The invisible Pandemic, bigger and deadlier than covid — Loneliness
COVID-19 might be the visible pandemic but there is an invisible and quiet pandemic the whole world is suffering from for the last decade. — “Loneliness”, which covid has severely aggravated.
Loneliness is way more widespread in America and other westernized/individualized societies where being independent and individualistic is valued over communal values. I have never felt more lonely before in my life than after I came to America, especially as an immigrant with no friends or family in the country. I have deeply been thinking about why we feel lonely and what we can do about it. So let’s talk about that.
What is “Loneliness” and why does it hurt?
Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling due to lack of social “connection” in our lives. Dr. Brene Brown defines “Connection” as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued; when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.
Why do we feel it: We are social beings and wired for connection. Living in a tribe meant we would survive and not die by being eaten by a lion or of hunger. So biologically we are wired to seek living in groups rather than alone. In addition to physical safety, let’s talk about our emotional needs. To be heard, seen & understood is a basic human need, and when this is not met, we feel lonely. We can feel lonely not only in our struggles but in our joys too, when there is no one to share it with. When we feel lonely, it releases a stress signal and stress hormones like cortisol in our bodies to seek connection. And when we feel connected, we have hormones like oxytocin, also called as love hormone released in our bodies. Our brains are literally “wired” for connection.
Loneliness is a widespread global problem: In eastern cultures, people with their parents and families living together is a common social norm whereas in America it is looked down upon if folks “live with their parents”. With both urban movement and western influence, globally over decades societies and lifestyles are moving away from communal values/living and towards nuclear/solo living, leading to chronic/permanent loneliness rather than an acute/temporary one.
Per the ex-surgeon general of America, Dr. Vivek Murthy, more than 20% of the adult population in America admits to struggling with loneliness. That’s more people than who have diabetes in our country. That’s more adults that smoke in the United States. In 2018, Great Britain became the first country in the world to appoint a ministerial lead for loneliness, and to publish an official loneliness reduction strategy. Sadly, COVID has aggravated the loneliness problem due to actual physical isolation.
Difference between loneliness vs being alone:
Loneliness is different from isolation/solitude/being alone. Isolation/solitude/being alone is an objective thing, where you are physically not in connection or surrounded by people. Just because you are alone, does not mean you feel lonely. Of course if you are isolated and alone one can say it might lead to loneliness but it’s not necessary. Infact, you can feel lonely even when you are surrounded by people. It is more a subjective experience of each person. I would argue a big part of removing loneliness is to learn the art of solitude.
Types of Loneliness:
Loneliness is not a binary state. It is not “I am lonely” or “I am not lonely”. You can feel lonely in different areas of your life to different degrees. Loneliness is of different types so it’s important to understand what kind we are feeling and hence we can take actions appropriately.
In 1973 Dr. Robert Weiss published his work classifying 2 types of loneliness.
- Emotional Loneliness: this is what classically we all refer to as loneliness where you don’t have any intimate connections to emotionally connect with close friends, family members or a romantic partner.
- Social loneliness: this is where we don’t feel like we are part of a community. This could be anything, for e.g. based on our culture especially as immigrants you miss connecting with people from your culture or based on your interests you miss being part of a group of people who care for the same cause or issue or interest. For e.g. I write poetry and I have been feeling lonely as I am not part of any community where poets or poetry lovers come together to share, hear poetry. Maybe you are an entrepreneur and you feel lonely in your unique struggles of trying to create a new company. One can feel lonely in “any” struggle we go through.
Also loneliness can be temporary or long term. For e.g. in COVID times if you are single, and living alone for time being it can lead to greater loneliness. Maybe after the death of a loved one you feel it acutely and temporarily. Or it can be long term too irrespective of your status and living conditions.
Why is loneliness an issue:
Besides obviously being an unpleasant feeling in itself, there are other severe consequences of chronic loneliness.
- One of the studies found that lacking any social connection may be comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes per day as a risk factor for mortality.
- Another study found that loneliness increases the risk of an earlier death by 26 percent
- Per Dr. Vivek Murhty, it is a stress state so any issues that are related to chronic stress like inflammation in the body, higher chances of cardiovascular diseases.
- Loneliness is one of the major contributors to other mental health issues like depression and suicide rates.
- And in general loneliness leads to us not experiencing meaning, fulfilment and happiness in life
Why does loneliness hurt so much:
One very important part of why loneliness hurts so much is because there is “shame” about it. We believe that if we feel lonely, there is something wrong with us. Especially if we are feeling lonely because of a lack of intimate connections in your life, we feel that we are not lovable. This stops us from seeking love and connection. This also becomes more aggravated as we age, since younger people are single and you see more of them as single. But as you go into your 20s or 30s, everyone around you is getting into a committed romantic relationship or marriage and in their 40s with family. So if you are still single you feel that something is wrong with you. I got divorced when I was 30, so for the next 5 years as I lived alone and single I went through that process myself.
Big whammy is that we start feeling lonely in feeling lonely. Meaning you tell yourself “oh I am the only one feeling lonely everyone else is just fine”. So this aggravates our shame further and stops us from reaching out and seeking support.
What can we do to cope well with loneliness?
I really like this definition from Dr. Brene Brown, where she said the opposite of loneliness is not togetherness, it is intimacy. All it takes is one person for us to feel less lonely.
1) Learning to be Curious and understand your circumstances: Get curious on what is triggering loneliness for you. Is this temporary and acute due to maybe a stressful situation that will go away or is this chronic. Are you missing intimacy or community or both? What is getting in your way from reaching out to your friends / family? Ask these without judgement and you will know where to start.
2) Learning to Take care of physical health: Loneliness can start a downward spiral of physical health. So it’s important we do what feels ”counter intuitive” and get out in nature, stay active, eat healthy. At the end of the day our emotions live in our bodies so we have to take care of our bodies especially when we are not feeling emotionally healthy. Pay attention to what your soothing tactics are like drinking, smoking, overeating, binge watching TV, social media etc. These all will aggravate the problem so pay attention and maybe find alternate healthier soothing alternatives. E.g. green tea instead of alcohol, or dancing instead of social media. Investment in healthy habits will pay a lifelong dividend.
3) Learning to Love yourself: We are all worthy of love, irrespective of our achievements, status, bank balance, education, gender etc. There is NO prerequisite to love. We are worthy of love simply because we exist! And the most important practice of love begins from within. Self-love. We have to learn to love ourselves not in spite of our imperfections but because of them. We are all flawed in our unique ways but boy do we deserve love, kindness and understanding. Start by telling yourself “I love you”. It sounds weird but just do it. Remind yourself that not only are you lovable, but you love yourself even with all the flaws, mistakes, suffering, sadness. I remember when I felt so lonely, I would go and sit on my apartment rooftop and just hold my hand over my heart, hear my heart beating and say to myself “I love you”.
4) Learning to Listen and accompany yourself: We all feel lonely, guaranteed at different points in our life, to different degrees for different durations. So you can assume everyone, I mean everyone, around you is/has probably felt lonely. So you are not alone, in feeling lonely. This is huge! It normalizes feeling lonely and takes away the shame and second degree suffering. I hold my own hands and say to myself “I hear you, I am here for you”.
5) Learning to Belong: This might sound surprising but the truth is we reject love and belonging even when it comes our way. I know personally, for me I used to have chronic loneliness. Even when I was loved and surrounded by people, for some reason I would tell myself “I don’t belong here”. I would reject the love and support because it did not come in the shape and form I expected. And I kept looking for signs that I don’t belong, instead of looking for signs that I do belong. Our ego makes us feel unique and special and in this way sometimes we start seeing and focusing on differences between us and others rather than commonalities. So we need to shift our mindsets, to look for what is common. And good news is there is so much common simply because we are all humans and hence you can just assume that we all have the same basic human needs and we all have struggles even if they come in different shapes and forms. Brene brown says “if you look for signs that you don’t belong then you will find them. So stop looking for it and instead look for signs that you do belong”. Remind yourself that you do belong. Belonging is our birthright as humans. So pay attention to signs showing — you already belong!
6) Learning to Receive love from others: We reject love because either we don’t understand it or we don’t feel worthy of it. We all have a very specific way in which we want to be perceived and loved. You probably have heard this “I love you because of the way you love me”. Especially in intimate relationships we have different languages of love. I encourage you to read this book called “languages of love’ where the author describes 5 languages of love — words, touch, quality time, acts of service and presents. What happens is if you speak English and the other person speaks Russian, you won’t be able to understand each other. Similarly if our languages of love are different we fail to understand that we are loved. So learn how you prefer to receive love and pay attention to other people’s intention of love even though they might be speaking a different language of love. This is very common in families too. For e.g. your mom probably loves you and hence worries about you. But when your mom calls you twice a day to check if you are ok, instead of seeing it as a reminder or love, we reject her call and her love.
7) Learning to Seek support and connection: Biggest part of loneliness is not being heard and understood, which are basic human needs. If none of your family members, friends or partners are willing to hear you or understand you, seek professional support from counselors, coaches or even support circles. We are not willing to let go of the story of misery, until someone hears it and understands it. This is HUGE. But for this you have to be willing to be vulnerable and share your struggles and that act itself will relieve the burden and make you feel less lonely. Sometimes you can write a diary or post in social media but I don’t think this really fills our need the same way someone personally can. All you need is one person. Sometimes even strangers can be that person who hears you and that will make you feel heard. Find a shared community: Finding a romantic partner is probably hard, but finding people who care for the same interests or causes as you is not that hard anymore. There are so many avenues like online communities, meetups etc. and technology is actually very useful here to help us find those people or groups. This at least helps you with social loneliness.
Find companionship in animals: If you can have a pet, I highly recommend it. They give you unconditional love and that is very healing. I am a dog person, and I know having a dog really helps me get out of my house, get physical cuddle time and adds playfulness and joy.
In the end we are social beings and research has shown that social meaningful connections are our biggest source of happiness and well-being. But in times like COVID and the age of social media, our brains trick us into engaging in behavior that is not serving us. Being aware of these counter-serving thoughts and behaviors and intentionally learning and practicing thoughts and behaviors that will serve us is well worth our time and energy. Happy Practicing!
You are not alone in feeling lonely. You are worthy of love and connection. You belong!
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