Curated from: newyorker.com
Ideas, facts & insights covering these topics:
7 ideas
ยท5.26K reads
32
1
Explore the World's Best Ideas
Join today and uncover 100+ curated journeys from 50+ topics. Unlock access to our mobile app with extensive features.
We crave intimacy. And yet, long before the present pandemic, with its forced isolation and social distancing, humans had begun building their own separate cells.ย
Before modern times, very few human beings lived alone.
217
1.17K reads
It is an umbrella term we use to cover for all sorts of things most people would rather not name and have no idea how to fix.
Plenty of people like to be alone. But solitude and seclusion are different from loneliness. Loneliness is a state of profound distress.
249
799 reads
Primates need to belong to an intimate social group in order to survive; this is especially true for humans.
Separation from your group (either finding yourself alone or finding yourself among a group of people who do not know and understand you) triggers a fight-or-flight response.
233
741 reads
Our bodies perceive being alone (or with strangers) as an emergency. Thus, our nervous system evolved to produce the anxiety we associate with loneliness.
We breathe fast, our heart races, our blood pressure rises, we donโt sleep. We act fearful, defensive, and self-involved, all of which drive away people who might actually want to help, and tend to stop lonely people from doing what would benefit them most: reaching out to others.
215
571 reads
According to historian Fay Bound Alberti, modern loneliness is the child of capitalism and secularism.
Many of the divisions and hierarchies that have developed since the 18th century (between the individual and the world, individual and community, public and private) have been naturalized through the politics and philosophy of individualism.
174
666 reads
161
558 reads
... is that lonely people canโt see that lots of people feel the same way they do.
Loneliness seems to be such a painful, frightening experience that people will do anything to avoid it. We shut down the lonely, afraid that this might be some kind of a contagious situation.
197
755 reads
IDEAS CURATED BY
Learn more about personaldevelopment with this collection
Improving sleep through mindful breathing exercises
Practicing stress reduction and relaxation techniques
Establishing a relaxing bedtime routine
Related collections
Similar ideas
6 ideas
The Health Consequences of Loneliness
verywellmind.com
8 ideas
Read & Learn
20x Faster
without
deepstash
with
deepstash
with
deepstash
Personalized microlearning
โ
100+ Learning Journeys
โ
Access to 200,000+ ideas
โ
Access to the mobile app
โ
Unlimited idea saving
โ
โ
Unlimited history
โ
โ
Unlimited listening to ideas
โ
โ
Downloading & offline access
โ
โ
Supercharge your mind with one idea per day
Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.
I agree to receive email updates