Some people can trace their fear of being alone to a negative or traumatic experience. Potential autophobia causes include: Being ignored, uncared for or feeling abandoned. Divorce or loss of a parent during childhood.
There are different types of loneliness: emotional, and social and existential loneliness.
A brain imaging study showed that feeling ostracized actually activates our neural pain matrix. In fact, several studies show that ostracizing others hurts us as much as being ostracized ourselves. We can hypothesize that, similarly, loneliness is associated with the pain matrix.
Loneliness can often be a result of life changes or circumstances that include living alone, changing your living arrangements, having financial problems, or death of a loved one.
NEGATIVE EFFECTS
Loneliness and social isolation are also associated with increased blood pressure, higher cholesterol levels, depression and, if that weren't bad enough, decreases in cognitive abilities and Alzheimer's disease. Humans evolved to be around others.
Also known as autophobia, isolophobia, or eremophobia, monophobia is the fear of being isolated, lonely, or alone.
Some research suggests that loneliness is associated with an increased risk of certain mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, sleep problems and increased stress.
Insomnia, disrupted sleep or other sleep-related issues may all be physical symptoms of loneliness. Another sign is sleeping too much; often when people are feeling sad, or in this case lonely, many turn to sleep as a way to block out how they feel.
Biologists have shown that feelings of loneliness trigger the release of stress hormones that in turn are associated with higher blood pressure, decreased resistance to infection and increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Older people are especially vulnerable to loneliness and social isolation – and it can have a serious effect on health. But there are ways to overcome loneliness, even if you live alone and find it hard to get out.
The effect caused by loneliness, moreover, appears to be especially damaging to the cardiovascular system. Hostility, for instance, affects how hard the heart muscle beats. But loneliness produces an increase in vascular resistance—it becomes harder for blood to move through the arteries.
If you've experienced ongoing feelings of loneliness, it can have negative effects on your physical health. It could lead to weight gain, sleep deprivation, poor heart health, and a weakened immune system. Loneliness can also put your body under more stress than normal.
Stage 4: Depression. The despair of loneliness is an all-encompassing emotion.
Research has linked social isolation and loneliness to higher risks for a variety of physical and mental conditions: high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, Alzheimer's disease, and even death.
The key difference between being lonely and being alone is emotional attachment. Being alone is a state of being, while loneliness is a feeling. We can be perfectly happy being by ourselves, but we can also be lonely even if we're with a group of people.
Loneliness unleashes excess stress hormones, causing an elevated heart rate, and increased blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Loneliness also reduces the number of antibodies we produce to fight infection and may make us more susceptible to cancer.