Loneliness & Isolation
Loneliness and social isolation may be a greater public health hazard than obesity or smoking.
“The biggest disease today is not leprosy or cancer or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling on being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody.” –Mother Teresa
To put it simply, we’re social creatures hardwired for human interaction. Taking a look at current trends, more than half the population remain unmarried, more than a quarter live alone, and marriage along with the amount of child per household have declined. Those trends suggest that American’s are becoming less socially connected and the amount of people reported feeling lonely have risen tremendously.
But what is loneliness and isolation? Are there different types? Some people think just because they use their phone, computer, pictures or videos to communicate that they’re not isolated, but digital connect lacks the meaningful connection with others in person that keeps us emotionally healthy.
There are multiple types of isolation, some perhaps may not even be named. The most focused on types are the types that can be studied and researched. Common known examples are social isolation, emotional isolation, total isolation (such as solitary confinement in prisons), loneliness and sensory deprivation.
The general definition for isolation: Isolation is a defensive mechanism characterized as a mental process including the creation of a gap between an unpleasant or threatening cognition and other thoughts and feelings. (Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses). The general consensus in the scientific community as to why individuals isolate is by minimizing associated connections with other thoughts, the threatening cause is remembered less often and less likely to affect self-esteem or self-concept.
Social isolation is the absence of social relationships such a friendships, romantic partners, sometimes family, and going out in public the least amount possible.
Emotional isolation is the lack of any close confidant or intimate partner. Those who isolate emotionally keep their feelings to completely to themselves, are unable to receive emotional support of others, they tend to shut down causing them to feel numb and are reluctant or even completely unwilling to communicate with others aside for superficial matters.
Loneliness is an emotional state we feel when we are not satisfied or happy with the social connections they have.
The scientific community has been studying effects of loneliness for a long time so let’s take a look at some of the findings thus far:
Living alone increases the risk of suicide, regardless of age.
Quality and efficiency of sleep drastically decreases making the sleeping process less restorative physically and psychologically.
Extreme feelings of loneliness have the same effect on the brain that physical pain does.
We may feel colder and the temperature of our skin drop.
Our immune system becomes suppressed making it function less efficiently leading to longer recovery time or becoming sick more frequently.
Loneliness has shown to be connected to suicide, alienation issues, depression, low self-worth, shame, fear, anxiety, rapid mood changes, other mental health disorders as well as physical health problems.
Our social skills and relationships suffer and become much weaker, especially social skills which are like a muscle. They must be used to stay strong.
Lack of stimulation with others reduces your brain’s need to plan, understand, rationalize, and argue leading to cognitive decline.
A person who’s isolated are more likely to view human faces as threatening, causing a fear of talking and bonding with others.
Lack of emotional support lessens our coping ability.
Some people purposely isolate themselves. Which seems crazy when you can see some of the problems that stem from such, but you have to remember that extreme behaviors do not typically come from a sane or rational mind. After certain events or even chemical changes in the brain, we can quickly create certain habits out of fear or other feelings. We forget that our personal relationships and other people are our greatest source of comfort.
Most of our psychological defenses come from a negative or traumatic experience’s or situations at a young age that caused us to adapt certain behaviors or habits that made us feel safe or secure. Think of when a child is scared of the dark, they think they see something so they hide under the covers. Obviously, it doesn’t make the child disappear but the idea is if they can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. As we grow older and become adults, some of us continue to rely on these adaptations, though they may not be needed or even have a negative effect on our current life or relationships.
But what happens when you lack stimuli around you?
Around 1946 is when the Red Army began using extreme techniques to change the mind radically, or what was translated into brainwashing. Using techniques that including having complete control over POW’s, deprivation of food, water, and sleep, forcing them to repeatedly confess to crimes they hadn’t committed, forced standing and solitary confinement for immense amounts of time. The US government was terrified and poured money into researching these tactics and the long term effects.
Numerous studies and research showed that lack of stimuli due to solitary confinement led to some pretty scary findings.
They found when a person was place alone with an unchanging environment for certain amounts of times (even three days proved too much for some), how the brain collected and processed sensory information in some unpredictable ways. With the lack of change, it caused people to change their attention inward which could lead to profoundly altered states of consciousness. If they heard a noise, instead of thinking it was natural, such as a creaky house, they would instead consider it was perhaps something evil instead. The unknown would leave them frozen and consumed with unease or fear.
When something happens that we don’t understand, we typically look around at others faces to gauge their reactions to help determine what’s going on. Without being able to collect information from others around us, it becomes increasingly more difficult to resolve our confusion turning it into fear instead. Some reported vivid lifelike hallucinations, out of body experience, seeing or feeling like someone or something was there.
They concluded that without human contact or environmental changes, our brain will begin to manufacture social experience’s (good or bad) in an attempt to preserve out sanity.
What about extreme isolation?
Researcher, Michael Siffre, wanted to help document what happens when people are completely alone for so long. He committed to spend 6 months (186 days) in a cave known as the Midnight Cave. It was 100 feet below the surface, which meant it was pitch black. They did install lights, he had no access to calendars, clocks or natural light. His assistants slept at the mouth of the cave delivering food, turning on the lights when he woke up and turning them off when he was sleepy. He was allowed some creature comforts but the environment of the cave destroyed the books and records he brought along. So what were some of the things that happened?
The lack of sensory and social stimulation actually proved to degrade his psychological state. He lost track of time and time of day. He would be awake for 48 hours and sleep for 24 hours. Within the first three months he considered committing suicide but decided not too due to the financial burden it would put on his family. By day 77 his memory was so poor to such an extreme extent that he would forget things unless he wrote them down immediately. He had obviously missing time that he could not account for. Once six months were over he was brought up from the cave, they had to cover his eyes due to light sensitivity. Most of the side effects were temporary but some did stay. He checked in three years later and reported he still had memory lapses and poor eyesight.
Humans have a fundamental and instinctual need to feel part of a group and possess close personal relationships with others. While feeling lonely is a normal experience, chronic loneliness is not, it has a much darker side and is a real problem for more and more people. Sadly it seems, the more technology advances, the more cut off we become. We need human connections to function correctly.
“The world is suffering from an epidemic of loneliness. If we cannot rebuild strong, authentic social connections, we will continue to splinter apart-in the workplace and in society.” –Dr.Vivek H Murphy
Vibe Higher,
Lobeless