The Biology Behind Loneliness

Health professionals now know that loneliness is lethal, that when people are rendered lonely, bad things can happen. Researchers now state that social isolation and loneliness are as toxic as smoking 15 cigarettes per day, and that when people are lonely they are more at risk of being sick or even dying. These are powerful statements and causes one to ask how?

A recent article I just read offered and interesting reason why this seems to add up. The researchers postulate that our primitive reaction to being rendered isolated (or lonely) is a heightened state of alert. That is, the earliest humans needed to live, hunt, and stay in groups where they would be more safe, especially in their precarious environment. If they became separated from their tribe, they could be in grave danger. The defense mechanism that kicks in increases the heart rate, the sweat glans, the nervous system, and respiratory process and the like. The net effect of these signals was to find our way back to the tribe and to safety. All of these things can keep us safe, but in a prolonged state, can have an adverse effect.

The researchers state: “We think that human psychology interprets loneliness as a kind of threat, and that this kind of inflammatory response is a biological reflex that gets triggered whenever we experience threat or uncertainty. When you feel lonely, your brain activates inflammation in the white blood cells….and inflammation talks back to the brain and changes the way it works….the response feeds back to the brain and makes it irritable, suspicious, prone to negative emotions and fearful of meeting new people and making new friends.” In a way, they could be a new threat.

In some ways this explains how some people, who are socially isolated, get caught in that web of negativity and suspicion and remain offset and isolated. The primitive “fight-flight” reflex can keep isolated people, lonely.

Certainly, we know the benefits of relationships (social capital) and how these good things can make our lives better, but reflecting on the biology of isolation can help us understand how loneliness persists. I think that the net result of all of this is the role that everyday people can play in breaking the cycle of loneliness, especially when the isolated person seems to be pushing people away.