KATE HUDSON is a Golden Globe Award winner and Academy Award nominee with a long list of film and Tv credits. She is a successful entrepreneur, having founded her own brands Fabletics, HAPPYxNATURE and her own vodka brand, King St. She is also a New York Times bestselling author and appeared on our stage for her second book, Pretty Fun: Creating & Celebrating a Lifetime of Tradition.  She and her brother, Oliver Hudson, host the podcast, “Sibling Revelry.”  Kate’s many charitable and humanitarian affiliations include The Hawn Foundation’s MindUP program, the United Nations World Food Programme, Baby2Baby, Operation Smile, and numerous other organizations dedicated to protecting the rights and well-being of women, children and education around the world.

“One of our most beloved surgeon generals, Murthy has a big heart and a big message. We have a massive, deadly epidemic hidden in plain sight: loneliness. It is as harmful to health as smoking and far more common. And as his gripping stories of the science and suffering make clear, we can do something about it. Together is fascinating, moving, and essential reading.”  —Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal

Humans are social creatures: In this simple and obvious fact lies both the problem and the solution to the current crisis of loneliness. In his groundbreaking book, the 19th surgeon general of the United States Dr. Vivek Murthy makes a case for loneliness as a public health concern: a root cause and contributor to many of the epidemics sweeping the world today from alcohol and drug addiction to violence to depression and anxiety. Loneliness, he argues, is affecting not only our health, but also how our children experience school, how we perform in the workplace, and the sense of division and polarization in our society.

But, at the center of our loneliness is our innate desire to connect. We have evolved to participate in community, to forge lasting bonds with others, to help one another, and to share life experiences. We are, simply, better together.

The lessons in Together have immediate relevance and application. These four key strategies will help us not only to weather this crisis, but also to heal our social world far into the future.

1. Spend time each day with those you love. Devote at least 15 minutes each day to connecting with those you most care about.
2. Focus on each other. Forget about multitasking and give the other person the gift of your full attention, making eye contact, if possible, and genuinely listening.
3. Embrace solitude. The first step toward building stronger connections with others is to build a stronger connection with oneself. Meditation, prayer, art, music, and time spent outdoors can all be sources of solitary comfort and joy.
4. Help and be helped. Service is a form of human connection that reminds us of our value and purpose in life. Checking on a neighbor, seeking advice, even just offering a smile to a stranger six feet away, all can make us stronger.

 During Murthy’s tenure as Surgeon General and during the research for Together, he found that there were few issues that elicited as much enthusiastic interest from both very conservative and very liberal members of Congress, from young and old people, or from urban and rural residents alike. Loneliness was something so many people have known themselves or have seen in the people around them. In the book, Murthy also shares his own deeply personal experiences with the subject–from struggling with loneliness in school, to the devastating loss of his uncle who succumbed to his own loneliness, as well as the important example of community and connection that his parents modeled. Simply, it’s a universal condition that affects all of us directly or through the people we love—now more than ever.