Loneliness- An overview

All of us feel lonely from time to time, but it is even more so in the current state of the world. This feeling of loneliness has become chronic for millions of people across the world.

In the UK, about 60% of the people between the age of 18-34 experience loneliness while in the US, around 46% of the entire population feels lonely regularly. Being left out in class, not having friends to hang out with on weekends, when we don’t have a romantic partner, or even when we move to a new city/place, we experience this choking and heavy feeling, this is loneliness.

We live in the most connected time of human history, and yet so many of them feel lonely and it’s not that the numbers remain static, the number of people who feel lonely has drastically increased in the last few decades. Due to the current Coronavirus situation in the present world, 25% of the entire world population always or often feels lonely because of the pandemic. Often people get confused between the term “alone” and “lonely” but they are not the same. You might be alone and satisfied and hate being around a lot of people, whereas loneliness is a purely subjective and emotional experience related to perceived isolation.

Like our necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing, humans also have their own social needs that need to be satisfied. This feeling of loneliness we feel today has an evolutionary background. Millions of years ago, our ancestors lived in small to large-sized groups to hunt, gather, and survive, staying in a large group meant that your chances of survival were better.

Our biology rewarded us for forming social connections and over the years our brain developed in such a way that it allowed us to understand others and empathize with their emotions better. Then, it was necessary to belong to a social group because the means to survive could not be fulfilled by a single individual.

Being alone simply meant death, exclusion from your social group was the worst thing that could happen to a person at that time, to prevent you from doing things that can get you excluded from groups, the body came up with a response called “Social Pain”, the process which makes us feel this pain is closely related to the same internal mechanisms which make us feel physical pain.

This is why being left out hurts us so much, and the changes that occurred in the last few centuries only worsened this problem. During recent years, the focus on the individual increased, and collectivism almost disappeared, communities that brought people together vanished and the distance created by modern-day civilization hurt this. Nowadays we travel large distances to for our education, to get employed and for various other reasons which make us leave our social circle and we end up in foreign and strange new surroundings.

Stress that comes from chronic loneliness is one of the most unhealthy things that we can experience as humans. It makes us age quicker, causes early death, increases the risk of dementia, keeps us from sleeping properly, increases the chances of cancer and heart-related problems, makes our immune system weaker, and causes Alzheimer’s to advance faster.

A study by Cigna U.S. Loneliness Index suggests that chronic loneliness is as dangerous as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. But what is worse is that this loneliness can put you into a vicious cycle of loneliness from which you cannot escape.

The pain we experience when we are lonely is very similar to the physical pain we experience, we build walls around ourselves and our brain goes into self-preservation mode, people in our social surroundings appear hostile and dangerous. We become more sensitive and alert to social signals and what’s worse is that our ability to interpret them correctly is also inhibited, making it difficult for us to understand the intentions of people.

This perceived reality of ours where everyone seems and aggressive and hostile, makes us more self-centered and scared, making us appear socially awkward and cold to the outside world. We start to avoid social interactions and invitations we get from the people around us, and we close ourselves completely, every time we experience a negative social interactive, it reinforces our brain to stay closed and avoid people.

We start to focus only on negative experiences and the “perceived hostility” and this adversely affects our mental health. This changes our behavior and makes us believe that we are not wanted, that we are not socially desirable. This makes us want to avoid interactions, which leads to more feelings of isolation.

Eventually, over the years it can reduce the number of people you have in your circle, make you avoid social interactions and you might end up getting depressed.

Though this is a vicious and dangerous cycle, we can still do somethings that can help us escape and overcome loneliness. The first step is to accept that we are lonely, it is a totally normal thing to feel and at the same moment you feel this, there are millions of people around the globe who feel the same way, or it can even be someone you know.

Loneliness is a universal experience and everyone goes through it at some point in their lives. One of the things we can do is try to focus on how we perceive our interactions, maybe someone tried being nice to us and we assumed that their intentions were hostile. Here are some of the questions and tips that you can use!

Are you selectively concentrating on negative parts of your social interactions?
Was this interaction positive or negative? Did you add anything extra meaning to it which made you dislike it?
Pay attention to the context and content of their words
Are you assuming the worst about someone’s intentions?
Are you deciding how a conversation will go before it even occurs?
Are you trying to avoid being hurt by someone?
Do you often decline invitations from others?
Do you avoid opportunities to be around others?

All these questions might not be able to answer the problem, you might even be doing these things and not feel lonely. All of us are different and we experience loneliness differently. For some of us, the effect might be adverse and it might not even bother some people.

We all have different needs and it’s best to keep that in mind, and if you are not able to solve this problem yourself, try seeking help from a professional. There is nothing wrong with getting help from others, it’s actually a sign of courage, that you are willing to work on yourself for your own benefit.

We live in a world where we have created and discovered various commodities that help us in our daily lives, but nothing can really satisfy our basic social needs, therefore we must cherish our time with our friends and loved ones, maybe even keep our heart open more often.