In April of this year, the athlete and speleologist Beatriz Flamini broke the world record for staying in a cave. It was 500 days underground. Alone. Likewise, historically hermits took refuge within themselves from society, a practice closely related to philosophers, thinkers, spiritual leaders or artists. What is it about loneliness that, despite the social nature of human beings, they are capable of practicing it even in the most extreme way?
It's not the same to be alone than to feel alone. The latter is generally seen as a negative emotional state that most people seek to avoid and may indicate deficiencies in the amount or extent of social relationships. It usually involves isolation, something that has been proven to be harmful.
“Being alone makes us sick,” says Àngels Vives Belmonte, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. “Normally, in delusions or psychotic situations, two things have happened before: the person has not been able to sleep and has been placed in a situation of isolation. Those two things can end in a crisis,” he explains.
The health costs of unwanted loneliness in Spain represent more than 6,000 million euros annually, around 0.5% of GDP, according to data from the State Observatory on Unwanted Loneliness. It is estimated that 13.4% of people suffer from it, affecting women more than men. The population group that usually worries the most is the elderly, with various initiatives to prevent it. However, it is young people between 16 and 24 years old who top the list, with 21.9% of those affected. In the European Union as a whole, it is estimated that some 30 million people frequently feel lonely.
But when it is sought, solitude emerges as an oasis in which to accompany oneself. And it is something necessary, according to the expert. As occurs in other motivational states, such as hunger, people regulate their social drive by connecting with those closest to them, avoiding those who seem unsatisfactory, or also seeking solitude. This type of loneliness has been investigated for its beneficial effects, although there is no data similar to that of unwanted loneliness.
Salvadora Moya, collagist and art therapist, states the following: “For me, solitude is basic. It is enriching, nutritious. I really like being with me. "It's a pleasure." In her case, retirement goes hand in hand with artistic creation. In this moment of introspection that her own company entails, Ella Moya unifies and captures the ideas that may have come to her during the rest of the day. “It's where I hear myself better and where I'm more attentive to what's happening to me,” she says.
She finds the explanation in the fact of stopping. The accumulation of ideas or feelings while she is living has the opportunity to be unraveled in the repose of solitude. She also highlights silence, which “has to do with there being nothing around me that could distract me or require my attention.”
Although artistic creation is one of the activities that are carried out in solitude, Vives rescues certain vital periods in which more of that withdrawal is required in pursuit of one's own company versus that of others.
On the one hand, it mentions adolescence. There is a greater probability of other people questioning themselves, doubts about the future emerge or intense relationships are experienced, among other situations, which call for withdrawal.
Another time occurs after the first years of raising a child. “In the parenting stage there is an overload of dedication to others that also requires rest, time that has been had,” she points out.
Precisely, rest emerges as one of the needs that are best met in solitude. In 2016, "The Rest Test" was published, an online survey on people's subjective experiences of rest launched by the BBC. Results from 18,000 people in 134 countries indicate that to feel truly rested, many of them preferred to be alone.
"People said that when they were alone, they mainly focused on how they felt, whether it was their body or their emotions," Ben Alderson-Day, a psychologist at Durham University, who co-wrote the survey, explained to the BBC.
In this sense, Vives draws attention to how this time of solitude occurs. Training or looking at social media on your cell phone are not, for her, truly solitary times, but rather “time to do things.” Attention and self-listening would determine the more properly speaking solitude.
Moya also values solitude for something very important to her: freedom. “I feel much freer when I'm alone and I feel very comfortable there,” says the artist.
In an article published in the Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, the authors mention this phenomenon. According to them, when backpackers and college students were asked to identify some positive effects of their experiences of loneliness, both groups indicated freedom of choice in actions as one of the most important benefits.
However, not everyone enjoys solitude the same way or in the same contexts. Staying at home and indulging in ordering dinner can be experienced as a real pleasure compared to the possible anxiety about going out to dinner without company.
“We are not something compact, but a universe of issues. There are internal instances, needs, that are very demanding. When we are left alone, we are left alone with all this,” says Vives.
Seeing a failure in solitude is one of the beliefs responsible for the insecurities of loneliness, and even more so now that social networks show the most sweetened social and leisure success. So the experience ends up sometimes becoming a cascade of thoughts and insecurities that make time an ordeal.
There is a technique to stop intrusive thoughts, in the example of the restaurant: “I'm alone and everyone is going to look at me”, called thought stopping. This consists of self-training to stop them. This is done deliberately with the application of a small punishment, such as pulling a hair tie on the wrist or saying “no” out loud, once the thought has occurred. With practice we seek to automate the process as much as possible.
Even so, the expert believes that the need for this beneficial contact with the self “has been greatly exaggerated.” She partly believes that it is a created artifice, a modern need imposed with self-care.
“I think that there has been a certain amount of media exaggeration or due to economic interests, of this "be for yourself", meditation, diet, practicing sports... All of this has been promoted and, perhaps, it is not going so well either. . Knowing how to be with others and for others is something that tires us, but we need it. It vitalizes us,” he says.
The psychiatrist mentions the documentary "The Swedish Theory of Love", by Erik Gandini, where she discusses whether the model of an advanced society with a high quality of life that Sweden represents, where the individual prevails, is not perhaps that of a dissatisfied population.
