How Loneliness Changes The Way Our Brains Processes The World.

If there’s one thing we as humans seem to have in common, it’s that most of us have felt lonely at one time or another. The world seems different when we’re feeling lonely. Recent research has begun to provide some answers. Loneliness can affect your perception & cognition.

Social relationships are crucial, providing safety, resources, opportunities to have children, and so on. The fact that we find the feeling of loneliness so unpleasant often motivates us to reconnect with others, bringing with it all of these benefits.

But it’s not as simple as that. Feeling lonely can also induce social withdrawal and types of negative thinking, which can make it harder to connect with people. Loneliness can impact how we perceive and respond to the world around us.

Imagine your brain is like a spotlight, and it can shine on different thoughts and feelings. Research has suggested that when a person is lonely, this spotlight tends to focus more on negative things. They might notice sad or upsetting stuff more than happy things.

Loneliness can make the brain more alert or watchful. It's like your brain is on the lookout for social threats because it wants to connect with others. This can make a person more sensitive to signs of rejection or social cues.

Loneliness can make the brain really want social connections. It's like your brain is sending out signals saying, "Hey, I need friends!" This craving for connection can affect how the brain responds to social situations. So lonely people start finding friends in fiction.

Researchers in the US carried out brain scans on fans of the television series Game of Thrones while these fans decided whether various adjectives accurately described characters from the show. The authors of the study were able to identify activity.

While the difference between these two categories was clear in non-lonely people, the boundary was blurred for lonelier people. These results suggest that feeling lonely may be associated with thinking of fictional characters in a way similar to real ones.

Another recent study, this time by researchers in Scotland, provided more evidence of how loneliness can affect your cognition. The results showed that lonelier participants were more likely to attend to, engage with, and purchase products that showed “happy” configurations.

Loneliness is not only the perceived absence of others but also a desire for connection. Whether that’s thinking of fictional characters like real friends or being drawn to happy objects, our brains seem to search for social connections wherever they might find them.