LONELINESS - The silent killer

Overview;-

Learning objectives- After reading this article readers are going to be able to;

1. Identify being lonely and being alone.
2. Explore the consequences of social isolation.
3. How to combat the loneliness.

'Pic credit- Sanskriti( rsansk05@gmail.com)'

INTRODUCTION;-

 Everybody feels lonely from time to time. once we haven't anyone to speak even having a bunch of friends when nobody is there from whom we can share our stuffs or when nobody has time for us at the weekend. In the UK, 60% of 18 to 34-year-old say they often feel lonely. In the US, 46% of the complete population feels lonely regularly. 

We are living in the most connected time in human history. And yet, an unprecedented number of people feel isolated. People are perplexed about the term being alone and being lonely. 

WHAT IS LONELINESS?

Loneliness may be a purely subjective, individual experience. If you are feeling lonely, you are lonely. A common stereotype is that loneliness only happens to those who don't know the way to talk with people, or the way to behave around others. But population-based studies have shown that social skills make practically no difference for adults when it comes to social connections. Loneliness can affect rich, poor, popular, introverted, extroverted, beautiful, skilled, or an excellent personality.

 Loneliness is a bodily function, like hunger. Hunger causes you to listen to your physical needs. Loneliness causes you to concentrate on your social needs. Your body cares about your social needs because a lot of years ago it absolutely was a great indicator of how likely you were to survive. 

WHY BEING SOCIAL IS NECESSARY?

Survival of the fittest rewarded our ancestors for collaboration and forming connections with one another. Our brains evolve and make us understand other's feelings and helps in building social bonds around us. Being social became a part of our biology. 

Being together meant survival. Being alone meant death. So it had been crucial that you simply got bonded with others. For your ancestors, the most foremost threat to survival was not being eaten by a lion, but not getting the social vibe of your group and being excluded. so to induce elimination, our body came up with 'Social pain'. Pain of this type is an evolutionary adaptation to rejection: a kind of early warning system to create sure you stop behavior that will isolate you. Your ancestors who experienced rejection as more painful were more likely to vary their behavior once they got rejected and thus stayed within the tribe, while people who didn't get kicked out and presumably died. That's why rejections hurt. And even more that's, why loneliness is so painful. These mechanisms of keeping us in social bonds or being attached helps us a lot in our history, until humans will evolve more and build a brand new World for themselves.

 

LONELINESS AS A EPIDEMIC;-

The loneliness epidemic we see today really only started within the late Renaissance. Civilization began to specialize in the individual. Intellectuals moved aloof from the collectivism of the Middle Ages, while the young Protestant theology stressed individual responsibility. This trend accelerated during the commercial Revolution. People left their villages and fields to enter factories. Communities that had existed for many years began to dissolve, while cities grew. As within the contemporary world, this process sped up. We meet fewer people head to head and that we meet them less often than within the past. The majority stumble into chronic loneliness unintentionally. As adulthood we become busy with work, university, romance, kids, and Netflix. There's just not enough time. The foremost convenient and simple thing to sacrifice is time with friends. 

Until you realize that you feel isolated; that you yearn for close relationships. But it's hard to search out close connections as adults then, loneliness can become chronic. While humans feel pretty great about things like iPhone and spaceships, our bodies and minds are fundamentally the identical they were 50,000 years ago. We are still biologically fine-tuned to being with one another. 

CONSEQUENCES OF SOCIAL ISOLATION;-

Large scale studies have shown that the stress that comes from chronic loneliness is among the foremost unhealthy things we will experience as humans.

• It causes you to age quicker.
• It makes cancer deadlier.
• Alzheimer's advances faster.
• Your immune systems weaker. 
• Loneliness is twice as deadly as obesity and as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. 

The most dangerous thing about it is that when it becomes chronic, it can become self-sustaining. Our brain uses both physical and social pain as a threat. When loneliness becomes chronic, your brain goes into self-preservation mode. It starts to determine danger and hostility everywhere. 

But that's not all. Some studies found that when you're lonely, your brain is way more receptive and alert to social signals, while at the same time, it gets worse at interpreting them correctly. You pay more attention to others but you understand them less. The part of your brain that recognizes faces gets out of tune and becomes more likely to categorize neutral faces as hostile, which makes it distrustful of others.

ADVERSE EFFECTS OF LONELINESS;-

• Loneliness causes you to assume the worst about others' intentions towards you. 
• Due to this, you become self-centered, isolated, and awkward than before you were. 
• If loneliness has become a robust presence in your life, the primary thing you can do is to try to recognize the vicious cycle you may be trapped in. 
• It always goes something like this: An initial feeling of isolation ends up in feelings of tension and sadness, which causes you to focus your attention selectively on negative interactions with others. 
• This makes your thoughts about yourself and others more negative, which then changes your behavior. 
• You start to avoid social interaction, which ends up in more feelings of isolation. This cycle becomes more severe and harder to flee anytime. 
• Loneliness makes you sit far-flung from others within the class, not answer the phone when friends call, decline invitations until the invitations stop. 

Each and each one among us contains a story about ourselves, and if your story becomes that individual exclude you, others acquire thereon, and so the outside world can become the way you are feeling about it. This is often a creeping process that takes years, and might end in depression and a mental state that prevents connections, even if you yearn for them. The primary thing you can do to flee it is to accept that loneliness could be a totally normal feeling and zilch to be ashamed of. 

IDENTIFYING AND FIGHTING LONELINESS;-

Literally, everybody feels lonely at some point in their life, it's a universal human experience. You can't eliminate or ignore a feeling until it goes away magically, but you will accept that you feel it and get rid of its cause. You can self-examine what you focus your attention on, and check if you are selectively concentrating on negative things. 

• Was this interaction with a colleague really negative, or was it really neutral or maybe positive? 
• What was the particular content of an interaction? 
• What did another person say? 
• And did they assert something bad, or did you add extra intending to their words? 
• Maybe another person was not really reacting negatively, but just short on time. Then, there are your thoughts about the globe. 
• Are you assuming the worst about others' intentions? Does one enter a social situation and have already decided how it will go? 
• Do you assume others don't want you around? 
• Are you trying to avoid being hurt and not risking opening up? 
• And, if so, are you able to try to give others the good thing of the doubt? 
• Are you able to assume that they're not against you? 
• Can you risk being open and vulnerable again? 
• And lastly, your behavior. Are you avoiding opportunities to be around others? 
• Are you trying to find excuses to say NO to invitations? 
• Or are you pushing others away preemptively to shield yourself? 
• Are you acting as if you're getting attacked? 
• Are you actually trying to seek out new connections, or have you ever become complacent along together with your situation? 

COMBATTING LONELINESS;-
Of course, every person and situation is unique and different, and just introspection alone may not be enough. If you are feeling unable to unravel your situation by yourself, please try and reach out and get professional help. 

It's not an indication of weakness, but of courage. However I look at loneliness, as a purely individual problem that needs solving to make more personal happiness, or as a public health crisis, it is something that deserves more attention. Humans have built a world that's nothing wanting amazing, and yet, none of the shiny things we've made is in a position to satisfy or substitute our fundamental biological need for connection. Most animals get what they have from their physical surroundings. We get what we need from each other, and we need to build our artificial human world that supported that.

•  Let's try something together
•  let's reach resolute someone today, regardless if you are feeling a little bit lonely, or if you wish to make someone else's day better. 
• Maybe write a friend you haven't spoken to in a while. 
• Call a loved one who's become estranged. Invite a work buddy for a coffee
• Or simply head to something you're usually too afraid to travel to or too lazy to go to, like an event or a sports club. 
• Everybody's different, so you recognize what's a decent fit for you. 

Maybe nothing will come of it, and that is okay. Don't try this with any expectations. The goal is solely to open up a bit; to exercise your connection muscles, so they can grow stronger over time, or to help others.

SOURCES;-

I want to recommend two of the books I read while researching about this topic;-

• 'Emotional First Aid' by Guy Winch, a book that addresses, among other topics, A way to deal with loneliness in a very way that I found helpful and actionable 
• 'Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection' by John Cacioppo and William Patrick. 

It's an entertaining and scientific exploration as to why we experience loneliness on a biological level, how it spread in society and what science has to say about how to escape it.

If you want the pdf or link of the mentioned book then please comment below. 

Dream or Memory

I had a dream

We were standing under the twilight sky

When the heavens burst open with rain

the sounds of a million heartbeats

as raindrops streamed down my face😊

You said the rain was a divine blessing

giving life to the earth after its death

sustaining, healing, restoring

you looked to the sky to give thanks

I yearned to be the auspicious raindrops🍃

that kissed your beautiful face

you whispered, 'will you run with me?'

We laughed and off we went, hand in hand😊

like foolish lovers chasing the moon before the sun caught us🌞

of course, it was not a dream, but a memory from before

I woke up remembering you are gone; you are here no more. . . 😕

Nothing good ever happened after 2A.M

When it's just 2A.M, just go to sleep. Nothing good ever happens after 2A.M.

2:45A.M- I stare at the clock and it's hand-stretched apart and I can't help but think of us "NEO". It's been 5 months since I last saw you.

2:48A.M- I text you and ask if you are awake and you reply almost instantly. You tell me you can't sleep because of all your exams and this helps you to keep you from thinking about us. I talk about my fears, haunting me inside and you open up about how you are fighting with depression because you anticipate a utopian world. I look at the clock and it's hands crawling towards each other.

3:04A.M-  I start telling you about my playlist. How I shifted to Louis Tomilson and john Mayer's songs from Taylor swift. I send you some of my favorite tracks and tell you how I still Love Coldplay's 'yellow' more than anything else. You laugh at how bad I've always been at choosing and prioritizing things. I tell you how I never hanker to choose my studies with a broken heart emoji. The hands of clocks start running at each other leaving everything behind.

3:17A.M- Text by text, emoji by emoji, we move closer. You said me 3rd time that you miss me too. I know you still keep visiting my Instagram profile, my blogs and you read it. You keep silent and send me a GIF. I replied when you are not able to express you use this weapon with a laughing emoji. You said that I should thank you as when I write about you I get super skilled.

3:28A.M- Thanks for the pain then. You replied ' it's kind of some special feeling that a person is giving so much time upon someone then I must have a special place for myself in your heart. I replied then you must appreciate or at least commented on my blogs but you will not express it as it hurts your ego. You said that I can never understand you. We fall asleep as the hour and minute hand become one.

10:28A.M- I see you online but you haven't texted me yet. Then you suddenly text me that you didn't mean your last line and the intention wasn't to hurt me again. I didn't replied. I believe we have our pieces to sweep.

I recall the quote that- Once it's 2A.M, you should probably go back to sleep because nothing good ever happens after 2A.M.

I look at the clock's hands. They are infinitesimally close, yet parting

I guess they are gonna be away for quite some time.

5 Ways To Take Care Of Your Mental Health During The Lockdown

Most of us wake up in the morning and turn the TV on or use our mobile phones to consume information about this rapidly evolving pandemic.

This news can trigger anxiety and hopelessness. so what can we do?

here are six ways to take care of your mental health during this pandemic;

1. Meditate/ Excercise;

Instead of waking up to your phone, start your day with meditation. Meditation helps in reducing the symptoms of anxiety. A good meditation of 10 min can help us in being calm and quiet. But if you are not interested in meditation you can do a few suryanamaskar and workout at home to start your day. 

you can find online videos on youtube and many trainers also giving their live session on Instagram. so just start your day by giving time on your body rather on your phone. Also, I will suggest observing the sunrise daily as it is the most beautiful part of it.

2. Stick to a routine;

While most of us would love to sleep in, because we don’t have offices or schools or colleges to rush to, having a set time is important for our mental well-being. So eat your meals at regular times, and have set times for sleeping and waking up as you were doing before. Sleeping for 6-7 hours will be enough as if we will not take care of it then it will create boredom in our bedroom.

you can also make a list or target something to do.

3. Talk to family and friends;

While some of us are living through this lockdown with our families, many of us are not. We’re away from home and the situation is getting the worst of us. So, pick up your phone and talk to your parents. sharing your feeling or anxiety makes you feel lighter. Also, take some time to connect with your old friends. Do the video conferencing, play games, or gossips. sharing thoughts, feeling makes you feel better.

4. Do something Creative;

 Pursue that hobby you’ve been long ignoring. we all have some hidden talent in us and this is the best time to follow our hobbies. you can do anything like- painting, singing, dancing, playing an instrument. Actually, this is the right time to learn a new language as it is definitely icing on the cake.

Also, you don't need to do things perfectly or take things seriously as you can do anything for fun.

 5. AVOID NEWS;

This is most important among all. When it gets too much and you feel stressed, it's better to avoid news, switch off your T.V and just breathe for a while. Just limit your consumption of news its not necessary to watch the news channels every day. Also, you can read some positive stories or article publishing that will rejuvenate your mind. 

I know it's difficult but we can keep doing these all. So, stay safe, connected, and breathe. Also, keep visiting my blog. That's all.

DARK IS BEAUTIFUL; Stay unfair, Stay beautiful !!

( IMAGE SOURCE- PIXABAY)

Many illustrations have made a stereotype that fair skin is a synonym of beautiful and this has enhanced the market of fairness creams. The present scenario has made us buy the creams for the girl ‘Fair and lovely’ making me wonder that can’t be girl be lovely without being fair. Also for men, there is ‘Fair and handsome’. Don’t you think that these fairness creams commercialization had silently joined hands with fair colored while it makes discrimination?
Also, examples such as a fair girl are denoted by word beautiful and a dark-colored girl is denoted by ugly which had been noticed in books of primary school’s children many times. Or we can hear all about fairy tales either it’s snow-white or goddess Sita. Also, goddess Gauri had set an example after being damned.

Social stigma;

• Fair skin is now had become an obsession. In Indian society more the darker you look, the lower your place in the social hierarchy.
• This obsession haunts the families who are concern about their girl’s marriage or you can say this makes the priority for the girl. As darker the girl looks the chances of rejection are more or the parents have to pay in the name of dowry. I don’t know why this even exists as our certificate, talent or work didn’t define us or our confidence. Why should we be judged by our skin tone?
• This starts from birth when our relatives or so-called aunties start comparing our sibling with us.
• Darker tone people are not called by their name instead of it we have the names for them like Kalia, kallu, kauwa, madrasa, etc. But friends it should not be taken seriously as we have the names too for fair-skinned people like angrez, bhura, bandariya and so on.

Facts of cosmetics;

• Most of the skin-lightening creams targeted the skin’s ability to produce melanin which will result in fair skin. They contain soy, licorice or arbutin, and sometimes combine with hydroquinone which is a medical lightening agent. It is a potentially carcinogenic ingredient.
• But not all the creams contain this because it is banned. On the other hand, I would like to say that it is used illegally.
• All these treatments like laser treatments or peeling have a dangerous effect on our skin as it leaves fresher skin which is exposed to radiation and pollutants.
• People who are addicted to fairness creams tend to be more careful in their work field and avoid being under the sun even for a shorter span as they will get tanned and would further get dark.
• We use suncream to protect us from U.V radiation and the moment we stop using the cream our skin gets irritated and develop rashes. So one has to start using it again. So this is a vicious cycle. Also, fairness creams are addictive too said by many dermatologists.

Why dark is beautiful;

There are a lot of examples;

• Our gods are dark. Ironically Lord Krishna being called Shyam and yet be handsome and charmer. Also, lord Shiva, who is revered for his strength and power, is dark too. So is Durga, the good-over-evil goddess.
• Indian audience had shown overwhelming acceptance for dark skin tone actors and actresses. Like- Rekha, Kajol, Anu Aggarwal, Shilpa Shetty, Bipasha Basu, Nandita Das, etc. the list is endless. Among male Rajni Kanth, Shatrughan Sinha, and many other darker-skinned stars have ruled the hearts of millions.

Changing attitudes;

Women’s attitude is changing as they are gaining more confidence by being educated and financially independent. We do find beauty in dark but most of us ignore it for we know beauty lays in the eyes of the beholder. We overlook the brightness of those eyes and confidence in those smiles for there is darkness in the skin.

Conclusion;

We cannot change society but we can start by being the change, for as a beholder we can be confident with who we are. Kavitha Emmanuel is the founder of Women of Worth, an Indian NGO that is standing up to bias toward lighter skin. The Dark Is Beautiful campaign, launched in 2009, is not “anti-white”, she says, but about inclusivity – beauty beyond color( mention in the guardian). It is time for us to decide on whether to start thinking and take a step ahead now or further keep ignoring the darkness which has its beauty too like that of a monsoon cloud. You all can join the Facebook page of the campaign and be the part;

https://www.facebook.com/darkisbeautiful/

I would like to ask from you that still is it necessary to have fair skin? Tell me in the comment section what you think about it!!

FOUR WHEELS :The country’s present is hanging in balance!

If your vehicle is vibrating at high-speed or if you are shaking at your seat then you most likely need your wheels balanced.
If one out of front tires is out of balance you will feel the vibration in your steering wheels. If it's a back tier you will feel the vibration in your seat.
When any one tier is out of balance, it slams into the road many times. And if all four wheels are balanced then you will experience the smooth ride. In the same way India scenario is well-balanced by four wheels.

FRONTLINERS; A REAL WARRIORS

We are well known with this pandemic scenario (COVID-19) which is going on and for now this virus is spreading. On the front line between a nervous public and those who are responsible for managing the national response, the healthcare workers are standing for us on whom we totally rely upon. Doctors, nurses, carers, and paramedics around the whole world are facing a bizarre workload in scant health facilities and with no end in sight. They are working in stressful and frightening work environments as they are under-protected, overworked, and are themselves vulnerable to infection. They are facing separation from their families, their loved ones, and also mental stress. 

( IMAGE CREDIT; headtopics.com)

WAVE OF POLICE; AS A FRONTIER

But on the other side of the front line, our administration department policemen are also working hard day and night just to implement the laws as some dumb people were not getting the severity of the situation. So just to keep our people safe they are enforcing us to stay at home. India’s police are mostly criticized for its brutality and bribery. It creates a little trust in the eyes of the common people. But the coronavirus crisis and the subsequent lockdown has brought out a reverse, compassionate side of them. It is this combined image of personnel in uniform singing and dancing for the troubled public, helping poor people by feeding them, attending calls of students for assistance, and also helping migrants that can help change people’s perception of them. We should be thankful to them for this.

( IMAGE CREDIT; theprint.in)

INNOVATIVE SUPPLIERS; AS A BACK TIER 

Now I would like to tell you about municipal corporations these days who are working as back tiers. Many municipal officials also could not stay home. Trash, and recycling collectors and many others have to be in the streets on work. The corporation is helping in conducting a door to door survey on coronavirus and collecting the information.  They are also emphasizing the mask-wearing who are out for any purpose. They have increased frequency and intensity of cleaning all sites, including regular sanitization of door handles, Touch screens, scanners, cameras, and other frequently touched areas, and they also use to spray disinfectant across many areas regularly. They are helping the government by ensuring the delivery of grains, pulses, etc to needy peoples. 

( IMAGE CREDIT; hindustantimes.com)

ACCEPTING CHALLENGE; WORK FROM HOME

Like them as a back tier only to minimize the outbreak of COVID-19 and to encourage social distancing many companies had announced mandatory work from home and sending their employees home to work remotely. Whether it is IT companies, media and communication, bankers, education, customer support. I will say many more of them are working from home despite facing difficulty in communication or feeling isolated from their colleagues (teamwork) or mental stress, they are serving us. So that we can easily withdraw the money from the ATM, we can easily surf the internet, we can easily order our necessary things online. During this economic crisis employers are focused on maintaining continuity and productivity at the same time preventing operation grinding to a halt.

HIDDEN WHEELS; WORKING GENEROUSLY

Lastly we all know that we all have extra tires in our car used in an emergency. Social activists are one of them who are distributing free food among the needy during ongoing nationwide lockdown. They are feeding stray animals on roads. They keep motivating our front liners and also taking care of our entertainment. 
You may be someone who is coping well in these times and this is great but some people are struggling with the symptoms of poor mental health due to rising anxiety and the monotony of current life. For them, some people who are running helpline numbers. They are assisting people to maintain good mental health. 

( IMAGE CREDIT- hindustantimes.com)

A FINAL NOTE FROM ME TO YOU

I know you are amazing and contributing invaluably as key workers in supporting our nation through this pandemic. We should keep supporting all our five wheels who are there for us. Also it is our utmost duty to support and thanks to our front liners. It is only everyone’s collective effort that keeps humanity alive. 
Please remember to take care of yourself and ensure you do all to keep both mind and body healthy in this crisis.
Thank you for being you.

THREE MUSKETEERS : True friends stays forever beyond words, beyond distance, beyond time!

Around this 1st year I met my best friend, but I didn’t realize they were my Best Friends. I thought they were like classmates only whom I never gonna talk to at the end of semester. They were the girls about whom I never thought I would talk to them that much and they will become my family.

But I was wrong.😉

In the beginning I used to live in a hostel and they both Kiara and Aarohi were living in their own house as they were localite. They came to interact with me, they thought of me as intelligent. But they were definitely wrong. Kiara and Aarohi seemed really happy as they were friends already. We started to talk every day. I shared my feelings about the hostel as I wasn't willing to live in a hostel for a long time. It’s not that I never lived in a hostel and P.G before but this was like an enclosure. So, I had left my hostel and opted to live in a P.G hostel.😐

I used to go to Kiara’s house and we had started to attend parties, night out together. We had stayed together for many nights and eventually our bond became stronger. Few friends were envious also but we didn’t bother at all.

Our first trip was to Bhubaneswar. It was the best time when we were tipsy on a beach and Aarohi disgorged the whole story of her life. Frankly speaking it was terrible for me to see them both after getting liquored up. Aarohi was puking and Kiara was totally buzzed. We had spent a night on a beach and I was literally frightened. But the next morning we walked for our breakfast and explored some temples and Odisha’s handicraft shop. I believed that we were inseparable. We came back to our hometown. All things are going well.😃

(Image source: wattpad.com)

Then one Sunday Aarohi met her first boyfriend. Don’t know why I didn’t like that guy as she was becoming him, sharing and losing identity in him. All she did for him was pleasure for her. After sometime like Kiara I also keep supporting her. But we had witnessed her going through heartbreak, disappointment and getting dumped. I remembered that day when she ranged me up and bawled for what happened to her, unfortunately I wasn’t there with her. I was struggling that time as an entrepreneur who had to face failure and downfall. On the other hand, Kiara moved to another city. 😩
It was a rollercoaster year for us. It wasn't an easy transition for me where I had started a new business and had zero social life in Bangalore.

 Aarohi got a job as a journal and started her career in Indore. For the long term, we were not in touch with each other. All of us were busy in making our good life and career. After a year in the month of march I got a voice message from an unknown number and it was Aarohi telling that Kiara met with an accident and she was leaving for indraprastha Apollo hospital.😞 Simply after hearing this I chose to drive and without delay left my town. I and Aarohi both reached the hospital and query for Kiara there. Receptionist told us to go to room 332. When we both made an entrance, we were astonished by our vision of her sitting in an armchair in white coat. She is a junior surgeon in Apollo hospital. She was snickering about her accident and told us that how can we forget about today as it was our friendship anniversary. We had abused and punched her down for panicking us this way but lastly we had celebrated our day and I guess liking your best friend isn’t so bad as long as you both know you’ll be there for the other one no matter what happens.
We went through thick and thin and I wouldn’t change it for the world.😌

They are my best friends and I’m beyond thankful for it. So all I have to say is thank you to my best friend for being such a gift in my life so far, for making my life better and brighter in so many ways, every day to many more years growing and exploring life together!!

(Image source: wordpress.com)