The loneliness It is a phenomenon that is of increasing concern in relation to the field of prevention in mental health, particularly among the elderly population. The Spanish psychiatrist Ana Isabel Sanz explains how unwanted loneliness can have serious implications for physical and psychological well-being.
The chronic loneliness It is not simply the absence of company. It is a subjective experience that involves feeling alone or isolated, even when surrounded by other people, and that, when prolonged over time, can trigger mental pathologies, cardiovascular diseases and brain deterioration.
Among older adults, this form of loneliness It has become more common due to a number of factors, including the loss of loved ones, retirement, mobility issues, and declining social networks. According to the National Survey on Health and Aging in the United States, approximately 28% of adults over the age of 65 live alone, and many more experience a form of chronic loneliness, regardless of their marital or cohabitation status.
Dr. Ana Isabel Sanz, founder of the Ipsias Psychiatric Institutedefines the loneliness unwanted as “the feeling of discomfort or even suffering from feeling separated from others – that is, alone and without support -, regardless of the group of people who are close to the person suffering from that discomfort.” It is the distressing perception that the social relationships to which one has access do not correspond in quantity or quality to what is needed or emotionally expected of them.
In this sense difference between loneliness and social isolation. By isolation we must understand an objective fact consisting of the absence or limitation of interpersonal contacts. “This circumstance covers both the number of people with whom one maintains contact, social support (what is potentially received and given to others) and the possibilities of participation in society,” says the doctor.
Furthermore, remember that in today’s society we encounter the paradox that technological hyperconnection and a “worrying decrease in direct human contacts” coexist. Added to this is the superficiality of exchanges between individuals.
On the other hand, the feeling of loneliness is a subjective experience that “reveals the failure to connect meaningfully with other people. It may be due to reasons related to a small number of relationships, but also to the quality of these, even if they are numerous.”
According to Dr. Sanz, people who feel alone, even if they are not socially isolated, perceive that the social relationships to which they have access do not correspond in quantity or quality to what they need or expect. “They speak and do not feel understood, they expect support and feel that they do not receive it, or not in the way that would be valid for them, they feel ignored or judged,” are some of the traits that those who feel unwanted loneliness can share.
Unwanted loneliness is “a suffering that subtly eats away…and kills”
Loneliness begins to be dangerous for health when a person comes to think that connecting with others is an impossible task. For example, “if you come to the conviction that the wall that separates you from others is impregnable and you end up giving up all attempts to take the initiative in any act of communication, even to ask for help,” the doctor points out.
From the point of view of psychiatry, this conclusion has important consequences, since human beings are essentially social and need others to grow and even continue to exist. Therefore, thinking that we lack this necessary affection can lead us to physical and mental self-destruction.
Feelings of loneliness are directly related to depression and other affective disorders as well as anxiety disorders in their different variants.
The same thing happens with some personality problems. “Specifically, the much-discussed borderline personality disorder, dependent personalities, avoidant personalities… The very symptoms of these moments of rupture of emotional balance or chronic difficulties in approaching other people mean that the feeling of loneliness is almost a constant.” in these people. Hence it is a type of suffering that subtly eats away…and kills.”
A sustained experience of loneliness can reduce a person’s life expectancy by up to more than 10 years.
Loneliness has also been linked to cardiovascular diseases (coronary problems, cerebral and cardiac infarctions, alterations in heart rhythm, damage to the heart muscle and arterial valves…) and to the deterioration of brain function, which can even reach dementia. The doctor points out that loneliness can increase the probability of this irreversible damage by up to 50%, and that “a sustained experience of loneliness can reduce a person’s life expectancy by up to more than 10 years, to which is added the evident decrease in the quality of their existence before death.”
An increase in the frequency of obesity and various chronic diseases or diseases due to poor functioning of the immune system itself (so-called autoimmune diseases) has also been detected.
Today we know that the harmful effects of chronic loneliness alter the functioning of the immune system, all the processes linked to inflammation increase (which is a complex cascade of phenomena that ends up damaging cells, especially those of the nerves and muscles) and They tighten the vascular walls, increasing the difficulty of normal blood flow, among other processes that are becoming known in more and more detail.
As a solution, Dr. Ana Isabel Sanz proposes the prevention through a supportive and collaborative attitude towards the environment (both family, school, work or social in a broad sense).
The environment “is an essential help to prevent these disorders. Unfortunately, in our context individualism predominates and interest in what happens to those next to us has become an exception, although there are still people who worry about possible problems with friends, members of their community of neighbors, colleagues. work or school. I believe that these friendly attitudes and closeness to other people should once again become a model that we value and try to incorporate into our daily behavior,” he highlights as a formula to prevent and detect unwanted loneliness in our close core and also avoid our own. .
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