"Lacking encouragement from family or friends, those who are lonely may slide into unhealthy habits," Valtorta says. "In addition, loneliness has been found to raise levels of stress, impede sleep and, in turn, harm the body. Loneliness can also augment depression or anxiety."
Being Alone Can Be Bad for Our Health
Too much time alone is bad for our physical health. Studies have found that social isolation and loneliness can increase the likelihood of mortality by up to 30%.
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.
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.
"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.
Social isolation can lead to feelings of loneliness, fear of others, or negative self-esteem. Lack of consistent human contact can also cause conflict with the (peripheral) friends. The socially isolated person may occasionally talk to or cause problems with family members.
If you're lonely, you may feel sad, empty, or as if you're lacking something important when you spend time by yourself. Chronic loneliness can also involve the following symptoms: decreased energy. feeling foggy or unable to focus.
Living alone has a significantly negative effect on the mental health of population aged 16–35 while it has a significantly positive effect on the mental health of those aged 46–70, and has no notable effect on those aged 36–45.
It is not surprising that loneliness hurts. A brain imaging study showed that feeling ostracized actually activates our neural pain matrix. In fact, several studies show that ostracizing others hurts us as much as being ostracized ourselves.
No matter what you're feeling — excitement, stress, or anything in between— it's normal to have some nervousness, too. But you can absolutely live alone, safely, without feeling alone in the world.
People need at least a little human contact in order to thrive, and true isolation can take a toll on your overall well-being. If you're not totally isolated, though, and your lack of friends doesn't trouble you, it can be perfectly fine to be satisfied with your own company.
A new study has found that feeling socially isolated is linked to cellular changes that weaken the immune system and increase inflammation in the body.
Sleeping Alone.
Many of you noted that having no one to fall asleep next to, or wake up next to is the hardest part of being single. It's completely normal to have that longing for intimacy and to even find yourself imagining what that might look like when you find yourself feeling alone.
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).
Companionship is an asset for human survival, but its mirror twin, isolation, can be toxic. 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.
Solitude improves psychological well-being.
But solitary skills could be help you become mentally stronger. Studies have found people who set aside time to be alone tend to be happier. They report better life satisfaction and lower levels of stress. They're also less likely to have depression.
Without support, loneliness can easily lead to addiction. Once addiction sets in, it's harder to come out of it alone. And those who eventually become sober and lead a healthy life may relapse due to loneliness.
Definition of Loneliness
Loneliness causes people to feel empty, alone, and unwanted. People who are lonely often crave human contact, but their state of mind makes it more difficult to form connections with other people. Loneliness, according to many experts, is not necessarily about being alone.
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.
Loneliness affects people in different ways, and for this reason there are four distinct types of loneliness identified by psychologists: emotional, social, situational and chronic.
Hawkley points to evidence linking perceived social isolation with adverse health consequences including depression, poor sleep quality, impaired executive function, accelerated cognitive decline, poor cardiovascular function and impaired immunity at every stage of life.
As humans, we are engineered for many challenges. One of the challenges that we are not well equipped for, however, is loneliness. The Covid-19 period of on and off lockdowns, restrictions, and social isolation have made it abundantly clear that we are not meant to be alone.
Going without human contact for too long can literally break your heart.