‘All man’s miseries,’ wrote the French mathematician Blaise Pascal, ‘derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone’. Often in our busy lives this is caused by having too much to do. Sometimes it is our own inability to set down the smartphone and sit.
Our go, go, go lives often leave us with little time for solitude. This is a shame, as many great minds argue, for being able to be alone with your own thoughts is a great skill that more people could use.However, there is a difference between solitude and isolation, and it might kill you.
Some of us, particularly the more intelligent of us, enjoy a quiet moment to ourselves every now and again. But others are truly lonely. This is more than just a negative feeling – it can have horrible effects on your health. Effects that we have a greater reason than ever for trying to understand.
Research suggests that loneliness can dramatically increase the risk of death in individuals. It can even be a better predictor of early death than obesity. In a meta study of more than 200 studies covering hundreds of thousands of patients it was shown that “There is robust evidence that social isolation and loneliness significantly increase risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds that of many leading health indicators,” according to lead researcher Holt-Lunstad.
It is also known that chronic loneliness can cause a slew of specific health problems. John Cacioppo reports that it can even lead to “…increased levels of cortisol, a major stress hormone, as well as higher vascular resistance, which can raise blood pressure and decrease blood flow to vital organs… [and] the danger signals activated in the brain by…
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