First off, the basic premise here is is if you don't have friends, are you at risk or a higher mortality rate, higher health care issues, and higher rates of dementia, Alzheimer's, and other psychological issues? Well, yes, you are. And the first thing to continue to think about because I had to research it just a little bit more. First off, we had to define what social isolationism is. Okay. Now, the Alzheimer's, having all of your friends, this comes directly from the Alzheimer's Society. You can Google it, look it up. Having all your friends online and never meeting them in person puts you at a higher risk of being classified as socially isolated, which is associated with a 27 to 60% higher risk of developing dementia. Not that you will, not that you won't. And while online connections provide social interaction, they do not fully substitute for in-person contact, which is considered more beneficial for cognitive health. Now, keep in mind the easiest way to rationalize this, to understand this, and to try and argue against it or for it is what we see often in Southeast Asian countries with expats. We see the LDR, the long distance relationship, and they have spent a year, two years communicating, doing everything online. And then when they meet in person, that body language, the expression, the free flow of communication fails. All right? It just doesn't click. It's not right. Now, I want to preface all of this by saying, I'm not saying you should not isolate yourself. I'm not saying you should not stick away from expats or stay away from possible issues. But what I would say is is maybe you might want to consider who you'd associate with as being more important than not associating with, but that's probably a whole different story.

[00:05:23]Now, the second thing that comes into play here is from the uh Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC.gov, up. Prolonged social isolation and loneliness are major risk factors that can cause or exasperate depression. Lack of social connection often leads to feelings of hopelessness, increased stress, negative thought patterns. It can create a vicious cycle where isolation fuels depression which in turn leads to further withdrawal. And that's what we're getting at. You know, we see it. I mean, you can sit there in the comments below. Do you see vloggers that actually portray or exhibit these tendencies? I mean, I can think of a couple that are it's quite easy even with with being basic that they are clearly depressed.

[00:06:27]They're clearly in a state of depression and this adds to that higher mortality issue. It h it it exasperates it. It really and truly do. So, in the comments below, if you know of a blogger or you think there's a channel that this person exhibits these tendencies of uh easily aggravated, very much blaming everybody for their problems except themselves, not accepting responsibility, lashing out at their subscribers, lashing out at everybody. All right.

[00:07:08]This type of aggressive behavior. Um, who would it be? Tell me in the comments. It'd be interesting for a follow-up uh conversation, I think. But going further, the American Psychological Association social isolation causes severe physical and mental health issues risks, including a 30% higher risk of heart disease and stroke, 40% increased risk of dementia, and higher rates of depression, anxiety, and premature death. It causes chronic stress, weakens the immune system, and lowers life satisfaction.

[00:07:52]Now, I would also preface this by saying there are people who are built to be isolationists.

[00:08:02]Um, there are people that are completely happy with that lifestyle and there's nothing wrong with it if that's the case. um that that's just simply the way it is. If that's the case, good for you.

[00:08:19]All right. We have a very large social circle and we enjoy that social circle and I think it's good. It certainly is good for me. All right. Um Arllin has her little group of friends. I have my group and kind of like it's not my group. It's more like our group. So, for instance, the only time I associate or affiliate with expats without Arllin is when I go to breakfast. Uh, Arllin's not a breakfast person. She doesn't go to breakfast. But when I go to breakfast, you know, um, hey, you know, it's just 99.9% of the time just me. But when we go out, birthdays, anniversaries, christenings, whatever, it's amongst our friends. Um, and it's Arllin and I together. Arllin has her own group, little group, I guess, whatever you want to call it. All right, of Filipino friends. And so we associate with those people as well. But sometimes, you know, there I if you've been in a relationship here in a foreign country, you recognize that sometimes you're not in tune with everything that's out there. So, my point with all of that is is some people are built for it. They do fine. They thrive. They're they're they're good otherwise. Some people we've seen them degrade over the years. They've had their channel for years and years and we've seen them become more aggravated, more hostile, more depressed, more I don't know, more I wish, more I this, more I that all of those different things. I don't know. But that is the real basics. So, are you at risk? You certainly could be. All right. Is the risk real? It certainly is. All right.

[00:10:24]These studies were done, peer-reviewed major organizations. These are not shabby little 50 person things. We're talking about 60,000 participants, multi-year, decades actually, of data compiled and then morbidity and everything else.

[00:10:48]There's actually 13 subcategories. Um, you can look it up. It's all out there.

[00:10:54]Uh, but what do you think? I know that there are many that don't want to associate with expats. There really and truly are. And I can't blame them. And that's their choice. And I don't see anything wrong with their choice. But you don't have to integrate with expats.

[00:11:15]You could socialize with Filipinos.

[00:11:18]You're in the Philippines. Or you could socialize with ties. You're in Thailand.

[00:11:24]Or you could socialize with rednecks.

[00:11:27]You're in Arkansas. Um I don't know why I always pick on Arkansas. I just don't know. But uh you know, I I guess you know it's stupid. It really is. But but the point with all of that is is that not having social interaction.

[00:11:48]And I think that in order to have social interaction, part of that has to be friends. But by not having social interaction, you do put yourself at risk. Um in the comments, please let me know what you think. Do you think that that that it matters to you? Doesn't matter? Are you willing to redo it? Are you doing hybrids? Are you associating with both Filipinos and expats? Are you associating mostly with expats, mostly with Filipinos, or mostly with none? Um, you know, tell me, tell me. And and you know the other part that it brings up is suppose you come to the Philippines, you go into a relationship, that relationship goes for a number of years and then all of a sudden that relationship ends and all of your eggs were in that one relationship basket of friends.

[00:12:47]Um what happens? What happens if they're all Filipinos?

[00:12:53]Um and you could use this in Thailand.

[00:12:56]You could use it elsewhere, but all of a foreign thing because let's face it, most of us, the vast majority of us will never be more than barely conversational in foreign language. Um, you know, we can uh, you know, conver deep conversations are not going to happen in a foreign language for most of us. Okay, I know there are exceptions to the rules. Okay. Um I could have a pretty reasonable conversation in in Spanish.

[00:13:34]All right. Actually in Mexican, which is actually different than Spanish, believe it or not. Um I was pretty fluent at that at at one time. But my Tagalog is horrible. Absolutely horrible. Um my Messiah is worse than horrible. Um, that's just life the way it is. And I make no excuse for that other than to say it's just the way it is. But do please do subscribe, hit the thumbs up. We'd certainly appreciate it. And uh don't forget starting next week, all right, twice a week we'll start our live streams. Uh restart them. I finished working on the projects I was working on Monday and Saturday here in the Philippines 6:00 a.m. Yeah, you'd have to get up early. You'll have to probably for many of you have to catch it on the rebound. All right. Sunday and Friday 5:00 p p.m. Eastern. Uh but that's just the way it is. We certainly appreciate it. We hope you have a great safe day.

[00:14:43]Thanks.