A Problem that Affects us all?

LONELINESS

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For many loneliness is something that other people suffer with, and not something that they would want to admit to for fear of appearing vulnerable or socially inadequate. After all, we live in a country with an estimated population of 67.5 million people, immersed in a 24-hour wide-awake society that never switches off. A world that continues to design and develop technology enabling people to connect with others day and night across the entire globe in seconds. So why, in this day and age, should anyone feel isolated or alone?

It is a sobering fact that, at this point in time, over nine million people in the UK say that they often feel lonely, and many admit to struggling making and maintaining lasting social connections with others.

This is alarming considering, as already mentioned, we live in a country that has a growing population and should be easier than ever to reach out and connect with others.

So, what is the reason so many of us are feeling this way? As always, Wellonomics will look at this subject in a fair, non-judgemental and rational way, exploring not only the facts and figures but also seeking out and sharing helpful advice that might hopefully assist people affected by loneliness.

WHY IS LONELINESS IN THE UK NOW CONSIDERED AN EPIDEMIC?

Loneliness and the facts• In 2016 to 2017, 5% of adults in England

who reported feeling lonely said it was ‘often’ or ‘always’.

• Younger adults aged 16 to 24 years reported feeling lonely more often than those in older age groups.

• Women reported feeling lonely more often than men.

• Those single or widowed were at particular risk of experiencing loneliness more often.

Loneliness and older people• The number of over-50s experiencing

loneliness is set to reach two million by 2025/6. This compares to around 1.4 million in 2016/7 – a 49% increase in 10 years

• There are 1.2 million chronically lonely older people in the UK

• Half a million older people go at least five or six days a week without seeing or speaking to anyone at all

• Over half (51%) of all people aged 75 and over live alone.

• Two fifths all older people (about 3.9 million) say the television is their main company

• There are over 2.2 million people aged 75 and over living alone in Great Britain, an increase of almost a quarter (24%) over the past 20 years.

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Loneliness and young people• Young people aged 16 to 24 reported

feeling lonely more often than older age groups. A recent survey from the BBC found that many older people also said young adulthood was a time when they felt loneliest.

Loneliness and the families• **A survey by Action for Children found

that 43% of 17 – 25-year-olds who used their service had experienced problems with loneliness, and that of this same group less than half said they felt loved.

• Action for Children have also reported 24% of parents surveyed said they were always or often lonely.

Loneliness and disabled people• Research by Sense has shown that up to

50% of disabled people will be lonely on any given day.

Other reports go deeper into the issue of loneliness and even point to the fact that loneliness is a condition that can damage physical health as well as affecting mental wellbeing.

Health risks • Loneliness, living alone and poor social

connections are as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It can reduce immunity, which can increase risk of disease and inflammation in the body.

• Loneliness is worse for you than obesity making people withdrawn and more prone to physical illness like heart disease and high blood pressure.

• Lonely people are more likely to suffer from dementia and depression.

• Loneliness is likely to increase your risk of death by 29%

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Human contact and socialising are an important part in most people’s lives, therefore if circumstances change and a person finds themselves alone isolated or excluded, this can have an extremely negative effect. What then can be done to counter this state of mind?

The following article, written by Brock Hanson LCSW provides an interesting point of view on loneliness and he suggests 10 things to consider:

‘Loneliness is a complex mental and emotional phenomenon that has at its base a powerful emotion that has survival value for children. All of us have experienced some degree of abandonment, if only for a short time, and remember the painful and scary feeling that goes along with it.

Whenever we are reminded of this feeling or anticipate it in the future, we get a twinge of abandonment distress that we experience as loneliness. This can happen among a crowd of friends or even after making love. It can be pretty confusing and can put you off your game if you don’t know what’s going on.

Here are some tips for recognising loneliness for what it is and dealing with it in the healthiest ways.’

1. Realise that loneliness is a feeling, not a fact.When you are feeling lonely, it is because something has triggered a memory of that feeling, not because you are in fact, isolated and alone. The brain is designed to pay attention to pain and danger, and that includes painful scary feelings; therefore, loneliness gets our attention.

But then the brain tries to make sense of the feeling. Why am I feeling this way? Is it because nobody loves me? Because I am a loser? Because they are all mean? Theories about why you are feeling lonely

can become confused with facts. Then it becomes a bigger problem so just realise that you are having this feeling and accept it without over-reacting.

2. Reach out because loneliness is painful and can confuse you into thinking that you are a loser, an outcast. You might react by withdrawing into yourself, your thoughts, and your lonely feelings and this is not helpful. At its best, anticipation of loneliness might motivate us to reach out and cultivate friendships, which is the healthiest thing to do if you are sad and alone. When you are a child, and your sadness causes you to cry, you may evoke a comforting response from others. If you’re an adult, not so much.

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3. Notice your self-deflating thoughts. We often create self-centred stories to explain our feelings when we are young, it is not unusual for children to assume that there is something wrong with them if they are not happy. If they are lonely and sad, children may assume other people don’t like them when this is rarely the case.

Victims of bullying may well have fans and friends, but they often aren’t aware of it because the shame and loneliness get more attention. Habitual assumptions about social status continue into adulthood and if you are looking for evidence that the world sucks, you can always find it.

4. Make a plan to fight the mental and emotional habits of loneliness. If you realize you are dealing with an emotional habit, you can make a plan to deal with loneliness. Since healthy interaction with friends is good, make some effort to reach out to others, to initiate conversation and face time even when your loneliness and depression are telling you not to. Yes, it is work, but it is worthwhile, just like exercising is worthwhile even when you are feeling tired or lazy.

5. Focus on the needs and feelings of others, the less attention on your lonely thoughts and feelings. I can walk down the street thinking about myself, my loneliness and the hopelessness of it all, staring at the sidewalk and sighing to myself. Or I can walk down the street grateful for the diversity of people I get to share the sidewalk with, silently wishing them good health and good fortune, and smiling at each person I meet. The latter is more fun, even though I sometimes have to remind myself to do it on purpose.

6. Find others like you. Now days there are more tools than ever before to find out where the knitters, hikers or kiteboarders are congregating so that you can get together with those who share your interests. This makes it much easier to identify groups with which you will have something in common, a natural basis for beginning a friendship.

7. Always show up when meeting up with others. You don’t have to run for president of the ‘knitting society’ at your first meeting. But you do have to show up. I have been telling others to practice yoga for 20 years and promising I would do it myself for just as long, but except for the occasional coincidental yoga offering at a retreat, I didn’t take the trouble of finding a class I could attend regularly until a month ago. Now I am enjoying it and it wasn’t that hard. I have put a reminder in my phone to resign from the procrastinator’s society.

8. Be curious, but don’t expect perfection or applause. Each time you show up is an experiment, a micro adventure in social bonding. If you are curious about and interested in others, they will be attracted to you because you are giving them attention. So, you will get attention in return. Curiosity about others also takes your focus away from those painful feelings that tend to make you hide and sulk.

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9. Kindness goes a long way. ‘There’s nobody here but us chickens.’ This is one of my favourite lines from The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas. Underneath the impressive facades of the high-fliers are the same set of emotions we all are born with. Celebrities suffer from stage fright and depression too.

You have the power to offer loving kindness and generosity of spirit to all you come into contact with. It isn’t instinctual to be kind to strangers or people who scare you. But it is a choice. It is a choice that Jesus and Ghandi used intentionally. And in the long run it is a winning choice.

The alternative, being mean or stingy with those you don’t know well, can get you a reputation as a Scrooge.

10. Be persistent even if a particular group does seem to be a dead end for you, try another. AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) recommends that everyone try six different groups to find one that suits you best. If you are persistent, challenging the assumptions and feelings that tell you to give up and resign yourself to a life of loneliness, and showing up and being curious and kind to others and more and more groups, the odds are in your favour.

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And once you have a friend or two, nourish those friendships with time and attention. Don’t be too cautious about whether you are giving more than you are getting at first. If you make more friends and some of them are takers, you can choose to spend more time with the friends who reward your friendship.

An extremely interesting and thought-provoking perspective on some of the symptoms of loneliness and some practical tips to try and counter the feelings that many may be experiencing.

But again, the question has to be asked, why are a growing number of us feeling this way? Hanson argues that loneliness is a ‘feeling’ and not a ‘fact’ and this is a basically true, however, when a person is experiencing this feeling this can sometimes lead a person to believe that loneliness is just a sad fact of their lives.

Continued isolation and feeling lonely may lead to feelings of despair that in turn can become a gateway to severe depression and even encourage suicidal thoughts. It is an extremely worrying fact that suicide is a growing problem that is now affecting people of all ages and across the entire social spectrum. The rate of suicides in Britain has risen sharply to its highest level since 2002, with men accounting for three-quarters of the number of people who took their own lives last year, according to official figures.

A total of 6,507 suicides were registered by coroners in the UK – 11.2 per 100,000 people – in 2018, up 11.8% on the previous year, according to the Office for National Statistics

Tragically, there was a big increase in the rate of suicide among young people. In 2018, 730 people aged 10 to 24 killed themselves, the highest number since 2000, when 749 took their own lives. Ruth Sutherland, the chief executive of Samaritans, said: ‘It is extremely worrying that, for the first time in five years, the suicide rate in the UK has increased, with 686 more deaths than in 2017.

Every single one of these deaths is a tragedy that devastates families, friends and communities. Whilst the overall rise has only been seen this year – and we hope it is not the start of a longer-term trend – it’s crucial to have a better understanding of why there has been such an increase.

We know that suicide is not inevitable; it is preventable, and encouraging steps have been made to prevent suicide, but we need to look at suicide as a serious public health issue.’

It is therefore unsurprising that Health professionals, leading academics and the Government recognise that loneliness is having a devastating effect on individuals and the wider society.

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WHAT CAN BE DONE TO TRY AND COUNTER THE FEELING OF LONELINESS?

If it is recognised that loneliness is a feeling not a fact, and that when you are feeling lonely, it is because something has triggered a memory of that feeling, not because you are in fact, isolated and alone, then surely we have an opportunity to do something to counter the feeling?

The good news is that as the wide-spread issue of loneliness (and the effects of loneliness) is now generally accepted as a huge problem and is much better understood. There is now more help on hand that offers helpful, constructive, practical advice and guidance than ever before.

That said, each one of us can do our own small bit to help alleviate the problem. It is possible for us to become more aware of people around us suffering from loneliness. Neighbours, work colleagues even members of our own families can all be at risk, and as we have established not everyone will speak out about the way they feel. Of course no one should force themselves on others by making presumptions, as some people enjoy their own company, but by reaching out with a simple ‘hello, how are you’ in a friendly way, is something that we can all do.

In my experience that question cannot be easily ignored, it can either lead to a one-line reply or can be conversation starter, either way it will make you feel better for asking and could mean a lot to someone, especially if that someone is feeling isolated and alone.

Here are some useful links to some of the many organisations that have been set-up to help people with feelings of loneliness and isolation.

www.independentage.org/loneliness/support

www.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk

www.which.co.uk/later-life-care/ home-care/loneliness/how-to-get-help-for-loneliness-avwgk8f93mym

www.mind.org.uk/information-support/tips-for-everyday-living/

www.redcross.org.uk/get-help/ get-help-with-loneliness

www.sportpartner.com/UK/Lonely

www.ageuk.org.uk/our-impact/ policy-research/loneliness-research-and-resources/

www.the-tg.com/helpingtoendloneliness.aspx?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIw_nO2bvV5QIVhLHtCh1CXgbbEA MYASAAEgLZQPD_BwE

Stay happy and healthy.

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