Cures for loneliness single
How to Deal With Loneliness: Ways to Stop Feeling Lonely
Loneliness is not an abstract condition that affects only certain kinds of people. The truth is that feelings of loneliness can affect anyone—young, old, and in-between—and at any point in life.
It's not uncommon for the elderly, people going through a breakup, divorce, or death of a loved one, and young people to struggle with loneliness. A loneliness survey by Cigna indicates that Generation Z adults (ages 18-22), in fact, are feeling lonelier than almost any other population.1
Loneliness can be due to so many different factors, and can affect both your emotional and physical health long-term. If you want to know what to do when you feel lonely, consider these 5 tips:
1. Acknowledge Your Feelings of Loneliness
A first step to overcoming loneliness is realizing how you feel and the impact it's having on your life. Try talking to a counselor or therapist. They can help you work through the factors that may be contributing to it, suggest additional steps to combat loneliness, alternative therapies, and help you build coping skills that work for you.
- See if your place of work has an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Many employers offer an EAP. These services come at no cost to you as a benefit of your employment and provide confidential access to counselors and therapists trained to deal with all kinds of issues, including helping you overcome loneliness.
- Talk to friends and family. Let them know you're struggling with loneliness. If you've suffered the loss of a relationship, a loved one, lost a job, moved to a new place, are facing other issues that have isolated you, let them know how they might be able to help you feel less lonely.
2. Know When to Engage or Disengage From the Online World
The online world can be a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to loneliness and social isolation. Log on or log off—which is healthier? It all depends.
- The online world offers non-threatening and convenient ways to connect with others that can help if you're trying to overcome loneliness.
Things like multi-player gaming, chat and message sites, even online dating sites can offer ways to interact and engage with others that's satisfying for some people. There are also online apps designed to help you deal with issues like loneliness and social isolation. - What about social media? Is it good for you when you're dealing with loneliness? For some people, the online world may contribute to even greater feelings of loneliness and isolation. Social media, for example, can portray people who seem to be living exciting, happy-go-lucky lives with hundreds of good friends at their side. Reality is that this is generally not reality. Social media can make some people feel inadequate, left out, and feeling lonely. Bottom line, if being online seems more isolating than connected, it may be a sign you need to log off.
3. Find a Volunteer Opportunity as a Way to Feel Less Lonely
Volunteer opportunities are plentiful. Contributing your time and energy, working alongside others for a good cause, can effectively help you in fighting loneliness.
Volunteer activities are shown to ease stress, reduce feelings of depression, can help you make friends, and connect with others, and overall make you a happier person.2 A sense of happiness, fulfillment, and connection to others is yet another way to stop feeling lonely.
Try one of these ideas if volunteering appeals to you:
- Visit seniors in a nursing home
- Volunteer at a children's hospital
- Read to kids at school
- Work in a soup kitchen
- Volunteer in an animal shelter
- Become a Meals on Wheels volunteer
Whenever possible look to your local neighborhood or community for volunteer activities. This way you can make friends and forge social ties with others in close proximity to you. Chances are good that you'll run into them in the grocery store, at your church or synagogue, at the coffee shop or local restaurant—providing additional opportunities for social interaction and helping you to feel less lonely.
4. Join a Group or Club to Overcome Loneliness With In-Person Connections
Depending on where you live, you may have access to various types of groups and club activities often founded on common interests and hobbies. You can find many of these types of groups online or through community resources.
Meetup is an online platform through which you can find a group or create your own based on a particular interest. Groups meet in person, locally. There are Meetup groups for all types of interests, including food, travel, lifestyle, entertainment, sports, recreation, culture, and much more. Meetup groups are available throughout the country and can give you things to do when you feel lonely. It's a great way to make friends and get together with likeminded people on a regular basis.
5. Practice Self-Care
Besides working to connect with others, don't overlook the potential power of exercise, healthy food, proper sleep, sunshine, and even meditation for fighting loneliness.
- Exercise has been shown to trigger endorphins in the brain.3 These are sometimes called the "happy hormones" due to their power to elevate mood and make you simply feel better.
- Sunshine can do much the same thing as exercise.4 It also triggers good hormones, including endorphins and serotonin, which have a number of positive downstream benefits. Just make sure you follow safety guidelines when getting out in the sunshine.
- A healthy diet can affect your brain health, too. A daily diet of sugar, preservatives, and highly processed food can have negative impacts on your physical and emotional health.5 Focus on eating whole foods for a while and see if this can help in your strategy to overcome loneliness.
- Sleep quality is closely tied to emotional health. Loss of sleep or poor sleep habits can aggravate feelings of loneliness and isolation, and vice versa.
6 If you're fighting loneliness, try practicing better sleep habits. Limit sugar and caffeine before bed, turn off digital devices for some relaxation time, and make sure your bedroom is quiet and dark.
Loneliness affects millions of people. There are many things you can do when trying to overcome it. The key is realizing how you feel and finding the best strategy for you.
Ways to Overcome Loneliness While Being Single
We all long to feel loved and accepted; it is hard-wired in us. Relationships give us the wonderful experience of connection and companionship. Without relationships, we tend to feel lonely and isolated. It is hard to get used to doing things alone after being in a relationship. So how does one overcome loneliness while being single? There are plenty of single people out there that have no intention of dating, simply because they love being single. If you are single and experiencing loneliness, here are ten ways to overcome it and live your fullest life.
1. Get to Know Yourself Better
Being single allows you to get to know yourself on a deeper level. Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “If you enjoy your own company, you’ll never be alone.” The relationship you have with yourself is crucial for self-esteem and well being. You can start to learn about yourself by journaling. Keeping a journal gives you insight into yourself, your emotions, likes, dislikes, and more. It is a healthy activity that is refreshing and helps your overall well-being.
2. Nurture Your Friendships
The best way to conquer loneliness is by connecting with other people. Take time to nurture friendships or cultivate new ones. Friendships are special relationships that give you the socialization you need without worrying about the complexities that dating has. Surrounding yourself with people who are also single is comforting. Third-wheeling with a couple may emphasize your loneliness and make you hyper-aware of being single.
Being lonely doesn’t feel as bad when a friend is experiencing the same thing.
3. Pick Up a Hobby
Hobbies are great for expanding knowledge or sparking creativity. Picking up a new hobby can open doors for meeting new people and opportunities. Activities like painting, rock-climbing, knitting, cooking, traveling, or playing an instrument are all beneficial in combating loneliness.
4. Get Plugged into Community
When one is spiraling into loneliness, the rest of the world can seem very far away. It may be tempting to hunker away in your house and shut out anyone and everyone. For mental, physical, and spiritual health, it is critical to have people that can check-in on you. If you are single and your family lives far away, the community is a great place to begin making connections. Participating in your community can look like volunteering for an animal shelter or salvation army, setting up a fundraiser, signing up for a race, or contributing to city meetings.
5. Delight in Your Freedom
Relationships can be mentally “expensive.” Caring for someone else means often putting their needs above your own and going out of your way to do things for them. Relationships can be emotionally draining. There are fights and jealousy, but you don’t have to deal with any of that drama if you are single. You have the freedom to do as you please without worrying about a significant other’s approval.
6. Plan and Organize
Planning and organizing are strategies that distract one from feeling lonely and replace that feeling with accomplishment; this could be planning a vacation, a concert, or visiting a friend. Cleaning, while sometimes tedious, can also bring enormous relief. Decluttering the house can feel as though you have decluttered your mind.
7. Talk to Strangers
In a pandemic, we can still flex our social muscles. Whether at the grocery store or t the gym, make an effort to talk to the strangers around you.
Maybe they are experiencing loneliness as well, and a simple “hello” could change their whole day. Connections and friendships are waiting to be made with every person you come in contact with.
8. Understand What You Are Feeling
Loneliness may feel as though you are underwater and everyone around you is breathing. It is overwhelming, and although it feels as though it will last forever, it won’t. Keep track of your thoughts - are you always putting yourself down or devaluing how you feel? Redirect those thoughts and replace them with self-validation. It is okay to feel lonely, but it is not okay to internalize negative feelings and apply them to yourself. There are brighter days ahead, and it is crucial to keep that in focus.
9. Take a Break From Social Media
When you spend copious amounts of time on social media, it can breed anxiety, depression, and feelings of worthlessness. Viewing engagement pictures on social platforms is the last thing you want to see.
People are presenting false perceptions of themselves, and it seems impossible to live up to. Instead of scrolling aimlessly through social media, give yourself a break. Allow a designated amount of time per day for social media, and then take a step back.
10. Take Care of Something
Put energy towards taking care of something will alleviate feelings of loneliness. Be that a pet or a plant, the responsibility of maintaining life is inspiring and motivating. Pets are also great emotional comforters and cuddle buddies.
Overcoming loneliness while being single requires consistent effort. Loneliness seems to be an epidemic in the current state of the world. We are socially isolated with an ongoing pandemic, and our mental health is suffering. Being single is difficult because meeting new people has been postponed. Struggling with loneliness can be unbearable and seems as if it will never end. If you are experiencing a low season or unmanageable emotions, please reach out for help.
At SokyaHealth, we are happy to meet and discuss personalized treatment programs for you. SokyaHealth is a unique, multidisciplinary, private psychiatric and mental health practice. Our goal is to help each person achieve their potential and succeed in today's challenging global environment. We provide comprehensive mental health services for Southern California, Oregon, and Alaska. To schedule a free consultation with SokyaHealth, contact us today at 866-932-1767. You can start your journey to wellness today.
The cure for loneliness
Last weekend, another season ended in the drama theater of our city. The theater team said goodbye to its audience until autumn with the incendiary comedy "The Cure for Loneliness" (16+). Light, cheerful and such a "lifelike" production almost from the first minutes ignited the audience and gave Dzerzhinsk residents a positive attitude and a lot of impressions for all theatrical holidays - until a new meeting in the auditorium.
He is a little naive and kind, she is a sympathetic "home" eccentric. They've only been together (or already?) for four months. They are in love and all that is missing in the house is dogs. But the disagreement over whether or not to start a common dog is not the only one in their union. All this is told by the script of the Canadian playwright Diana Grant "Sunday Dinner", according to which the chief director of the Dzerzhinsky Drama Theater Andrey Podskrebkin staged a new play "The Cure for Loneliness".
There are only four actors on the stage: the characters who play Him (Chuck performed by Pavel Kuzubov / Artem Gerasimov), Her (Laura - Ekaterina Balunina / Ekaterina Ryazanova), His mother (Violetta, Larisa Shlyandina / Tatyana Orlova) and His ex ( beauty Sylvia was “brought” onto the stage by Natalya Dunaeva / Tatyana Zinina).
Chuck and Laura's relationship is perfect, if not for Sunday dinners with his mom. Laura hates her for being too picky and obtrusive, and Chuck, as if not noticing this, takes care of the parent like a child.
Compromise in this family was possible until the mother brought Chuck's former lover, the flawless beauty Sylvia, with her to dinner. Sylvia doesn't mind bringing Chuck back, and his mom agrees to help her. The women, left alone, made a bet that Violetta would survive from Laura's house.
A simulated heart attack is in progress. Mom ends up in the hospital, and then stays with Chuck so that he can take care of her, including constantly giving medications that she supposedly needs to live. Everything goes to the fact that Sylvia will be able to win Chuck again, but he insists that he loves only Laura. And by the way, she still leaves home because of the “illness” of her companion’s mother and the inability to endure her simulated scenes of more and more “attacks”.
All the actors played their roles brilliantly. Sometimes only the plasticity of the amazing Larisa Shlyandina made the audience laugh in unison. And she constantly had to “grimacing” and playing “illness” when playing this performance.
And yet, "The Cure for Loneliness" is not a comedy in its purest form. When Laura returns to collect her belongings, all the heroes look at the situation with Laura and Chuck's breakup from a new perspective. Sylvia realizes that her ex is sincerely attached not to her at all, but to Laura, and no longer wants to pursue him. Moreover, she reveals Violetta's secret of false illness in order to bind Chuck to her and get rid of Laura.
Chuck talks to his mother for the first time in a heartfelt and adult way. He predicts their family future if mother and son remain together only together. Without Laura. “We will look at the notorious sunset outside the window, you will go out of your mind, and I will start to hate you,” Chuck breaks his mother’s stereotypes about a happy life. It seems that the eccentric Violetta for the first time thinks about such a possible future as a real one, and she does not like it either. “Go,” she dismisses her son almost silently, who immediately rushes to Laura.
The lovers stay together and even decide to get a dog so that there are no disagreements between them. Sylvia leaves the house for good. Mom leaves for her place, but this does not stop the relationship of the main characters. “Now we will become friends with her,” says Laura. And Chuck is sure that he will still love his mother and will not leave him alone.
The moral of this whole story, as it seemed to us, is to show the viewer the truth about how not to be lonely using a very vital example. The easiest way seems to be to bind another person to yourself with intrigues and selfishness, playing on the weaknesses of a loved one. But such well-being is imaginary, and, most likely, sooner or later, relationships built on insincerity will lead nowhere. The true cure for loneliness is love without selfishness, prudence and the ability to accept the feelings of another as your own.
Having left her son, Violetta gained the love of not only himself, but also Laura, who, no doubt, will give part of her great soul to her mother-in-law.
The happy ending of the story completes Laura's confession to Chaku that they are having a baby. So, in this, very soon big family, there will be no place for loneliness.
Elena Rodionova
Dzerzhinsky time
Is there a cure for loneliness?
A researcher who has lost her beloved husband continues her desperate search for a cure that will help save people from the burden of loneliness.
Roman Fishman
Tags:
Study
the science
Feelings of loneliness are often indicative of a lack of social interaction, for which members of our species are extremely in need.
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Deadly loneliness
“We live in the era of the most advanced communication technologies in history,” wrote the former 19US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy—and meanwhile, the prevalence of loneliness has already doubled since the 1980s.
” According to the doctor, today's communities are experiencing a real epidemic of loneliness: young, working city dwellers are increasingly living on their own, marriages are being concluded more and more late, and superficial communication on the Web is increasingly replacing real, close social ties.
The current generation is often called "the loneliest in history." A BBC Loneliness Experiment a few years ago found that about 40% of people aged 16 to 24 feel “often or very often lonely” (by the way, contrary to popular myth, this number does not increase in winter). According to American researchers, the experience of social isolation regularly torments almost 3/4 of the population of the country. The problem is so serious that Vivek Murthy and many of his colleagues list loneliness as one of the top public health threats, along with unhealthy diets, smoking, and the anti-vaccine movement.
In fact, many studies have repeatedly demonstrated the various negative effects that loneliness has on human health.
One of the leading experts on this topic, Stephanie Cacioppo from the University of Chicago, lists some of the negative effects of loneliness: worsening sleep quality, the development of chronic stress and inflammatory reactions, reduced immunity, high blood pressure, impaired vascular permeability. “The impact of loneliness is not limited to just emotional state and behavior,” the researcher adds, “it is associated with a 26 percent increase in premature death.”
Cachoppo and Cachoppo
In 2011, Stephanie worked in Switzerland and studied the neurophysiological mechanisms of social interactions. Once at a conference in China, she met her colleague, the famous specialist from Chicago, John Cacioppo. He became famous back in the 1990s, becoming one of the pioneers of "social neurophysiology" - the study of the physiological mechanisms of social relations and reactions. The romance of the two scientists was happy and quick: in the same year they got married, moved in together, began joint and very fruitful research.
They managed to publish several dozen articles, until in 2015 John passed away from short-lived cancer.
“When we reproduce loneliness in animal models, we are not just isolating the monkey from other individuals, we isolate it from those with whom it prefers to interact,” John Cachoppo emphasized in an interview published after his death. “Being alone doesn’t always mean being alone, and being surrounded by others doesn’t mean you feel connected to them.” He himself passed away, surrounded by love, honor and recognition, already a laureate of many awards, an internationally recognized expert, author and co-author of dozens of monographs, director of a major scientific center.
Stephanie is left alone and with amazing devotion continues the work begun with him. She is trying to decipher the neurophysiological basis of loneliness and find pharmacological methods to interfere with these mechanisms. “Mozart did not die, he turned into music,” the scientist says.
- Also, I think my husband did not die either; it has become a theory. And I'm just following her."
The axis of evil and its regulators
In fact, even in the joint work of Cachoppo and Cachoppo (as well as in some experiments of their colleagues) it was shown that acute loneliness leads to chronic "overexcitation" of the so-called hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPAA), which is responsible for the body's response to stress. Violation of the functions of the HGNO can be imagined as a broken siren that screams without interruption, not allowing either to gather or deliberately react. “If we can dampen this “warning system” in the brains of lonely people, then we will give them the opportunity to re-establish normal connections with others, and not run away from them,” says Stephanie Cacioppo.
An important role in the regulation of HPA is played by pregnenolone, which is synthesized from cholesterol by the cells of the gonads, adrenal glands and certain regions of the brain.
It is the precursor of a number of steroid hormones, but it also exhibits biological activity on its own. In this role, pregnenolone can be attributed to the group of endocannabinoids, analogues of plant substances. It is used to transmit signals in the synapses of the brain and, according to some data, may be involved in memory and the implementation of complex cognitive functions.
Experiments show that both isolated mice and socially deprived people not only hyperactivate HPA, but also decrease the level of pregnenolone. Moreover, taking allopregnenolone (ALLO), a drug that can be absorbed in the intestines and is a functional analog of pregnenolone, allows you to normalize the functioning of HPA and reduce the effects of stress and loneliness on the brain. Under the brand name Zulresso, allopregnenolone has already been tested and approved for sale in the United States as a drug for the treatment of postpartum depression.
Medication and just communication
Meanwhile, at the University of Chicago, Cachoppo continues randomized clinical trials of pregnenolone, which began in 2017.
Almost 100 single but otherwise healthy volunteers received experimental doses of the drug. The experiments themselves lasted more than two years and ended in the summer of 2019, however, the processing and analysis of the collected data continues, and Stephanie hopes to present them in 2020.
loneliness. “Above all, maintain social connections and do not try to find an opportunity every day to express the joy of them,” advises Stephanie Cachoppo. - Do something useful for others without expecting anything in return. Work in cooperation, offer your voluntary help to those who need it. Find an opportunity to interact with people at different levels and on different occasions, try to listen to them.”
Indeed, if we consider loneliness to be the same signal as thirst, hunger or pain, we cannot limit ourselves to fighting it - and nothing more. After all, the best way to respond to thirst is to drink water, which the body lacks so much.
