How to Overcome Loneliness

Would you believe that Britain this year appointed a Minister for Loneliness and Social Isolation? The British government thinks that loneliness has reached epidemic proportions. According to the English Campaign to End Loneliness, British doctors claim to see between one and five patients a day who have come mainly because they are lonely. Loneliness is also a growing problem in Australia. According to a recent survey by the telephone counselling service, Lifeline, more than 80 per cent of Australians believe our society is becoming lonelier. Advances in technology may have made communications easier than ever before and yet people are feeling more disconnected. Sixty percent of people surveyed for Lifeline said they often felt lonely. Americans seem to also be lonely. According to a Harris Poll, 72 percent of US citizens experience loneliness. Loneliness is a real problem in the first world.

Loneliness not only feels awful but it is also very bad for your health. Lonely teenagers show many physical signs of stress. Lonely people have weaker immune systems. According to an article from the Science Direct journal, lonely women even feel hungrier than other people. Overall loneliness increases our risk of death by 26 percent, and doubles our risk of dying from heart disease. And it is not just people who live alone that feel lonely. According to the Lifeline survey, a large percentage of lonely people live with a partner and/or children. Today I want to look at how to overcome loneliness, but first what are the causes of loneliness.

Causes of loneliness

1. Sadly ageing can lead to loneliness. Older people often do not feel respected in today’s community and also feel unwanted and unloved by their community and even family.
2. The three D’s – Death, divorce and delayed marriage. People who don’t have a partner often feel lonely. People are marrying later today. Also many marriages end, and people die.
3. Physical distance: Many of us are spending too much of our time travelling. Living your life on the road or on public transport can isolate you from others and lead to loneliness.
4. Your DNA: Some people don’t need much company, some people do. Often your genetics will decide how much company you need and how well you do living alone.

Getting online is not the solution

Many people mistake cyber friendships for real friendships. Do you know you can have a thousand friends on Facebook and still be missing out on real human love? Being connected by fibre is not the same as having true friends. Person-to-person interactions cannot be beaten. That is what people need. Too many people have their eyes on a screen while life passes them by. Go into any Australian capital city today and try to ask someone directions. Every second person is wearing earphones. They are cut off from other people. We are a society that is technologically advanced, but we’ve forgotten about old-fashioned care and kindness. That’s not what I call progress!

As a society, we need to be more aware that many people are lonely and develop strategies to help them reconnect. But if you are an individual who feels lonely, I want you to know you are not alone in your loneliness but you can always find your way out of the loneliness maze. Where there is a will, there is a way.

How to combat loneliness

Never blame yourself. There is no one reason why some people feel lonely. To some extent it is probably just bad luck – a combination of factors combined. Think of your loneliness as a storm blowing over your head that will pass. You might also want to ask yourself if you could be suffering depression. Over the course of a year one in five people will show symptoms of mental illness and of course, depression is the most common mental illness. Depression (a change in your brain’s chemistry) may be causing you to feel isolated and cut-off from other people. You are a precious person, reach out for help. See your doctor and ask for help if you suspect you have depression.

1. Step out of the house

To chase loneliness away you are going to have to build up a social network and this takes time. Why not begin by just getting out of the house? Many people spend too much time at home alone. Go to a public place to read or work or write. Head to your local library every day at 10am and read the newspapers or magazines there. Buy a coffee on the way home, or work on your laptop in a coffee shop for a couple of hours. Write a short story about something funny that happened in your childhood and put it in a short story competition. Write a story about forgiveness the next day or anger the day after and enter more competitions. If you hate writing, go to a café and sketch and draw or just read a novel or the newspaper! You may not yet be having meaningful conversations with other people, but just being around people is a good start. Establish a routine and get out of the house every morning for at least a week. That should chase some of the loneliness moths away.

2. Join community groups

Does your neighbourhood have a local choir or a community garden or a painting group? Go to the library and find the local newspaper. Look at the page with community notices and pick a group to join. You might also want to consider joining a service group or even a church. Yes, you will have to find the courage to go there alone at first, but most of the people there also had to front up alone at first. Sometimes joining a community group is a bit like getting into a swimming pool. You feel a little uncomfortable as you get in, but once in, you find that the water is quite delightful!

3. Occasionally talk to strangers

I am also one of those people who talks to strangers. Some answer, some don’t. For example I found myself in a lift recently and rather than just stand in silence next to the other person I said, “Thank God, it’s Friday.” He said, “Too right mate.” I asked if he had a big weekend planned, he said he was off to the footy, and as the lift doors opened I said, “Hope your team wins!” That was the end of our conversation, but he seemed like a nice person and perhaps I added just a little bit of good humour to his day. Isn’t that our purpose as humans? To bring joy to each other?

4. Reach out to old friends

So many of us lead busy lives, but sometimes it feels like we also live very lonely lives, forgetting about our old friends. Ring up your old friends and arrange a get-together. When we were younger we competed with our friends and tried to impress them, but as you age you work out how to have real friendships. You tell your friends about your failures and disappointments – your relationships, your bosses, even your finances. And together you realise that you still have so many blessings and have achieved much, and that life is good. You laugh together. You appreciate the wonderful qualities of your oldest friends and you suddenly realise that you are not so lonely after all. Why not aim to have a weekend away with old friends every year?

5. Visit family

No doubt, there is always an impressive degree of dysfunction in any extended family. But the older you get, the more tolerant you become. You realise that you are not perfect, and neither are your relatives. Perhaps you are even willing to forgive them their failings, because you know your life hasn’t been perfect.

If you can maintain some boundaries and treat the craziness of family members with good humour, then visit your relatives and enrich your life and you will be less lonely.

6. Schedule regular catch-ups

Sometimes we have to work hard not to be lonely. You have to commit to catching up with old friends, extended family, new friends, community groups, even neighbours.

Loneliness is a very real social problem. In the United Arab Emirates cabinet there is now a minister for happiness, who plans policies and programs to make his community happy and alleviates loneliness.

In Australia we have ministers for trade, finance, education, water, resources but I’d like to also see a minister for joy.