Loneliness effects on state of mind

docx

School

The University of Nairobi *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

MISC

Subject

Psychology

Date

Nov 24, 2024

Type

docx

Pages

Uploaded by reaganmumo

Running head: LONELINESS EFFECTS ON STATE OF MIND 1 Loneliness Effects on State of Mind Student’s Name: Institutional Affiliation:

LONELINESS EFFECTS ON STATE OF MIND 2 Loneliness Effects on State of Mind Abstract Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a regular mental disorder, also the main cause of disabilities worldwide, which results to a worldwide socio-economic issue. Loneliness can be defined as a feeling of being insufficient in an individual’s social and intimate connections. It influences almost 40 % of older and middle-aged people, and is nearly related to major depressive disorder (MDD). Nevertheless, the association between the functioning of neural network and loneliness during the processes of executive cognition, for instance working memory, in major depressive disorder is remains unclear (Achterbergh et al., 2020). It is reported that loneliness can be related to the adjusted functioning of the neural regulatory on self-reflexive processing and control of actions, which further depends on a person’s depressive condition. Such discoveries can be the basis of a theory for designing intervention programs with the aim to improve mental health. This research paper aims to dig more on loneliness and its role in our daily life, as well as the potential role that loneliness plays in the forming of MDD. Introduction Literature review shows that loneliness is nearly related to MDD, and is likely to be a longitudinal predictor of depression symptoms among middle-aged people, adolescents, and aged people over a long period of time. The prediction relationship was found to begin from loneliness then to depression, and not the other way. Cumulative research suggested that patients with MDD depicted brain response patterns that were altered during their performance of executive cognitive procedures like working memory (WM). The interfered brain cognitive procedures

LONELINESS EFFECTS ON STATE OF MIND 3 could be linked to the decreased effect of regulatory functioning in MDD patients. Nevertheless, there is lack of research on the correlation between WM and loneliness, specifically among younger populations. Moreover, the possible mutual effect of loneliness and MDD on the working memory procedures of the brain is not clear. Describing the neural cognitive correlations between MDD and loneliness could help in comprehending how lonely people are likely to eventually develop MDD. This would be the essential basis for designing an intervention program targeting the psychological wellbeing of people with affection problems and high loneliness issues (Erzen & Çikrikci, 2018). The capacity of a working memory is crucial to maintain the daily functions and affect regulation in both healthy and MDD patients. Working memory is described as the ability to temporarily store information while carrying out cognitive duties, and entails maintaining and manipulating information and switching the outputs and inputs. People who suffer from MDD exhibit impairments in the performance of a working memory. Nevertheless, it is believed that MDD patients compared to healthy people depict similar performance based on reaction time and accuracy of the working memory duties (Otte et al., 2016). Given the close association between MDD and loneliness, it is likely that lonely people would demonstrate interfered brain networking responses during working memory performance. There is inconsistent and limited existing evidence regarding the correlation between working memory functioning and loneliness, and this is majorly based on elderly populations. A study outlined that loneliness is not associated with working memory capacity in older people from an imaging test, while another research study reported a negative association between WM and loneliness from a letter-number sequence test (Otte et al., 2016).

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

LONELINESS EFFECTS ON STATE OF MIND 4 Discussion The first study mentioned above involved primary participants depicting low levels of depression symptoms, therefore the findings would possibly not be generalized to MDD patients. Research lacks exploration on the impact of loneliness on cognitive functioning among younger adults with MDD, therefore there is no conclusion on how and whether loneliness affects WM functioning of younger people. The previous research findings only give provisional support of a correlation between loneliness and the functioning of cognitive control (CCN), and affects- related (DMN) networks. Nevertheless, no exact evidence exists concerning the relationship between the two during working memory performance (Dennis et al., 2019). Loneliness is a familiar human emotion, but it is also a unique and complex experience for each person. There is no specific cause of loneliness, therefore treatment and prevention for this harmful state of mind differs considerably. A child, who struggles to have friends in school, requires a different approach to solve his/her issues as compared to an old person who might have previously lost a loved one. To comprehend loneliness, it is crucial to look closely at the exact meaning of being lonely and the different causes, health repercussions, symptoms, and possible treatment options for loneliness. Someone who is lonely does not have anyone around them, and therefore there is an increased risk of developing behavioral issues, biological dysfunctions, and psychological distress. This is common in older populations and comes with complications, aetiology, and phenomenology that require proper diagnosis, management, and care. This is known as morbid loneliness (Ojagbemi & Gureje, 2019).

LONELINESS EFFECTS ON STATE OF MIND 5 It is basically known that loneliness often results to a decline in the well-being of the victim and might result to depression, suicidal behavior, sleeping disorders, poor appetite, among other things. Morbid repercussions of loneliness are more common among adults with adaptation and personality disorders, for instance excessive alcohol consumption, low self-esteem, intense types of anxiety, stress and helplessness. When a person is lonely they become predisposed to physical diseases as well, since loneliness has serious effects on immunity, endocrine, and cardiovascular system. Regular, overwhelming and prevalent loneliness causes stress and eventually ends as an adverse physical illness. The feeling of being lonely was identified as an independent determinant of motor decline among elderly people. Also, loneliness was identified as an independent determinant of functional decline and mortality after managing depression. It also causes memory impairments leading to learning problems, which makes the victim susceptible to Alzheimer's illness. According to a previous study done in Dutch, lonely people are the most likely to suffer clinical dementia in a 3 years’ period as compared to people who are not lonely (Van Den Brink et al., 2018). Loneliness can be divided into three forms depending on its causes. The first type is situational loneliness. Cultural and socio-economic backgrounds determine situational loneliness. Several environmental determinants such as bad past experiences, discrepancies in the levels of a person’s social contacts and needs, disasters, inter-personal disputes, emptiness syndrome, accidents, etc, cause loneliness among aged people. Increase in feminization and life expectancy of elderly people is also a relevant factor in developed situational loneliness among females (Erzen & Çikrikci, 2018).

LONELINESS EFFECTS ON STATE OF MIND 6 The second type of loneliness is developmental loneliness. Everyone has a natural desire for intimacy and the need to relate with others. This need is important for the development of human beings. Besides this need, a higher level of desire for individualism exists too, and is correlated to acknowledging and growing our real self which needs some solitude as well. For optimal development, we should balance the two. When someone is unable to properly balance the needs, it leads to loss of a person’s life meaning which in turn causes loneliness and emptiness in a person. Personal lack, developmental shortages, remarkable separations, poverty, social marginality, living arrangements, and psychological/physical disabilities often cause developmental loneliness (Domènech et al., 2017). The last form of loneliness is internal loneliness. Being alone is not what mainly causes someone to be lonely. Rather, the perception that someone is alone is alone is what makes them to be lonely. Individuals with low self-esteem and those who devalue themselves are likely to be lonelier as compared to their counterparts. Major causes of this kind of loneliness include personality issues, mental distress, locus of control, low self-esteem, feeling guilty or worthless, and poor strategies of coping with circumstances (Achterbergh, 2020). Treating loneliness There are various research reports concerning loneliness intervention. Most studies described loneliness as being indicative of the extent to which people feel generally lonely. Nevertheless, adding to heritable and stable component, loneliness is strongly impacted by multiple cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions to the surroundings, which contributes to the dynamic nature of loneliness. There seems to be an association between loneliness and

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

LONELINESS EFFECTS ON STATE OF MIND 7 negative discernments of social interaction and cognitive extreme watch for social threats (Van Den Brink et al., 2018). The interventions should be individualized to manage expectations based on personal efficiency, and to better socializing capacities, as well as behavioral feedback and training to regulate people’s behaviors while positively improving the frequency and level of loneliness. Studies report that members in intervention groups positively respond to social loneliness and contacts as compared to controls. Therefore, loneliness is treatable and not an irreversible problem (Liu et al., 2016). Besides planned interventions, there exists other useful methods that can help to combat loneliness for instance keeping oneself engaged, sharing with someone how you feel, involving yourself in gainful activities where you get to spend time and interact with other people while discussing major issues concerning life, helping people, avoiding escaping, working on development of quality relations with individuals who have similar attitudes, values, or interests to yours, gathering positive thoughts and being in control of misfortunes, joining self interesting groups, managing physical illnesses pharmacologically, and being in constant communication with friends and family (Otte et al., 2016). Conclusion Focusing on worldly associations between state or momentary loneliness, the appraising of social company, and loneliness in a person’s daily life could help explain the mechanisms that lead to an individual developing trait or prolonged loneliness as well as major depressive disorder (Van Winkel et al., 2017). Although various studies done in the past have provided

LONELINESS EFFECTS ON STATE OF MIND 8 insights on the potential correlation between loneliness and several surrounding factors, no research has evaluated how the relationship is associated to the development of major depressive disorder. References Achterbergh, L., Pitman, A., Birken, M., Pearce, E., Sno, H., & Johnson, S. (2020). The experience of loneliness among young people with depression: a qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature. BMC psychiatry , 20 (1), 1-23. Dennis, J., Sealock, J., Levinson, R. T., Farber-Eger, E., Franco, J., Fong, S., ... & Davis, L. K. (2019). Genetic risk for major depressive disorder and loneliness in sex-specific associations with coronary artery disease. Molecular psychiatry , 1-11. Domènech-Abella, J., Lara, E., Rubio-Valera, M., Olaya, B., Moneta, M. V., Rico-Uribe, L. A., ... & Haro, J. M. (2017). Loneliness and depression in the elderly: the role of social network. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology , 52 (4), 381-390. Erzen, E., & Çikrikci, Ö. (2018). The effect of loneliness on depression: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Social Psychiatry , 64 (5), 427-435. Liu, L., Gou, Z., & Zuo, J. (2016). Social support mediates loneliness and depression in elderly people. Journal of health psychology , 21 (5), 750-758.

LONELINESS EFFECTS ON STATE OF MIND 9 Ojagbemi, A., & Gureje, O. (2019). Social relationships and the association of loneliness with major depressive disorder in the Ibadan study of aging. World Social Psychiatry , 1 (1), 82. Otte, C., Gold, S. M., Penninx, B. W., Pariante, C. M., Etkin, A., Fava, M., ... & Schatzberg, A. F. (2016). Major depressive disorder. Nature reviews Disease primers , 2 (1), 1-20. Van Den Brink, R. H. S., Schutter, N., Hanssen, D. J. C., Elzinga, B. M., Rabeling-Keus, I. M., Stek, M. L., ... & Voshaar, R. O. (2018). Prognostic significance of social network, social support and loneliness for course of major depressive disorder in adulthood and old age. Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences , 27 (3), 266. Van Winkel, M., Wichers, M., Collip, D., Jacobs, N., Derom, C., Thiery, E., ... & Peeters, F. (2017). Unraveling the role of loneliness in depression: the relationship between daily life experience and behavior. Psychiatry , 80 (2), 104-117.

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

Loneliness effects on state of mind

Related Documents