If So, You’re Not Alone
“We feel alone, and in this we are connected.”
— Leo Babauta
The statistics vary, but recent studies and surveys peg the number of Americans struggling with loneliness as anywhere from 22 to as much as 50 percent. We all feel lonely at one time or another, but when loneliness lingers and continues long-term, it can have serious detrimental effects on health and well-being.
If chronic loneliness were considered a disease, its prevalence would rank right up there with other illnesses, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. And while loneliness is not considered a disease or an illness, it’s a condition that’s associated with a greater risk of heart disease, dementia, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and a shorter life span.
Loneliness is a popular topic lately, much due to the efforts of the Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy. Dr. Murthy has written many articles and an entire book* devoted to bringing this common and often debilitating experience to light. Although loneliness, per se, is not listed as a current priority of the surgeon general’s office, it’s a topic that’s interwoven into other priority areas, including health worker burnout, workplace wellbeing, and youth mental health. Loneliness often comes up during interviews with Dr. Murthy and on his personal podcast, House Calls.
Listening to an interview with Dr. Murthy on the podcast On Being is what inspired me to learn more and write about this issue. My intention is to help you understand what loneliness is, how it affects you, and what you can do to reduce the negative consequences of loneliness for both yourself and others.
What is loneliness?
“Being with others doesn’t mean you’re going to feel connected, and being alone doesn’t mean you’re going to feel lonely.”
— John Cacioppo
Loneliness is a highly subjective feeling and is not defined by how many friends or social contacts one has. Rather, loneliness is a distressing feeling when there is a discrepancy between the desired and actual amount of social interaction in one’s life. Yes, you can feel lonely in a crowded room, because loneliness is more about feeling a lack of connection with others, rather than feeling alone.
Dr. John Cacioppo, a social neuroscientist, explains that human beings are hard-wired for social connection, and that feeling lonely is akin to feeling thirst or hunger. Thirst and hunger are signals that you need to drink and eat, and loneliness is a signal that you need to reach out and connect with others in a positive and healthy way. In fact, Dr. Cacioppo states that while chronic loneliness is harmful, short-term loneliness is actually positive and necessary — highlighting our need for social connection.
Loneliness and solitude are not the same.
“Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone, and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.”
— Paul Tillich
Solitude is the experience of being comfortable with and enjoying your own company. While loneliness is a feeling due to an unsatisfied need for connection with others, solitude is an experience of acceptance. Solitude involves acceptance of self, circumstances, space, and time. A key difference between loneliness and solitude is that solitude is usually a chosen state, while loneliness often feels forced and unwanted.
Solitude is linked with creativity and provides you with the opportunity to practice contemplation, self-reflection, meditation, prayer, and gratitude. Dr. Murthy explains that cultivating solitude also provides us with a sense of grounding that can help us better connect to others.
Who are the lonely?
“Love is what connects us all as human beings.”
— Scarlett Lewis (mother of Jesse Lewis, murdered in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School)
Loneliness varies among individuals and cultures. Individual factors related to loneliness include age, gender, marital status, and circumstance. Marriage is associated with substantially less loneliness. Different situations may lead to increased episodes of loneliness, such as the death of a spouse or moving to a new city. Research is mixed on the effects of age and gender on loneliness, and these variables are greatly influenced by society and culture.
Cultures’ influence on loneliness includes defining the meaning of the experience of loneliness, setting expectations for relationships and socialization, and providing opportunities, or the lack of opportunities, for social interaction. Researchers of loneliness often define cultures as either individualistic or communal, and research has failed to find a clear difference in the level of loneliness based on this distinction.
Researchers using data from the BBC Loneliness Experiment found that “the most vulnerable to loneliness were younger men living in individualistic cultures.” I was struck by this finding — sounding like a description of the typical mass shooter: 98% of mass shooters are men, and six of the nine deadliest shootings since 2018 were committed by males 21 or younger. In addition, the suicide rate for males is four times higher than that for females.
I wonder how many fewer mass shootings and suicides there might be if we addressed loneliness in our schools and took it upon ourselves to practice inclusion and compassion — for the sake of others.**
Loneliness can be complicated.
“The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.”
— Mother Teresa
There is a paradox to chronic loneliness, and it is that people who experience high levels of loneliness tend to suppress their emotions and avoid or even reject social support. Dr. Murthy explains that this is due to a quirk in our social evolution.
Humans evolved to seek cooperation, social support, and connection, but also to protect themselves from danger. When first meeting someone, we have to determine if this person is a friend or a foe. If we mistake a friend for a foe, then we miss out on a potentially positive connection. But if we mistake a foe for a friend, this can have negative, and even deadly, consequences. So humans evolved to be cautious and suspicious of others until the safety of the connection could be determined.
This isn’t true for everyone, but quite often, when an individual is chronically lonely, they become more suspicious of others, focus on negative aspects of interactions, and avoid social situations as a way of dealing with difficult emotions. And they just get more and more lonely.
Another conundrum of loneliness is that it can be contagious. Dr. Capcioppo explains that this can happen over time and uses the example of two neighbors who are friends. One friend becomes lonely for some reason and as a defense mechanism, begins to avoid their neighbor. Over time the two neighbors stop being friends, and now they have both lost a confidant.
Loneliness is associated with shame and self-blame.
“A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone.”
— Mandy Hale
In his book, Dr. Murthy shares his own story of loneliness, beginning during his elementary and middle school years. As he described feeling isolated and different from his classmates and then being ashamed for experiencing these feelings, I was transported back to my own childhood, where I felt the same. I understood exactly what he meant when he shared that he attributed his loneliness to his own lack of likeability, loveability, and general unworthiness.
This was hard to deal with as a child because it was not until I was older that I was able to understand that I was not, by far, the only one that felt that way. This is a common occurrence and another good reason to bring the issue of loneliness out into the open and share our own stories and experiences with loneliness with others.
Another time when I experienced a great deal of loneliness was when I came to a time in my life when I wanted a long-term relationship. I had a close connection with my son and plenty of friends, but as I struggled to find a suitable life partner, I began to fear loneliness and being single for the rest of my life. This fear of loneliness was just as painful and depressing as feeling lonely. It was a spiritual realization that came to me and helped me overcome this despair: God would not give me the desire for connection without also providing me the ability to fulfill the need. So I relaxed a little bit and accepted that when the time was right, it would happen, and sure enough, and not long after that, it did.
I’m not sharing this to say that you can pray loneliness away. It was really a matter of cognitive reframing that took place and helped me overcome my fear of future isolation. But for me, my spiritual belief provides an important connection that I can rely on in times of need.
Some tips for managing loneliness.
In an article published in The Atlantic at the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Murthy and his wife, Alice Chen, offered some excellent strategies for managing loneliness and staving off what they called a “potential social recession.”
I’ve revised them a bit, and here they are:
- Take time each day to communicate with friends and family. Spend a few moments (or more) talking face-to-face with your spouse and your kids. Text friends and say hello. Make plans to walk with your neighbor.
- Give people your undivided attention. Turn off the television. Put the devices away. Make an effort to listen and be fully present when you are conversing with others.
- Make brief interactions meaningful. Make eye contact. Say hello to the clerk in the grocery store. Acknowledge and greet people as you pass them in the hall. Ask the person in the elevator how their day is going.
- Engage in moments of solitude. You don’t have to start a whole meditation practice — although this is a wonderful idea. Just take a few moments to sit alone, preferably in nature, and enjoy your self. Again, turn off the devices. If the thought of being alone is hard for you, then start small. Set a timer for one minute, then two, then three, and so on. Your ability to enjoy quiet and solitude will improve — I promise. And it will be worth it.
- Look out for loneliness in others — especially children and older folks. Children need to be taught that it’s normal and okay to feel lonely and that these feelings are nothing to blame themselves for or be ashamed of. Older folks are often forgotten and isolated. Don’t leave them behind. And remember that folks who are chronically lonely often fail to reach out for support. Let people know that you care.
- Finally, if you or someone you know suffers from chronic or high levels of loneliness***, consider seeking professional help. Depression and anxiety share similar traits with loneliness, and cognitive behavior therapy has been found to be helpful by addressing negative thought patterns and learned behaviors.
At the beginning of the pandemic, a popular hashtag was “in it together.” And we are. We are in this crazy experience called life together, and loneliness happens when we forget and lose sight of that.
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about loneliness, if not for your sake, then for the sake of others. And if you are feeling lonely, I hope this has helped.
“This world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”
– President Dwight D. Eisenhower
*If you buy the book through this link, I will earn a commission.
*Scarlett Lewis, the mother of murdered Jesse, believes it is faults in the fabric of our society that are the root cause of mass shootings, not guns. She created the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, an organization that provides free social-emotional development programs to schools. She was inspired to do so by a message six-year-old Jesse had left written on the family kitchen chalkboard: Nurturing. Healing. Love.
***You can take an online version of the UCLA Loneliness Scale, the most commonly used subjective measure of loneliness.