The weight of isolation on our physical and mental health – Laura Tonon

Close schools and public spaces, switch to smart working, ask citizens to avoid unnecessary travel and gatherings, invite everyone to remain as isolated as possible, locked in the house. These are the measures of the so-called “social distancing” adopted in Italy and in many other countries to slow down the spread of the new pandemic coronavirus.

The aim is to distribute the infections over a longer period of time, to be able to treat people, avoid the collapse of the health system and to buy time waiting for a vaccine or therapies with proven efficacy. Social distancing measures, necessary given the emergency, can however have negative psychological consequences on people.

“The spread of coronavirus all over the world forces us to repress our need for relationships, a deeply human impulse rooted in evolution: seeing friends, joining groups, being close to each other”, comment on Science Nicholas Christakis, physician and sociologist at Yale University, engaged in biosocial sciences and social network research.

This is an unnatural condition that also puts a strain on the ability of cooperation proper to human beings, adds the American scientist, “because we are not trying to protect only ourselves, but also the people we do not know and those of whom, perhaps we don’t even care. ”

Psychological well-being
The short-term effects of social isolation on health have not yet been well studied. It is known that, if prolonged for long periods, they can increase the risk of certain ailments, including cardiovascular diseases, depression and dementia, and in the long run also of mortality.

For example, explains on Science Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist and researcher at Brigham young university, Utah, found that chronic social isolation could increase mortality risk by 29 percent from a 2015 analysis of studies published in the scientific literature.

One hypothesis is that social contacts mitigate the negative effects of stress. The US researcher explains that in her studies she found a correlation between perceived social connection and stress response: “Just knowing that you have someone you can count on can be enough to dampen part of the stress responses, even if that person is not physically here I’m”.

But it is not yet known what the long-term effects of the social distancing due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, could be. “The hope is that awareness of these issues can push people to stay in touch and act positively,” hopes Holt-Lunstad.

Tiger cages
However, basically the human being has some weapons to overcome difficult, even more stressful situations. Chris Segrin, behavioral specialist at Arizona university, take as an example in Science the studies on US prisoners during the Vietnam War isolated in “tiger cages”, that is, tiny underground cells. For some prisoners, optimism, that is, believing that they would survive and emerge victorious from the war, had been one of the most important protective factors for their mental health.

Today help to reduce stress, both individually and collectively, comes from technology: tools such as Skype, WhatsApp, FaceTime and many other applications allow you to stay in touch and also interact visually with family, friends and colleagues. These ways of social interaction cannot replace face-to-face interaction, Segrin says, but are nonetheless useful for avoiding total isolation.

The psychological consequences of those who have undergone a real quarantine deserve a separate discussion, for example those who are positive for coronavirus, who have been in contact with an infected person or come from a highly contagious area, such as the Chinese province Hubei, where since January 23, 2020, at least 50 million people have lived in solitary confinement in homes or dedicated facilities. Quarantined people live daily with a lack of freedom, uncertainty of illness and a sense of boredom and frustration which, in some cases, are combined with a shortage of supplies and information, economic concerns and social stigma.

A published analysis in the medical journal The Lancet reviewed over twenty quarantine studies during the outbreaks of Sars, Mers, ebola and other diseases. From these studies, several negative psychological effects related to unnatural situations experienced daily emerge: from the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder to disorientation to anger, from insomnia to anguish to depression and emotional exhaustion.

Some studies show that even once they return to normal, people may have behaviors related to the emergency period: excessive attention to hand washing or the tendency to avoid closed and crowded places, public places and people with cough or cold. A few research studies on Sars have observed that, in the months following the end of the epidemic, some of the health workers who had been in contact with infected people minimized contact with patients and, after three years, showed symptoms abuse or dependence on alcoholic beverages attributable to the quarantine period.

How to prevent damage
Not everyone knows how to manage and deal with forced social isolation while maintaining the same level of mental balance. The negative psychological effects can persist over time, even beyond the period of isolation. The Lancet therefore suggests the need to ensure the adoption of some mitigation measures when planning a quarantine.

First of all, it is a priority to reduce the isolation time to a minimum, without further extensions which, even if small, risk demoralizing people and aggravating the sense of frustration. Then you need to guarantee the basic necessities, a correct and rapid information of what is going on and adequate services to reduce the condition of boredom and loneliness.

In addition, concludes The Lancet, it is essential to transmit the value of altruism: being aware that your own home isolation serves everyone can help make it more bearable: “Offering help can be even more advantageous than receiving it. Helping others also helps make us feel connected again, ”concludes psychologist Holt-Lunstad in Science.