Isolation

Barbara Sher once said that isolation is a dream killer, and that might be true especially because most of our dreams include feelings of protection, closure, affection and belongingness. Abraham Maslow included this in his Hierarchy of Needs, and stated that people seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. This involves both giving and receiving love, affection and the sense of belonging. Humans are social beings. Without regular and positive contact, most of people feel lonely. Isolation is different from loneliness because it involves internal effects and desire. Saints who prefer silence, find immense pleasure in their uniformity with cosmos even in single room. In Hindi it means Ekantvaas. Buddha attained enlightenment in state of his solitude. The context of solitude is attainment of pleasure from within, than seeking it outside or in crowd. William Bernbach said that there is no such thing as a good or bad ad in isolation. What is good at one moment is bad at another. Research can trap you into the past. But these feelings of isolation can, in turn, make it difficult for one to reintegrate socially and can have serious consequences. Social isolation can be a downward spiral: feelings of exclusion affect morale, and lack of contacts with other people may reduce both social and economic opportunities. Symptoms from complete isolation, called sensory deprivation, often include anxiety, sensory illusions, or even distortions of time and perception. However, this is the case when there is no stimulation of the sensory systems at all, and not only lack of contact with people. Even more than that, social isolation may make cancer more deadly, US research on mice suggests. Researchers found the social environment can modify the biology of the disease - and lead to significant differences in outcome. Female mice stressed because they were separated from their mothers developed more and larger mammary gland tumours than more contented animals. The University of Chicago study appears in the journal Cancer Prevention Research. Others say that todays technology can lead to social isolation. Everything's good

in moderation, and the important thing is to find a balance between the real world and technology, even if one is more comfortable than the other. Today's technology was never meant to adversely affect our social lives, but in some cases it can actually replace them. Life isn't a spectator sport, nor has it ever been. In some countries isolation has become a real problem. Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, and a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States.