Troubled and Feeling Lonely Has a Bad Impact on Health

The impact of feeling lonely on mental health

Feeling lonely can worsen a person's emotional condition, which can cause stress. Unlike stress in general, stress caused by loneliness tends to last long and always occurs when someone is having a problem. Chronic stress due to feeling lonely can lead to conditions of depression and social phobia, even increasing a person's tendency to commit suicide.

Along with increasing age, someone who experiences loneliness will experience a decline in cognitive function faster. This is because social interaction also influences the workings of the brain and memory strength so that people experience loneliness at greater risk of decreasing function in the central nervous system. A study also showed that feeling lonely increased the risk of dementia by 64% in the elderly.

Someone who feels lonely tends to have an unhealthy lifestyle

One of the effects of feeling lonely is decreasing the ability to control thoughts and emotions, thus triggering behavioral changes. In general, individuals who experience loneliness will find it difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Misuse of addictive substances such as drugs, alcohol or cigarettes is one of the lifestyle changes that often occur in someone who is experiencing loneliness. The main reason is the lack of social support needed by someone when facing a problem. This condition is also interrelated when a person experiences stress and believes consuming such addictive substances is the best way to avoid the problems they face.

Lowering the routine of physical activity is often done when a person experiences emotional disturbances, including when experiencing loneliness. In one study, someone who experienced loneliness tended to decrease the frequency of physical activity and experience changes in the intensity of physical activity, to not engage in physical activity at all. Lack of physical activity itself can reduce the body's resistance, cause obesity, and the development of various degenerative diseases.

Stress from feeling lonely also affects the physical condition

Decreasing physical health is a side effect of feeling lonely. There are several bodily mechanisms that are a response to the effects of mental health and behavioral changes on individuals who feel lonely. Here are some of the effects of loneliness on physical conditions:

1. Sleep disorders

Sleep time is very necessary for the body to regenerate optimally. Lack of sleep can reduce sleep quality, daytime fatigue, and changes in sleep patterns. One of the causes of sleep disorders is emotional disturbances caused by loneliness. The relationship between loneliness and sleep disorders has a cycle-like pattern. Loneliness at night causes difficulty for relaxation and causes waking up in the middle of sleep. Furthermore, this causes a lack of qualified invoices to increase the effects of stress due to loneliness.

2. Reducing body resistance

In fact, the immune system does not only react to pathogenic threats, but the emotional condition of someone who experiences loneliness can affect the performance of the immune system. When chronic stress due to loneliness, the brain responds to the environment as a threat, and this also affects the body's endurance. Therefore, the immune system cannot work optimally against pathogens that coincide with stressful conditions.

3. Triggers the development of heart and blood vessel disease

In addition to psychological disorders, feeling lonely triggers an abnormal reaction that affects the cardiovascular system. Harvard researchers (as reported by the Telegraph) say that the body also responds to stress due to loneliness by producing fibrinoge protein, which is usually produced when the body is injured. In addition, chronic stress conditions also trigger an increase in the hormone cortisol which affects the heart's performance in pumping blood. This abnormal mechanism causes disruption of flow, thus triggering the condition of atherosclerosis and hypertension. A recent study also shows that individuals who have poor social interactions have a higher risk of coronary heart disease and stroke, which is 29% and 32%.

Until now, various studies have shown that feeling lonely is a cause of a decrease in the quality of one's physical health. Basically loneliness itself is not a fact, but rather a perception or emotional state of one's social relationships, and this is not caused by solitude. Therefore, the easiest way to overcome loneliness is to divert attention for a moment and do social interaction.