Loneliness is associated with higher blood pressure and heart disease — it literally breaks our hearts. A 2015 meta-review of 70 studies showed that loneliness increases the risk of your chance of dying by 26 percent.
Insomnia, disrupted sleep or other sleep-related issues may all be physical symptoms of loneliness. Another sign is sleeping too much; often when people are feeling sad, or in this case lonely, many turn to sleep as a way to block out how they feel.
Your nervous system goes into fight-or-flight mode, making it harder to sleep. When you're lonely, research shows that your brain can produce an excess of norepinephrine, a hormone that's a crucial “signal during the fight or flight response.” Loneliness can feel, to our social selves, like dire straits.
Long term feelings of loneliness and social isolation can also reduce cognitive skills, such as the ability to concentrate, make decisions, problem-solve, and even change negative self-beliefs. And it can ultimately lead to depression.
These feelings of loneliness may ultimately lead to posttraumatic stress symptoms via a number of pathways. For example, loneliness may lead to the development of negative cognitions (Cacioppo and Hawkley, 2009), which can predict future PTSD symptoms and impact PTSD treatment (Brown et al., 2019).
Feeling lonely can also have a negative impact on your mental health, especially if these feelings have lasted a long time. Some research suggests that loneliness is associated with an increased risk of certain mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, sleep problems and increased stress.
Loneliness is toxic
Loneliness has clear consequences for mental health, aggravating anxiety, depression, and stress-related symptoms. Additionally, it sabotages our physical health. According to two leading researchers, loneliness triggers an inflammatory response and threatens our immune system.
Research has linked social isolation and loneliness to higher risks for a variety of physical and mental conditions: high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, Alzheimer's disease, and even death.
When someone feels lonely they are more likely to try to distract themselves with the other things in their lives. So if your colleague is always talking about their stamp collection, or always flying away on exotic solo city breaks rather than spending weekends at home, they might be feeling alone.
Three profiles of people at particular risk from loneliness were identified: Widowed older homeowners living alone with long-term health conditions. Unmarried, middle-agers with long-term health conditions. Younger renters with little trust and sense of belonging to their area.
"Loneliness can change the neurochemistry of the brain, turning off the dopamine neurons, which trigger the reward response, and causing some degeneration in the brain when the reward response is not activated," says Katherine Peters, MD, PhD, FAAN, associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Duke University.
They have found increased levels of loneliness to predict higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of both extraversion and conscientiousness 15 years later, while only neuroticism at baseline was predictive of later levels of loneliness.
When you feel lonely, you get more defensive. You focus more on self-preservation even though this is not done intentionally. Completely unbeknownst to you, your brain is focusing more on self-preservation than the preservation of those around you. This, in turn, can make you less pleasant to be around.
Most notably, researchers found that loneliness rates peak among people in their 20s, and reach their lowest point among those in their 60s. Many people also experience a spike in lonely feelings around their mid-40s. These findings are as confounding as they are surprising, at least initially.
People who spend more time alone and feel lonely regularly have an increased risk of heart disease and stroke, according to Heart. The analysis of 181,000 adults discovered that loneliness, social isolation or both were linked to a 29 percent higher risk of heart attack and a 32 percent greater risk of stroke.
Some of the most common causes of loneliness include: Social Anxiety, Isolation, Difficulty with Assertiveness, and Poor Self-awareness. Common types or forms of loneliness include: Lack of Physical Connection, Lack of Common Interests, Lack of Shared Values, Lack of Emotional Intimacy, and Lack of Self-Intimacy.
Psychologists generally consider loneliness to be a stable trait, meaning that individuals have different set-points for feeling loneliness, and they fluctuate around these set-points depending on the circumstances in their lives.
Biologists have shown that feelings of loneliness trigger the release of stress hormones that in turn are associated with higher blood pressure, decreased resistance to infection and increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Social isolation is often linked to severe health concerns such as cancer, inflammation, hypertension and other diseases. In addition, social isolation can cause anxiety, low self-esteem and depression. People who don't socialize may struggle with reduced resilience and have difficulties coping with stress.
Moving has a host of benefits, including helping you beat the blues of loneliness. Try dance, yoga, or going for a walk, or find an exercise class online. Staying active can help with depression, anxiety, stress, and a host of other things that can come with being lonely.
Loneliness can be damaging to both our mental and physical health. Socially isolated people are less able to deal with stressful situations. They're also more likely to feel depressed and may have problems processing information. This in turn can lead to difficulties with decision-making and memory storage and recall.
Mental and physical health are interconnected. Social isolation's adverse health consequences range from sleeplessness to reduced immune function. Loneliness is associated with higher anxiety, depression, and suicide rates.