What happens to your body when you are lonely? The feeling of loneliness is something that we have all experienced at least once in our lives and that, despite social networks and countless ways to stay in touch with others, affects health, causing a very precise psychophysical response. We talk about this issue with Agnese Rossi, psychologist at Humanitas Gavazzeni.
Loneliness is not just one type
“I would begin to distinguish between subdued solitude and sought after, desired solitude – the specialist has specified – The first coincides with the annoying, and sometimes suffered perception of “feeling alone”. The second is the conscious choice to be alone. The loneliness suffered is manifested by the difficulty in building relationships and forging bonds, often due to feelings of inadequacy, insecurity in putting oneself at risk with one’s own qualities and limits, fears in opening oneself up to others, and fears of judgment towards us. All this sometimes leads us to build a defensive wall around us, with an apparent protective function; in reality we isolate ourselves from the world creating a pseudo-reality that may seem comfortable to us, because it is free of conflicts and clashes, but that in the long run makes us suffer because it removes the need of every human being to socialize.
How about the desired loneliness?
“It consists in the desire to be with ourselves, to get in touch with the most intimate part of us and allows us to perceive our inner world – said Rossi – If well experienced, it brings us important advantages: being alone to listen deeply to our thoughts, the flow of our imagination and creativity, our emotions, puts us in touch with our uniqueness and complexity. This awareness is fundamental to then enter into relationship with others, with the ability to build healthy and fulfilling relationships.
Learning to be alone, therefore, is not only the lack of someone, but it is contact with our true essence, each one with the modalities that feel most his own, such as doing pleasant activities, playing sports, expressing themselves through artistic forms, walking in the middle of nature: so we are not alone, but in the company of ourselves.
Our society fears loneliness
In our culture you are afraid to encounter loneliness. This fear is perceived on several levels: social workers are an effective and immediate antidote to loneliness. Moreover, the tendency, now widespread everywhere, to fill public spaces, shops, waiting rooms, airports, means of transport … with deafening music that seems to reassure us that we are not alone, but that do not allow us to think, read or simply stay quiet with ourselves. Sometimes even in our homes or at work we cannot stay without TV or the radio on: silence means being alone with ourselves and sometimes it is frightening. For this reason we fill every space with sounds or objects, even our inner space.
How solitude has changed in the digital age
All it takes is a computer or mobile phone to enter the global world. Western society is the most socially connected, yet so many people feel extreme loneliness, just because socials allow us an unlimited amount of contacts, which are however only virtual and do not allow us to enter into a real tact, that is qualitatively significant in which we interact with others through our senses, our corporeity and emotionality. The authentic encounter with the other is missing: we cannot look them in the eyes, listen to their voice, shake their hand, and embrace them. In this case, loneliness is a feeling that can have a major impact on physical and mental health.
Does loneliness hurt?
Feeling alone is an unpleasant experience that can have health consequences even in the long term. We know that a sedentary life, smoking or obesity are linked to chronic diseases, but we never think of how the negative feelings felt because of loneliness can be damaging to such an extent that they are on the list of risk factors for these same diseases.
Cortisol level rises
When we experience loneliness, levels of cortisol, the so-called “stress hormone”, rise. Cortisol can affect cognitive performance, the immune system and increase the risk of vascular problems, inflammation and heart disease. That is why loneliness is also a risk factor for psychopathologies such as depression and anxiety.
When You Need Help
Taking care of your health means not only eating healthy and exercising, but also devoting attention to your mental well being. How can we achieve this? The small daily decisions can help to create meaningful and deep contacts, where our senses and body directly come into play, without the intrusion of filters (mobile phone, computer etc.) that can upset the sense of genuine encounter between us and others.
Socials can be a help in organizing a meeting with friends, but the real relationship is built only in the meeting, in spending quality time together, in sharing moments and interests.
Another anti-solitude measure can be the decision to take a break from social media. When people withdraw from social media, they become much more proactive in looking for real relationships and focus on the quality and not the quantity of relationships. An appointment with a friend with whom we have an authentic connection will in fact be much more rewarding and enriching than having thousands of “friends” (who in reality sometimes are not even acquaintances) on Facebook or followers on Instagram.
If loneliness is a symptom of depression
To feel deeply alone, to live this sensation with suffering and with the perception of an interior void difficult to fill, can be a depressive symptom. A psychotherapist in this case can help to understand the origin of this disorder, to work on it in depth, to elaborate the emotional experiences that accompany it and to develop strategies to strengthen our relational skills.
Sometimes loneliness can become a condition from which it is difficult to get out because it coincides with the exit from one’s “comfort zone”, a protective and reassuring place. What frightens us is the risk of rejection, which can be stronger than opening up to others with confidence. In these cases a psychological work on oneself is indispensable to better understand the meanings that this symptom assumes for each of us and learn to build our own way of finding a place in the world through interpersonal relationships and our sociality.
