Having a dead headphone seems like a downward spiral of loneliness ( where did all the likes go ? ) . But what happens when you’rereallycut off from the world – when you ’re totally alone ? We asked Dr. Tina Maschi , certify mental wellness professional and associate professor at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service , to distinguish us what goes down in the human genius under prolonged periods of societal closing off . As to how to fight those terrible effects ( seriously , they ’re like physically sick - bad ) , who well to hit up than Alan Kay , the winner of HISTORY ‘S original seriesAlone . He made it through 56 days in the wilderness of Canada with nothing but his camera , some survival geartrain , and his sentiment .
Being alone goes fundamentally against how we’re wired
Before we can get to the regretful poppycock and the possible defense mechanisms , you take to understandwhybeing alone can be so negative . homo are social beings – we ’re ruck driven . There is a hunch that the very sizing of the neocortex , the part of our psyche that master thing like language and empathy and general societal cognition , is straight relative to how societal a species is . Our brains are basically build to socialize . When your mentality is n’t doing what it was basically built to do , you put the head under tremendous unnatural stress , and bad things can pass off .
" When I heard ducks , they sounded like old work force arguing with each other . " - Alan Kay
Being alone might cause you to hallucinate
Hallucinations can be triggered by a traumatic event . If you take a healthy person with no chronicle of genial health disorders and put them under great stress , their cortisol levels ( the accent internal secretion ) would be astronomic , affect their power to psychologically represent input . fundamentally , you ’re not reading what ’s actually happening aright and are just reacting to your trauma with form , visual sense , or phone that are a sound projection of yourself .
Kay did n’t have any of these delusion triggered by intense care or stress . Because of his previous experiences in his gamey - stress task as a correctional officer as well as his youth spent hone his survival skills in the woods of Georgia , Kay might have been predispose to deliver the goods on his mission to be the last man remain firm on Vancouver Island .
He did , however , say that the longer he stay in the wilderness , the easier it was to be so in tune with the nature around him that he could really hear it .
Courtney Wirth/Thrillist
“ It was kind of a calendar method of birth control . You could feel the pulse of everything go on in the world . Sometimes it was an audible thing and I think maybe it ’s something that ’s real , that we just dwell in such a noisy world that we ’re just not aware of that . It take that isolation and that prison term in solitude and hushed to reconnect with it . ”
Being alone might cause you to anthropomorphize objects
Yes , just like inCastaway , you might bulge talking to a volleyball game . Ascribing human characteristic to inanimate objects is a veridical phenomenon seen in entirely isolated masses .
“ If you ’re used to a world full of objects and you no longer see them , you commence looking for some sense of solace , ” order Dr. Maschi . “ Just ground on these cardinal emotion of anxiety and fear of death , you could make things ; you could see something that ’s not there . ”
While Kay was n’t have long conversation with his cookery green goddess , he describe how he began to equate human emotion to the sounds the birds made on Vancouver Island .
Courtney Wirth/Thrillist
“ When I heard gull , they sound to me like my youngster when they were discontented . When I heard ducks , they sounded like honest-to-goodness man indicate with each other . You start to see these human feature superimposed on the vocalizations of these animals . ”
Being alone could make you physically sick
enkindle up your societal media account ( or perhaps just go outside ) –numerous studieshave found that social closing off can really direct you to an early grave . Lack of physical contact can result in high-pitched stress horizontal surface and higher blood pressure , so find someone ’s deal and give it goddammit . Adecade - long studyabout the correlation coefficient between lonesomeness and physical illness find that the output of blank blood cells in people who self - report higher level of loneliness was affected due to the stress that come with being alone . So?SO , it means that the more alone you are , the more susceptible you are to becoming ill . Start ego - prescribing yourself long talks with your neighbor along with that day-to-day multivitamin pill .
Being alone might cause you to utilize defense mechanisms like compartmentalization to survive
alternatively of fixating on the titan , looming job onwards , Kay opt to divide and conquer . “ How do you eat a cow ? ” ask Kay ( remember ? ) . “ One bite at a meter . ”
Whether he knew it or not , that defense mechanics is compartmentalization , when one stores away emotions like anxieties and care to focalise energy on all the things that need to be done to ensure survival . Another , intellectualization , is certify when rational thinking is used during time of stress to remove oneself emotionally from situation .
“ Living in the moment was really important , ” says Kay . “ alternatively of bet at all of the challenges and all of the things that could potentially go wrong , I would just focus on my most urgent need . That moment I was establish a fire , I was 110 % focused on build that attack . ”
Courtney Wirth/Thrillist
Being alone does not always have to be a negative experience
So in the end , what was it about Alan Kay that got him through this without a ( mental ) scratch ?
“ There ’s a psychological co - dependency that masses often have . They can not be alone ; they have to be in a kinship , they have to be with Friend . says Dr. Maschi . But if a mortal has good internal resource , trouble puzzle out skills , and [ the power to ] not let emotion get the best of them , he might be strong and might be able to withstand [ being alone ] . ”
Solitude does n’t always have to intend loneliness . brave backpackers sojourn into the wilderness seeking enlightenment all the time . Monks take vow of silences . A teenage lady friend sailed around the world alone in a little gravy boat for months at a time . Kay ’s experience , background , and preparation gave him distinct advantage .
“ Obviously you miss family and friends , human interaction , ” says Kay . " But for me , I rather enjoyed some of the solitude . It really give you prison term to really look within yourself . And the longer that you ’re out there , the more that summons just croak deeper and deeper . Even the room the creature respond to you changes . They start to accept you as just another fauna out there trying to subsist . ”
Check out season two ofAloneon HISTORY on April 21st .
