Social isolation works in moderation

By Auron Bernardoni

Imagine you're trapped in a box, nothing to see but walls, no sound but the rhythm of your blood flowing through your veins. Could you handle this level of isolation? Social isolation can be healthy to a certain extent. Once you cross that healthy amount of isolation some interesting things start to happen. You become disconnected with reality, you start to overthink, and start to feel down about things you normally wouldn't.

People have a tendency to let their minds wander too far into an "abyss" when they are by themselves. When left with nothing but their own voice, they tend to become a little different at this point. The issue about social isolation isn't so much the social part, it's the isolation. Isolation can be very destructive to yourself esteem making it harder for you to feel happy in social situations.

People also have a tendency to get so caught up in their own minds they don't look at how they are starting to act in social situations. People who isolate themselves tend to have lower self esteem and increased depression. They also tend to have a lower immune system and metabolic rate due to lack of physical activity.

Now I'm not saying that social isolation is horrible or wrong, but I feel that it's like all other things in life: moderation is key to everything; if you let yourself sit around doing nothing then you're going to feel bad about yourself, but if you set aside personal time for yourself then that's a good thing. It's always hard to understand that sometimes we need space but to also understand that we are social creatures, we need interactions. Some people that are older isolate themselves more than others but they don't seem to have an issue with that.

Isolation is something that is an on the fence thing for me, it has its benefits but it has its downfalls. I know in my personal experience isolation has made me feel better when I'm alone but makes me so nervous in situations that I have to be calm. Learning to moderate your time is something important but also very hard to understand and it is different for every person. learning how to control your emotions alone is easy, until you have to face them with others then it's hard. you have to learn to find the balance in your life, no one can tell you what that is, only you can figure that part out.