2023-11-05 05:15:00
Everyone may need some alone time. This is normal and beneficial. According to American scientists, the default brain network is more active in people who regularly enjoy time alone. This area of the brain is particularly involved in getting lost in thought, feeling memories brought up, but also in tasks such as planning, visualization and thinking about others. Only good stuff, then!
Physical pain
However, loneliness, when it lasts over time and is not really desired, remains an unpleasant feeling. It can also impact mental health when it becomes chronic.
Studies involving brain imaging have shown that being excluded and feeling isolated activate the same areas of the brain as those associated with physical pain. The brain, thus put on alert, makes errors in social interactions, for example interpreting the behavior of others as systematically threatening. This is why some misanthropic people sometimes become a little wild, or not very pleasant in their relationships.
Depression, anxiety, psychosis…
And the effects of chronic loneliness on mental health go far beyond that. Numerous studies have revealed that isolation can increase the risk of depression, anxiety, psychosis and drug use, and also worsen these situations if they are pre-existing. One explanation is that the body produces cortisol, the stress hormone, in large quantities in this situation.
However, the number of people suffering from loneliness has only increased, particularly since the Covid-19 crisis, which caused forced and widespread social isolation. And this when already in 2018, the American insurance company Cigna had shown, via a survey carried out among 20,000 adults, that 46% of them felt at least sometimes alone, and 47% sidelined.
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#Psychology #loneliness #impact #mental #health