Figuring out how to deal with loneliness starts with understanding that it’s a universal human experience. This comprehensive guide explores what loneliness feels like, how to make the connections that are necessary to feel better, and eight powerful reminders to help you remember how to overcome loneliness when you’re feeling down.
What’s Coming Up
- What Is the Root Cause of Loneliness?
- Recognizing Loneliness: How It Feels in Mind and Body
- How to Deal with Loneliness Through Connection
- 8 Powerful Reminders for When You Feel Lonely
- Loneliness and Personality
- Moving Forward: How Do I Stop Feeling Lonely?
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Further Reading
What Is the Root Cause of Loneliness?
“Why do I feel so lonely?”
It’s a question that many people have pondered. Maybe you’re even asking yourself just that right now and have arrived here looking for an answer.
What we call loneliness surfaces when there’s a mismatch between the meaningful connections that we yearn for and the social interactions that fill our days. It’s that aching awareness that isn’t necessarily defined by the absence of people but the absence of meaningful engagement with them. You might be physically surrounded by others but still feel alone.
Loneliness touches most of us at different points in our lives – regardless of relationship status, social media followers, or calendar commitments. The heavy feelings that come with it are a potent reminder of our fundamental need for connection.
As social creatures, humans have survived and thrived through cooperation, not isolation. Our ancestors depended on tight-knit communities for protection from predators, successful hunting, the sharing of resources, raising children, and even their emotional well-being.
These evolutionary patterns explain why social connection isn’t just pleasant but necessary. Our brains are literally wired to seek and maintain bonds with others as a survival mechanism. This is why feeling lonely can trigger such profound distress in our minds and our bodies.
“Loneliness may feel like it has no redeeming features, but it may have evolved as an aversive state that, like hunger, thirst, and pain, promotes behavior change to increase the likelihood of the survival of one’s genes,” explains Dr. John Cacioppo and his colleagues in their research on the evolutionary mechanisms of loneliness.
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The Birth of Modern Loneliness
Interestingly enough, despite its evolutionary origins, the word “loneliness” only just became common in the English language in the 1800s.
Is it a coincidence that this word gained its modern meaning precisely around the time that the Industrial Revolution and emerging capitalism began reshaping Western society, shifting values from community interdependence to individualistic pursuit and competition?
Many people have traded village life for urban anonymity, extended families for nuclear households, and face-to-face interaction for digital communication. These societal changes have fundamentally altered how we build community and find belonging.
While these changes have given us many remarkable freedoms, they’ve also created an environment where our evolutionarily wired need for deep connection often goes unfulfilled, leaving many people feeling inexplicably empty and wondering how to deal with loneliness despite being more “connected” than ever.
If you’re experiencing loneliness right now, please know that you’re not alone in feeling alone. This article aims to guide you through understanding this challenging emotional state so that you can find pathways back to meaningful connection.
Recognizing Loneliness: How It Feels in Mind and Body
So what does loneliness actually feel like? Far more than just a vague feeling, loneliness creates a distinct pattern of responses throughout the mind and the body.
Just as hunger is your body’s way of signaling the need for nourishment, loneliness is a powerful signal that you’re missing the meaningful connection that is essential to your well-being.
Recognizing these signals for what they are is the first step in addressing them effectively.
Mental Symptoms of Loneliness
The mental experience of loneliness is a mosaic of emotional states that can rapidly shift and change. You might feel deep sadness alongside flashes of frustration or experience both hopelessness and yearning simultaneously.
This emotional complexity is what makes loneliness so difficult to articulate and address.
Research shows that the mental symptoms of loneliness typically include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Feelings of sadness, anger, emptiness, and disconnection
- Self-critical thoughts and negative self-perception
- Difficulty concentrating and mental fatigue
- Increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia
These mental health impacts can create a vicious cycle. When feeling lonely, many people withdraw further to protect themselves from perceived judgment or rejection, which can deepen feelings of loneliness.
Physical Symptoms of Loneliness
Loneliness isn’t just an emotional experience. It also leaves a tangible imprint on your physical health.
Scientists have discovered that prolonged social isolation triggers a cascade of physiological responses that can significantly impact your body’s overall functioning.
The most common physical health risks associated with loneliness include:
- Chronic stress
- A weakened immune system
- Sleep disruptions and insomnia
- High blood pressure
- Cardiovascular disease
- Premature death
It is clear that the physical manifestations of loneliness extend far beyond temporary discomfort. These responses involve multiple body systems and can alter our long-term health outcomes.
According to a comprehensive report on loneliness published by the Office of the Surgeon General in 2023, “Loneliness and social isolation increase the risk for premature death by 26% and 29% respectively. More broadly, lacking social connection can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.”
A Global Challenge
In the 21st century, loneliness is a worldwide phenomenon, with a recent Meta-Gallup survey revealing that at least 24% of adults worldwide report feeling very or fairly lonely.
This translates to more than a billion human beings experiencing these challenging physical and emotional consequences – a stark reminder that loneliness is not a personal failure but a pervasive global problem.
But understanding the mental and physical consequences and the widespread nature of loneliness is only the first step. As we explore how to deal with loneliness, we now turn our attention to the most powerful antidote: meaningful connection.
How to Deal with Loneliness Through Connection
When it comes to overcoming loneliness, not all connections are created equal.
Psychological research has revealed that humans need three distinct types of relationships to truly thrive – each addressing a different dimension of loneliness that they might experience.
Look at it this way – just as a balanced diet requires different kinds of nutrients, our social well-being depends on us having different kinds of bonds in our lives.
Intimate Loneliness
The first dimension of loneliness that we’ll discuss speaks to our deepest emotional needs.
Intimate loneliness occurs when we lack those rare relationships where we feel truly known and accepted. Most of us crave connections where we can be fully ourselves without judgment or pretense. We need others to understand our history, value our unique perspective, and provide emotional support during life’s challenges.
People typically form this kind of bond with their closest friends and family members and/or their romantic partners.
Without these deep bonds, a profound emptiness can develop even inside people who are constantly surrounded by people.
Social Loneliness
The second dimension to understand is social loneliness, which emerges when we lack a broader network of casual friends and acquaintances who provide day-to-day companionship.
Unlike intimate bonds, these connections don’t necessarily require constant, deep emotional vulnerability. Instead, they fulfill our needs for casual interaction, fun moments filled with laughter and joy, shared activities, and a sense of belonging in everyday life.
These are your lunch buddies, neighbors who stop to chat, colleagues you enjoy working alongside, or fellow members of clubs and groups that you regularly attend.
Collective Loneliness
The final dimension of loneliness involves our innate need to feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.
Throughout human history, people have found purpose and belonging through cultural traditions, religious pursuits, and other collective endeavors. These connections provide context for our individual experiences, and they also link us to both past and future generations.
In their most profound form, they can evolve into a spiritual sense of connection with all living things, the natural world, or even the cosmos itself – a recognition that we are all woven into the same universal fabric.
Collective loneliness can affect anyone – even those with rich personal relationships. Without these collective bonds, people can experience an unsettling sense of disconnection from the wider world, as if their individual life lacks broader significance or purpose within the grand unfolding of existence.
How Do People Cope with Loneliness?
This three-dimensional understanding of loneliness gives us a more nuanced roadmap of the beautiful complexity of human connection. Rather than seeing connection as simply having more people around us, we can start to recognize it as an ongoing practice of nurturing different types of relationships that serve different aspects of our humanity.
Perhaps you have deep intimate bonds but miss everyday social interaction. Or maybe you’re surrounded by casual friends yet hunger for that sense of belonging to something larger than yourself.
The key to coping with loneliness often lies in identifying and intentionally addressing the specific type of connection that you’re missing.
Put more practically, to address loneliness that stems from a lack of connection, you might:
- Intentionally cultivate deeper conversations
- Make friends who share your interests
- Practice vulnerability in your existing relationships
- Explore new ways of connecting outside of traditional social settings
- Volunteer for causes that matter to you
- Join community classes or workshops
- Invest time in self-understanding and personal growth
Ultimately, connection isn’t a formula, but a living, breathing experience that is unique to each individual. These strategies offer a starting point, but your own intuition will illuminate the way forward.
8 Powerful Reminders for When You Feel Lonely
The journey of learning how to overcome loneliness often begins not with external changes, but with transforming your inner dialogue. These eight affirmations can serve as compassionate reminders, cutting through the fog of the limiting thoughts that so often accompany loneliness:
- Your loneliness does not define you. This moment of isolation is a temporary experience, not a permanent state of being. Every moment holds the potential for transformation, healing, and connection.
- You are not alone in feeling alone. Millions of people all over the world experience loneliness. Your experience is a deeply human one, shared by countless others who are also seeking connection and understanding.
- You are connected to all beings everywhere – past, present, and future. Every breath you take is part of an ancient and ongoing conversation with the universe, linking you to the collective breath of all living things. Every particle of your being is composed of matter that has existed since the beginning of time, linking you to an infinite chain of cosmic creation.
- Your feelings are valid, but they are not your entire truth. The pain that you’re experiencing is real and deserves compassion. But you are not your emotions. Allow the emotions to surface, feel them, and try to understand what they are telling you. But do not let them define you.
- You are not your thoughts. Beneath the constant stream of mental chatter lies a deeper, more expansive awareness that can witness thoughts without becoming entangled in them. You get to choose which thoughts to engage with and which to let go of.
- You are a unique gift to the world. The qualities that make you feel different or isolated are the same qualities that will ultimately draw the right people into your life. You do not have to shrink, dim, or reshape yourself to be worthy of connection.
- You deserve loving relationships. No external standard can determine your worthiness of love. Your worthiness is fundamental, unchanging, and absolute. You are enough, simply by being you.
- You have the power to shape your reality. You are a miracle in motion. Your power lies in the present moment, where intention and effort can transform your reality.
When wondering how to deal with loneliness, it can be helpful to remember that this is not a linear journey – it’s a spiral of growing self-awareness and compassion. These reminders can serve as allies along the way, helping you navigate the complex emotions that accompany loneliness and guiding you toward a more connected, authentic existence.
Loneliness and Personality
Beyond the types of connections that we’ve explored and the empowering reminders that affirm our worth, there is another interesting layer of understanding.
Our personality acts as a unique filter, influencing how we perceive, seek out, and maintain the social bonds that are essential to our well-being. Understanding the nuanced differences between personality types can help us better understand ourselves and combat loneliness and isolation.
Assertive vs. Turbulent: A Tale of Two Emotional Landscapes
According to 16Personalities research, not all personalities experience loneliness at the same frequency, particularly when it comes to the Assertive vs. Turbulent scale. This scale measures confidence and emotional stability, essentially revealing how people perceive themselves and react to life’s challenges.
Roughly 67% of Turbulent individuals say that they feel lonely often or very often, compared to just 37% of Assertive personalities. The disparity between how often Turbulent and Assertive individuals experience loneliness is rooted in fundamental differences in their approaches to self-perception.
Turbulent individuals tend to view their experiences through a more self-critical lens, and they also tend to experience higher emotional reactivity. They’re more likely to dwell on perceived social shortcomings, magnifying moments of disconnection and social missteps. This hypervigilance can create a seemingly constant cycle of self-doubt that can intensify feelings of loneliness.
On the other hand, Assertive personalities approach social experiences with a more stable emotional foundation. They tend to maintain a consistent sense of self-worth that acts as a buffer against intense feelings of loneliness.
This doesn’t mean that Assertive types never feel lonely – remember that 37% still say they feel lonely often or very often – but they can usually process these feelings with greater resilience.
Introverted vs. Extraverted: Solitude and Socializing
Another fundamental dimension of personality – the Introverted vs. Extraverted scale – reveals even more about how different people experience loneliness.
Contrary to popular belief, Introversion doesn’t automatically equate to loneliness. While our research shows that Introverts do report slightly higher rates of feeling lonely – around 61% say they feel lonely often or very often, compared to 52% of Extraverts – these statistics reveal a far more nuanced story about social connection and personal fulfillment.
The misconception that Introverts are inherently more lonely stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what Introversion truly means.
Introversion is not about a lack of social ability or desire for connection, but about how individuals recharge and process social interactions. Introverts typically find deep satisfaction in meaningful, quality connections, rather than extensive social networks. They often prefer deeper, more intimate conversations over large group interactions, which can be emotionally draining for them.
Interestingly, while Introverts may report feeling lonely slightly more often, they also demonstrate more resilience in coping with these feelings. Research indicates that 69% of Introverts feel confident in their ability to manage loneliness, compared to 58% of Extraverts.
The distinction speaks to the difference between loneliness and solitude. For Introverts, solitude is not necessarily a state of isolation, but a chosen and nourishing experience of being alone. While loneliness is a painful sense of disconnection, solitude represents a peaceful, regenerative state of self-reflection and personal restoration. Introverts are inherently more comfortable with solitude, often finding it essential for their emotional and mental well-being.
In contrast, Extraverts typically derive energy from social interactions. For them, prolonged solitude might feel draining and potentially lead to feelings of loneliness.
So what do these distinctions tell us?
One important takeaway is that every individual has a unique threshold for social connection. Some people require extensive social networks to feel fulfilled, while others find meaning in just a few deep relationships.
Secondly, every individual has a different relationship with solitude. Some people dread it. Some people love it. But regardless of how you feel about it, coping with loneliness isn’t necessarily about avoiding solitude. The real solution lies in fostering connections that are meaningful to you – where you feel truly seen, heard, valued, and connected to something bigger than yourself.
Moving Forward: How Do I Stop Feeling Lonely?
Learning how to deal with loneliness begins with understanding yourself. Our free personality test offers a powerful pathway to self-discovery, illuminating the unique landscape of your social and emotional needs.
Trust in your journey, be patient with yourself, and remember that true belonging begins with being brave enough to be exactly who you are.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do people cope with loneliness?
People cope with loneliness by developing three types of connections: intimate bonds with close friends or partners, day-to-day companionship in broader social networks, and collective connections to communities or causes that provide a sense of purpose and belonging.
How can I stop feeling alone and unwanted?
To stop feeling alone and unwanted, practice self-compassion, challenge negative thoughts, pursue meaningful activities, and gradually build connections that align with your personality and values. Remember that loneliness is a universal human experience, not a reflection of your worth.
How can I deal with loneliness in a relationship?
Deal with loneliness in a relationship by openly communicating your needs, focusing on quality time with your partner, developing interests outside the relationship, and addressing any underlying issues that may be causing disconnection between you and your partner.