Being Human: Loneliness Kills
We always thought stress, poor lifestyle, bad diet, smoking can be the main contributors to diseases and maybe even deaths. But instead, social disconnection in our fast paced society today has resulted in loneliness being most widely experienced by many, especially in the first world countries. Moreover the prevalence of singlehood in both men and women in modern society today now has led to loneliness being even more widespread. Yet it has been a subject often not addressed properly and dismissed, much like a taboo to even talk about it.
People do not willingly admit to being lonely. Maybe it is because opening up about being lonely seems to make one appear weak and disempowered.
Therefore lonely people will try to wall themselves up and put up a strong front that all is well, good and under control.
Ironically lonely people do not want people around them, because they do not want to let anyone in, or rather they feel no one understands them. Yet they still yearn for the dream of being socially connected and popular and even having that God-sent companionship or soulmate one day to appear in their lives.
Covid 19 pandemic has resulted in all countries taking measures to contain it. Quarantine, stay home laws, social distancing have made many fell into states of loneliness and isolation, maybe even suffering from several bouts of meltdown from being alone. However loneliness has more implications than it being just being a feeling. Loneliness kills.
Loneliness and Physical Health
Loneliness is not just a sad feeling that we need to get rid of because we want people to be slightly happier. Loneliness is dangerous. People suffering from loneliness is in a constant fight-or-flight mode. Because being lonely means the person thinks that he has only himself to take care of himself. And that the world is against him and he is fighting the survival war on earth by himself.
Therefore being constantly in an anxiety and hypervigilant mode, it can result in a 29% increase risk of heart disease and a 32% increase risk in having a stroke. 29% increase in heart disease is equivalent to the effect of smoking 15 cigarettes daily. 29% increase in heart disease is equivalent to the effect of being obese. Feeling lonely is more dangerous than being an alcoholic which rise to the increase chances of stroke and heart problems.
Feeling lonely doubles the likelihood to develop dementia.
Loneliness and Mental Health
Loneliness may not be the root but is always the contributor to depression. Because we as humans are fundamentally built to be part of a group. Humans are social animals. We are fundamentally built to depend on others and to have others depending on us. There is nothing real great or brave of going through life alone. And long term loneliness may just put many into the mentality of living as pure suffering and developing the feeling of pointlessness in staying alive, which is suicidal mentality under depressive state.
Loneliness and Singlehood
More people than ever before are single and that is actually a huge problem. The single strongest predictor for loneliness is not by age, it is by your status of whether or not you are in a relationship. Single woman are 4 times as likely to be haunted by loneliness than woman who are in a relationship. Single man are 10 times more likely to be haunted by loneliness. It is a fact that single people are more miserable than those people who are hitched.
Because relationships are what give the juiciness to life.
We are in a world full of high technology that claims to connect people closer. But it seems like we are getting worse at it. Loneliness is becoming a pandemic. It does not discriminate on age, gender or borders. It happens all over the world. And it happens most frequently to those who are already vulnerable.
Solution to loneliness:
How then can we help ourselves with being lonely?
1. Start talking about Loneliness
It is tough but tackling loneliness requires the exact opposite action of avoiding and covering about it. Being aware of it and open up the conversation about it. Call a friend. Be bored together. Let people in. Because when you lean on others, you are helping them, and you are helping yourself.
2. Be vulnerable
When we let down our walls that we have built up to protect ourselves from the hypervigilance and anxiety that loneliness creates, we allow ourselves to be open up to vulnerability, which is essentially necessary for real connections to build.
3. Heart Opening Yoga
People who experience loneliness tends to armor themselves energetically at various parts of the body, in a manner that the body adopts in an attempt to protect itself from getting hurt amidst the fight-or-flight mode. One of the ways to allow us to open up to others is to physically practice the posture of heart opening. Because through physical balancing, we can then access rebalancing for the mental and mind.
4. Breathing exercise
Breath is the essence of life. It is essentially life. By reconnecting with breath again, we can then reconnect with ourselves and our body and recognize the fact that life passes through us, that we exist as part of nature and that we are never alone because we are part of the entire big Universe. Breathing properly also increase the production of happy hormones which make us feel happiness and satisfaction just by being alive.
Further reading:
Everything you need to know about Depression
Everything you need to know about Acupuncture
Media Interview for Mental Health programme for Migrant Workers during Covid pandemic
Facial Acupuncture - How to differentiate the real deal from the fakers
Women’s Health: It is not normal to have cysts and fibroids
Men’s Health: Signs of Male Menopause