What better way to follow up on last week’s newsletter on feelings, then to dive into possibly one of the most uncomfortable feelings: loneliness.

Just kidding. I couldn’t come up with a better intro.

The inspiration for this week’s newsletter actually came from this Instagram post👇 via a young man who has been living by himself for the first time and shares insights into how he has been managing the change, including the periods of going several days without talking to another person and the idea that it’s normal to feel lonely sometimes.

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In a world that is so “connected,” or at least offers many opportunities to connect, it’s hard to imagine that we can feel lonely, or lacking in the quality and quantity of meaningful social connections that we desire. Yet, many people do at times.

In fact, a Meta-Gallup survey taken last year found that nearly one-quarter of people around the world feel very or fairly lonely.

The U.S. Surgeon General also addressed a “loneliness epidemic” last year and called for more action to prioritize “building social connection the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders.”

And while the data demonstrate pretty significant levels of loneliness, there are less clear-cut answers as to why that is happening. The pandemic didn’t help, but evidence suggests that loneliness levels were fairly high even pre-pandemic.

Some researchers will point to social media and the internet as potential culprits, but no one seems to know for sure what is contributing to a quarter, or possibly even a third, of the population feeling lonely.

What can make loneliness so difficult

Whatever the reason for it, loneliness is something most of us will experience at some point or another. It’s normal and part of the complex soup of emotions that make up the human experience.

Where loneliness can sometimes differ from other more challenging feelings, like sadness, grief, anger, etc., however, is the stigma that can be attached to it. Like there is something wrong with us if we experience loneliness.

“It can make you feel bad about yourself, and then make you even less likely to want to socialize with others [out of] fear of rejection,” Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, told Vox about the feeling of loneliness. She added that “it can also then influence how you perceive the world and social situations that can lead to a negative spiral.”

So let’s say we feel lonely because we’re going through a tough time and are struggling to relate to others like we normally do, then we start to feel shame or embarrassment about feeling lonely, and then we start beating ourselves up for feeling lonely, like we “shouldn’t” feel that way.

That cycle is likely going to make us feel worse and worse (and like the Vox article mentioned, less likely to do the thing that would alleviate the feeling of loneliness), and it really doesn’t seem fair to make ourselves feel bad for feeling bad … . And yet we do.

This can also show up if we are struggling with mental health issues like depression or anxiety, where a common symptom is to self-isolate or withdraw from others.

For example, let’s say we’re dealing with depression or anxiety, it’s not uncommon to be so consumed with our internal thoughts and feelings that the internal discord essentially creates a wall between us and whomever we’re spending time with—like we’re physically present but mentally/emotionally might as well be on another planet.

This can lead to a very real sense of loneliness and isolation, but it’s not our fault. (That doesn’t mean we don’t have to do anything about it. It just means that blaming ourselves is not going to help.)

All of this also isn’t to say that there are not negative side effects to chronic loneliness (there are), but if we can normalize periods of loneliness for ourselves, it can help to reduce associated feelings of shame or embarrassment and set us up to better manage the loneliness.

So, what are some strategies to help manage loneliness?

Acceptance

Sometimes just acknowledging and accepting the feeling of loneliness can bring a sense of relief.

If it takes a little more work and effort to help soothe the loneliness, you can also try catching any negative or self-critical thinking you might be experiencing when feeling lonely and try to challenge it or distract by doing something you enjoy (reading and watching movies or TV can be especially helpful here because it can create vicarious connection through the characters).

Look at it as an opportunity to build more of a relationship with yourself.

While it can be uncomfortable, the feeling of loneliness can also motivate us to get out of our comfort zones and try something new, or even just get out of a routine that may have become stale.

It doesn’t have to be anything big, either. Maybe you try a new hobby or decide to learn a language or take a class, or maybe incorporate a new type of exercise into your routine.

The benefit of trying new or different things (especially on our own) is that we can start to identify more of what we like and don’t like. Maybe we discover a hidden love of cooking, or romance novels, or ice fishing, or whatever it is that we decide to try, and the only reason we discovered that is because we had the time to explore.

Try not to compare.

Like the gentleman in the Instagram post said, it might feel like “everyone and their mother” is hanging out with a million friends all the time, but that’s not necessarily the case. And even if it was, that’s not a reflection on your life.

Because of the stigma associated with it, loneliness is not something a lot of people openly talk about, so it’s hard to know exactly how many of us might actually be feeling lonely even if we have 300,000 Facebook friends.

Along those lines, it’s easier now, then say 20 or 30 years ago, to compare ourselves and our lives to others because of social media, which may be giving a false sense of other people’s degree of socialization (and whether that’s even something that we want or what we think we want.)

Another side effect of social media is that we might overlook the smaller, less flashy ways that we are connecting with others in real life (like smiling at a stranger at the grocery store or giving directions to someone who is lost). Those connections count, too, if we are able to appreciate them.

Additional Takes on Loneliness

“10 Things to Do When You Feel Alone” 
via VeryWell Mind

“The surprising truth about loneliness in America”
via Vox

“15 things to do if you’re feeling lonely”
via Mental Health Foundation

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