Loneliness: Where it comes from and what it is for –

Have you ever felt loneliness? Have you ever wondered what is behind this feeling? How can we change it? In this article you will find answers to all these questions.

Multiple investigations have shown that the feeling of loneliness and isolation, which is felt when you cannot trust the people around you, is the main factor that makes it possible to predict the level of well-being in advanced ages. In this podcast, Enric Corbera will review the different manifestations of loneliness, as well as its causes and consequences.

We already know that we can feel alone when we are together and, on the contrary, be alone and not have that feeling. As David Corbera points out, it is not only the perception of how we live relationships but also the behavior that generates that same perception. What makes us feel alone?

What is loneliness?

The concept of loneliness has always been the result of debate and discussion throughout history. Currently, with the use of new technologies, we can better understand what physiological effects may be closely related to this feeling.


Feeling lonely may have a genetic component

For example, the doctor investigated how feeling lonely affected gene expression and obtained very interesting:

He divided a sample of 230 people into two groups, one where he included people who reported feeling loneliness and in another those who said they felt social support. She observed drastic differences in 200 genes, these genes were related to antiviral reactions and antibody production. The group that felt loneliness showed a strikingly lower activity in the expression of these genes, while the group that said they felt supported showed much higher activity.

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Therefore, he concluded that when we feel alone we are more likely to get sick or more difficult to recover.



Feeling lonely doesn’t always mean not relating to people

However, the most significant data from this experiment is that what determined the degree of “loneliness” was not the size of the social fabric of the participants, how many people they talked to on a daily basis or with whom they lived. Loneliness started from a hostile perception of the environment, a kind of unconscious “decision” that made them live emotionally disconnected from their surroundings.

shared loneliness

In line with this new definition, the concept of “shared loneliness” appears, through which we can understand loneliness not so much as the lack of of other human beings, but as the inability to connect with them. Therefore, loneliness would not be so much a social situation as a psychological one. It is a conflict that can happen just as intensely to a hermit who lives isolated from the world as to someone who lives and works in a big city surrounded by other people all the time.

Being with someone and feeling alone

Paradoxically, sometimes, because we are not “alone”, we experience a much greater loneliness, nourishing relationships through which we feel increasingly disconnected from ourselves, further from our desires, our dreams and our .

Feeling separated from what surrounds us only reflects, in reality, that we abandoned ourselves for a long time, that we began to live for others, forgetting what we really want our life to mean, what meaning we want to give to our existence and everything that comes with it. covers.

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The harshness with which we judge the mistakes of others and the lack of confidence that we show to the people around us will be determining factors that will influence this feeling of loneliness. Loneliness is not being alone, loneliness is being completely
of oneself. It is a rejection of one’s own being that is manifested in the rejection of others.

Thus, we could conclude that loneliness can actually be an opportunity that life offers us to connect with ourselves, learn to respect ourselves and connect with our essence. All and constructive part of two capable and autonomous human beings. On many occasions we need to look within, connect with ourselves and recognize ourselves to know that, in reality, being “alone” is a choice.



«There is no other true loneliness than inner loneliness.«

Thomas Merton

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