The Effects of Lonliness on the Human Brain
Because we are human, and humans strive for attention, recognition, and respect, our brains prefer it when we are supplied this from others and will make us feel happy when we can be seen getting this appreciation. However, the opposite effect can happen if we are not shown this appreciation and our brains will start to cause us to feel more depressed and not know what to do without approval from others. People need people to survive, it seems.
The effects of people not being loved and appreciated from others can range from being mild to quite severe, depending on how much we rely on other people or depending on how long we are being separated from other people. With time, the effects of isolation can be much worse than it is at the start, and can even end up causing many mental issues.
Love is a strange thing, and the effects of love can be even more strange, as we can become so obsessed with one person that the entire course of our life seems to gravitate around them. Rejection, however, is where it gets interesting because people can get rejected by the people that they love and instead of forgetting about them, they love them more. If you love someone more, after they've rejected you and you know you can't be with them, you would be torn apart from this, and cause you to feel much more depressed.
This idea of pain caused by loving someone harder after rejection has been talked about by Helen Fisher, in her Ted Talk titled "The brain in love" specifically at the point where she talks about her friend who had just gotten over a love affair. She described that it has been taking her a while to get over this one person, but at one point "she heard a song on the car radio that reminded her of this man. Not only did the instant craving come back, but she had to pull over from the side of the road and cry." This describes the fact that the littlest thing can remind you of one person, especially if that person meant a lot to you at one point. Because this woman was so invested in this one person, the fact that she couldn't love him the same anymore is able to tear her apart and cause her to stop whatever she was doing just to recall her relationship.
It is evident that love, while causing our brains to be happy and making our lives so much better, can also have a devastating effect if the feeling is denied to us. Our lives rely so heavily on love that we become absorbed by it and we do not know how we would function without it. This makes it dangerous to have people be so lonely, as it can cause these negative emotional effects.
The effects of people not being loved and appreciated from others can range from being mild to quite severe, depending on how much we rely on other people or depending on how long we are being separated from other people. With time, the effects of isolation can be much worse than it is at the start, and can even end up causing many mental issues.
Love is a strange thing, and the effects of love can be even more strange, as we can become so obsessed with one person that the entire course of our life seems to gravitate around them. Rejection, however, is where it gets interesting because people can get rejected by the people that they love and instead of forgetting about them, they love them more. If you love someone more, after they've rejected you and you know you can't be with them, you would be torn apart from this, and cause you to feel much more depressed.
This idea of pain caused by loving someone harder after rejection has been talked about by Helen Fisher, in her Ted Talk titled "The brain in love" specifically at the point where she talks about her friend who had just gotten over a love affair. She described that it has been taking her a while to get over this one person, but at one point "she heard a song on the car radio that reminded her of this man. Not only did the instant craving come back, but she had to pull over from the side of the road and cry." This describes the fact that the littlest thing can remind you of one person, especially if that person meant a lot to you at one point. Because this woman was so invested in this one person, the fact that she couldn't love him the same anymore is able to tear her apart and cause her to stop whatever she was doing just to recall her relationship.
It is evident that love, while causing our brains to be happy and making our lives so much better, can also have a devastating effect if the feeling is denied to us. Our lives rely so heavily on love that we become absorbed by it and we do not know how we would function without it. This makes it dangerous to have people be so lonely, as it can cause these negative emotional effects.
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