Everybody feels lonely from time to time. When we have no one to sit next to at lunch, when we move to a new city or when nobody has time for us at the weekend. In the past decade, this chronic feeling of loneliness keeps growing and growing. According to a report by Cigna Insurance, more than 60 percent of Americans report feeling lonely, left out and poorly understood.
We are living in the most connected time in history, and yet most of us feel isolated. Loneliness is not the same as being alone. One can feel at bliss reading a book alone and another could feel lonely in a party full of that friends. It also even affects the best of us. Money, fame, beauty, power and great personality – nothing can protect us from loneliness. Why? Because it is our part of our biology. It is like other bodily function that is needed to maintain the body.
Take the feeling of hunger, for example. It is your body telling you to pay attention to your physical needs. For loneliness, it is your social needs. For our ancestors, it is an indicator of how likely they can survive. Getting enough calories, staying safe and warm, and caring for children are practically impossible alone.
That is why, for our ancestors, being in a group means survival. Being alone means death. To avoid that, your body came up with ‘social pain’. It is so you can avoid behaviour that keeps you away and excluded by the people around you. That is why rejection hurts. This way of life works for most of human history, until human decided to make their own world and cities.
The loneliness that we have today, only started in the late Renaissance era. Western cultures begun to focus on individuals. Intellectuals move away from the collectivism of the medieval era, while the Protestant theology stressed on individual responsibility. This tendency accelerated through the industrial era. Farmers move to cities to work in the factories. Communities, that has existed for hundred and hundred of years, slowly dissolved, while cities grew.
As our cities become more modern, this only accelerated the trend more and more. Today, we move from cities to cities for education, jobs and love, and leave our social net behind. As a result, we meet fewer people in person and meet them less often than in the past. Loneliness can also be dangerous. Study has shown that stress that is resulted from chronic loneliness is the unhealthiest thing we can experience as humans. It makes you age quicker, cancer cells become deadlier, it advances Alzheimer`s faster and make you immune system weaker.
The most dangerous of all however, loneliness can be self-sustaining. When you are feeling lonely, you cannot help but looking things in a bad light. An interaction that may seems neutral or even positive, can be perceived by your brain to be negative. It pushes people away from you, and as a result, it will be even harder for you to maintain friendship. People can catch on this feeling. What, at first, may only be how you perceived things, can slowly change the world around you.
As you feel this way, you reject more and more invitation from friends, looking for reasons to avoid meeting someone and even close yourself from meeting new people – even though you yearn for it. How can we change this behaviour then? The first thing that you can do to escape, is to accept the feeling of loneliness and realize that it is nothing to be ashamed of. Literally everyone feels lonely at some point in their life and it is okay. You cannot eliminate or ignore the feeling until it magically disappears, but you can accept the feeling and get rid of its cause.
You can examine yourself and ask yourself, what you pay attention on and check if you are selectively focusing on the negative things. Was the interaction that you had with your classmates or colleagues is negative or is it neutral or even positive? What was the actual content of the interaction? What did the other person say? Did they really say something negative or did you add extra meaning to their words? Maybe the other person was not really reacting negatively, but just short on time. Then, there are your thoughts about the others around you.
Are you assuming the worst about others’ intentions? Do you enter social interactions, and have you already decided on an interaction and how it will go? Do you assume that others do not want you around? Are you trying to avoid being hurt and not risking opening up? And, if so, can you try to give others the benefit of the doubt? Can you risk being open and vulnerable again? Every person is unique and have their own problems and just inspection alone might not be enough. If so, then please try to reach out and get professional help.
It is not a sign of weakness, but of courage. Let us try something new together. Let us reach out to someone today, regardless of if you feel a bit lonely or if you just want to make someone else´s day a bit better. Wrote to someone you have not spoken to in a long time. Call one of your family members that you may feel estranged to. Join that sport club that you may feel too lazy before.
Everybody is different, so you know what is best for you. But remember to keep an open mind to it, maybe nothing will come out of it, and that is okay. Do not do this with any expectations. The goal is just to open up a bit.
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