The Dangers of Loneliness
Edited down for length
Excerpted from article by Frank J. Ninivaggi M.D., F.A.P.A.
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY
Psychologists find that human beings have a fundamental need for close relationships.
We need it to survive. What is more, we seem to have a basic drive for it.
The upshot is, we function best when this social need is met. It is easier to stay motivated, to meet the varied challenges of life.
In fact, evidence has been growing that when our need for close loving relationships is not met, we fall apart mentally and even physically. There are effects on the brain and on the body. Some effects work subtly, through the exposure of multiple body systems to excess amounts of stress hormones. Yet the effects are distinct enough to be measured over time, so that unmet love and affection needs take a serious toll on health.
Loneliness begins with a cognitive awareness that plays through our brain with an emotional soundtrack and makes us sad and feeling empty.
Despite the negative effects of loneliness, it can hardly be considered abnormal. It is a most normal feeling. Everyone feels lonely sometimes—after a break-up with a friend or lover, when we move to a new place, when we are excluded from some social gathering.
In adults, loneliness is a major precipitant of depression and alcoholism. And it increasingly appears to be the cause of a range of medical problems, some of which take decades to show up.
Living alone increases the risk of suicide and lonely individuals report higher levels of perceived stress even when exposed to the same stressors as non-lonely people, and even when they are relaxing.
Loneliness raises levels of circulating stress hormones and levels of blood pressure. It undermines regulation of the circulatory system so that the heart muscle works harder and the blood vessels are subject to damage by blood flow turbulence.
Loneliness destroys the quality and efficiency of sleep, so that it is less restorative, both physically and psychologically. They wake up more at night and spend less time in bed actually sleeping than do the non-lonely.
Loneliness sets in motion a variety of "slowly unfolding pathophysiological processes."
The net result is that the lonely experience higher levels of cumulative wear and tear.
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