How to overcome loneliness and isolation
Loneliness and Social Isolation — Tips for Staying Connected
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Read and share this infographic and spread the word about ways that may help foster healthy aging.Everyone needs social connections to survive and thrive. But as people age, they often find themselves spending more time alone. Being alone may leave older adults more vulnerable to loneliness and social isolation, which can affect their health and well-being. Studies show that loneliness and social isolation are associated with higher risks for health problems such as heart disease, depression, and cognitive decline.
If you are in poor health, you may be more likely to be socially isolated or lonely. If you are socially isolated or feeling lonely, it can put your physical and mental health at risk. Adults who are lonely or socially isolated are less healthy, have longer hospital stays, are readmitted to the hospital more often, and are more likely to die earlier than those with meaningful and supportive social connections.
What is the difference between loneliness and social isolation?
The number of older adults age 65 and older is growing, and many are socially isolated and regularly feel lonely. The coronavirus outbreak in 2020 brought even more challenges due to health considerations and the need to practice physical distancing.
Loneliness and social isolation are different, but related. Loneliness is the distressing feeling of being alone or separated. Social isolation is the lack of social contacts and having few people to interact with regularly. You can live alone and not feel lonely or socially isolated, and you can feel lonely while being with other people.
Older adults are at higher risk for social isolation and loneliness due to changes in health and social connections that can come with growing older, hearing, vision, and memory loss, disability, trouble getting around, and/or the loss of family and friends.
How can feeling lonely or being isolated affect older adults’ health?
People who are socially isolated or lonely are more likely to be admitted to the emergency room or to a nursing home.
Social isolation and loneliness also are associated with higher risks for:
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- High blood pressure
- Heart disease
- Obesity
- Weakened immune function
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Cognitive decline
- Dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease
- Death
People who are lonely or socially isolated may get too little exercise, drink too much alcohol, smoke, and often don’t sleep well, which can further increase the risk of serious health conditions.
People who are lonely experience emotional pain. Losing a sense of connection and community can change the way a person sees the world. Someone experiencing chronic loneliness may feel threatened and mistrustful of others.
Emotional pain can activate the same stress responses in the body as physical pain.
When this goes on for a long time, it can lead to chronic inflammation (overactive or prolonged release of factors that can damage tissues) and reduced immunity (ability to fight off disease). This raises your risk of chronic diseases and can leave a person more vulnerable to some infectious diseases.
Social isolation and loneliness may also be bad for brain health. Loneliness and social isolation have been linked to poorer cognitive function and higher risk for dementia, including and especially for Alzheimer's disease. Also, little social activity and being alone most of the time may contribute to a decline in the ability to perform everyday tasks such as driving, paying bills, taking medicine, and cooking.
Need help with social isolation or feeling lonely?
The Eldercare Locator connects the public to services for older adults and their families. This resource seeks to provide assistance for a wide range of issues affecting older Americans, including social isolation and loneliness.
Call the Eldercare Locator at 800-677-1116 or visit https://eldercare.acl.gov/ to get connected today.
For additional resources on older adults and social isolation and loneliness visit, Expand Your Circles: Prevent Isolation and Loneliness As You Age (PDF, 4.75M).
How can you know your risk for loneliness and social isolation?
Those who find themselves unexpectedly isolated due to the illness of a loved one, separation from friends or family, loss of mobility, worsening vision or hearing problems, disability, or lack of mobility or access to transportation, are at particular risk of loneliness and social isolation.
You also may be at greater risk if you:
- Live alone
- Can’t leave your home
- Had a major loss or life change, such as the death of a spouse or partner, or retirement
- Struggle with money
- Are a caregiver
- Have psychological or cognitive challenges, or depression
- Have limited social support
- Have trouble hearing
- Live in a rural, unsafe, and/or hard-to-reach neighborhood
- Have language barriers where you live
- Experience age, racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity discrimination where you live
- Are not meaningfully engaged in activities or are feeling a lack of purpose
People with hearing loss may find it hard to have conversations with friends and family, which can lead to less interaction with people, social isolation, and higher rates of loneliness.
How can you talk with your doctor about loneliness and social isolation?
If you are feeling isolated or lonely a lot of the time, you may want to tell your doctor or health professional. Talking about your health with your doctor means sharing information about how you feel physically, emotionally, and mentally. Describing your symptoms can help your doctor identify the problem.
Make sure to bring up your concerns. For example, let your doctor know about any major changes or stresses in your life, such as a divorce or the death of a loved one. A doctor who knows about your losses is better able to understand how you are feeling. They can make suggestions that may be helpful to you.
Be open and honest with your doctor about your health habits and what’s happening in your life.
It will help them to understand your medical conditions and emotional health more fully and recommend the best treatment options for you. Learn more about talking with your doctor.
How can you stay connected with friends and family?
Since Carla started having trouble with her vision, she had to give up driving and travels less often. But she still enjoys spending time with her three grandchildren, even though she lives in Maryland and they live across the country in California. Carla reads stories to them on video chat and catches up on how they are doing on social media. She also stays in touch with friends through email and weekly phone calls. Carla feels much happier knowing that she can stay connected with others.
There are things you can do to help protect yourself or a loved one from the negative effects of loneliness and social isolation. First, it’s important to take care of yourself. Try exercising, eating healthy, getting enough sleep (7 to 9 hours), and pursuing activities you enjoy to help manage stress and stay as mentally and physically healthy as possible.
It’s also important to stay active and connect with others. People who engage in meaningful, productive activities they enjoy with others feel a sense of purpose and tend to live longer. For example, helping others through volunteering helps you feel less lonely and allows you to have a sense of mission and purpose in life, which is linked to better health. Studies show activities like these may help boost your mood and improve your well-being and cognitive function.
Here are some other ideas to help you stay connected.
- Find an activity that you enjoy, restart an old hobby, or take a class to learn something new. You might have fun and meet people with similar interests.
- Schedule time each day to stay in touch with family, friends, and neighbors in person, by email, social media, voice call, or text. Talk with people you trust and share your feelings.
Suggest an activity to help nurture and strengthen existing relationships. Sending letters or cards is another good way to keep up friendships. - Use communication technologies such as video chat, smart speakers, or even companion robots to help keep you engaged and connected.
- If you’re not tech-savvy, sign up for an online or in-person class at your local public library or community center to help you learn how to use email or social media.Credit: Victoria Ruvkun
- Consider adopting a pet if you are able to care for them. Animals can be a source of comfort and may also lower stress and blood pressure.
- Stay physically active and include group exercise, such as joining a walking club or working out with a friend. Adults should aim for at least 150 minutes (2 1/2 hours) of activity a week that makes you breathe hard.
- Introduce yourself to your neighbors.
- Find a faith-based organization where you can deepen your spirituality and engage with others in activities and events.
- Check out resources and programs at your local social service agencies, community and senior centers, and public libraries.
- Join a cause and get involved in your community.
Tips For staying connected if you are living alone with dementia
If you or a loved one has dementia and lives alone, family members, friends, or other caregivers may be able to help in different ways.
- Identify a person you trust, such as a neighbor, who can visit regularly in-person or via a video call and be an emergency contact.
- Learn about home- and community-based support and services from social service agencies, local nonprofits, and Area Agencies on Aging.
- Stay connected with family and friends through video chats, email, and social media. If you’re not tech savvy, ask for help to learn.
- Talk with others who share common interests.
Try a support group online or in person. Maybe your community has a memory café you can visit — a safe place to enjoy activities and socialize for people living with memory loss and their families and caregivers.
Check out this resource to learn more about loneliness and social isolation and take a quiz to see if you might be at risk for loneliness or social isolation: Expand Your Circles: Prevent Isolation and Loneliness as you Age (PDF, 4.75M).
For more information about loneliness and social isolation
NIA Alzheimer’s and related Dementias Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center
800-438-4380
[email protected]
www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers
The NIA ADEAR Center offers information and free print publications about Alzheimer’s and related dementias for families, caregivers, and health professionals. ADEAR Center staff answer telephone, email, and written requests and make referrals to local and national resources.
AmeriCorps Seniors
800-942-2677
www.nationalservice.gov/programs/senior-corps
Eldercare Locator
800-677-1116
[email protected]
https://eldercare.acl.gov
AARP
888-687-2277
877-434-7598 (TTY)
[email protected]
www.aarp.org
Alzheimer's Association
800-272-3900
866-403-3073 (TTY)
[email protected]
www.alz.org
Connect2Affect
https://connect2affect.org
Family Caregiver Alliance
800-445-8106
[email protected]
www.caregiver.org
Meals on Wheels America
888-998-6325
[email protected]
www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org
USAging
202-872-0888
[email protected]
www.usaging.org
National Council on Aging
571-527-3900
https://www.ncoa.org/
SilverSneakers
866-584-7389
support@silversneakers.
com
www.silversneakers.com
YMCA
800-872-9622
[email protected]
www.ymca.net
This content is provided by the NIH National Institute on Aging (NIA). NIA scientists and other experts review this content to ensure it is accurate and up to date.
Content reviewed: January 14, 2021
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.
the consequences of social isolation - T&P
The brain of a person isolated from contact with other people is capable of performing strange metamorphoses with his consciousness, - says Michael Bond, author of articles on the psychology of human behavior and the book The Power of Others.
T&P publishes a translation of his article on the consequences of social isolation for a person and his perception of the real world. Ordinary girl Sara Shurd spent about two months in Tehran's Evin prison: she heard extraneous steps, saw lights, spent most of her time on all fours and listened to what was happening behind the closed door. That summer, 32-year-old Sarah, accompanied by two of her friends, set off to travel through the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. On the border with Iran, they were arrested on suspicion of espionage and taken into custody. Sarah spent about ten thousand hours in solitary confinement, she was haunted by hallucinations. “With peripheral vision, I fixed flashes of light, but when I turned my head, they immediately disappeared,” the girl said in an interview with The New York Times in 2011. — Once I heard someone screaming. This cry was in my ears until one friendly guard brought me to my senses. It turned out that I was screaming myself.
From time to time we all want to be alone, away from the crowd and conversations with colleagues.
But loneliness within a group of people and alone with yourself are two different things. For the vast majority of people, prolonged social isolation is detrimental to psychological health. We are familiar with this phenomenon not only from other people's stories, but also from scientific studies and experiments on isolation and social deprivation, many of which were never completed due to the frightening reaction of the test subjects. Why are people able to lose their minds when left alone, and is there a way to avoid insanity in such situations?
Few would argue that isolation is physically harmful to a person. It is known that single people are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, they are more vulnerable to viral infections, in addition, they have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's syndrome and dementia. Loneliness affects well-being: the state of sleep, attention, logical and verbal thinking, causes an immune system disorder, hormonal imbalance, and activates inflammatory processes in the body. What is behind such violations is not completely clear - perhaps the reason lies in evolution - it was physically dangerous for our ancestors to be without the support of their fellow tribesmen.
In today's world, however, refusing to contact with other people entails not only various kinds of illnesses, but the greatest blow falls on the work of consciousness. For example, isolation affects our perception of time. People who have spent a long time without sunlight have noted the effect of a time shift. Mikel Siffre went on a two-week expedition to study the underground glaciers of the French Alps. After some time, he found that under the influence of darkness his consciousness began to change, and decided to spend another two months underground. The researcher left all measuring instruments outside and lived in accordance with his biological clock. After completing the experiment, Mikel found that two minutes of earth time was equivalent to five of his subjective minutes underground.
A similar time dilation effect was observed by the sociologist and amateur speleologist Maurizio Montalbini. In 1993, he spent 366 days in an underground cave built by NASA to train astronauts. Maurizio himself was convinced that only 219 days had passed during his absence, his daily cycle had almost doubled. Recent studies have also shown that in the dark, most people adjust to a 48-hour rhythm of 36 hours awake and 12 hours of sleep. The reasons for this phenomenon have not yet been established.
In the middle of the 20th century, many experiments were carried out on the social deprivation of a person. In the 1950s and 60s, it was believed that the Chinese were using solitary confinement to "indoctrinate" American prisoners of war captured during the Korean War. Around the same time, the U.S. and Canadian Departments of Defense began funding a series of experiments that, from the point of view of modern Western ethics, seemed unacceptable. For example, a study by psychologist Donald Hebb, which took place at McGill University Medical Center in Montreal.
The scientists invited volunteers - mostly college students - to live from two to several weeks in soundproof rooms. The goal was to keep the subjects' physical activity to a minimum and look at their reactions. The test subjects were given special ammunition that reduced the ability to perceive information to a minimum: glasses, gloves, cardboard cuffs reaching to the fingertips, U-shaped sound-absorbing pillows that were worn on the head. Air conditioners were installed inside the rooms, whose noise drowned out any external sounds. After just a couple of hours, the volunteers felt anxious, they wanted to regain their ability to feel and tried to break the monotony of their pastime: they tried to speak, sing or read poetry aloud.
Later, many of them began to behave extremely emotionally and restlessly, isolation also affected their intellectual abilities, the ability to solve arithmetic problems and pass association tests. The most disturbing aftermath was hallucinations—wisps of light turning into lines, spots, and even specific visual images like squirrels carrying backpacks over their shoulders, or a procession of spectacles descending down the street.
The subjects did not control their visions: some imagined dogs, others imagined babies. Some had auditory hallucinations: they heard the sounds of a hurdy-gurdy or choral singing. Others have imaginary tactile sensations, as if they were shot in the arm or electrocuted. In the real world, it was not easy for the subjects to shake off this altered perception of reality. It seemed to them that the rooms where they sat were in motion, and the objects of the surrounding world were constantly changing their shape and size.
Alarm end
The experiment had to be interrupted earlier than planned due to the inability of the students to physically continue the tests - no one could last more than a week in such conditions. Hebb later wrote in American Psychologist that he was alarmed by the results: "It is one thing to read about how the Chinese brainwashed prisoners of war, it is quite another to watch with your own eyes how people deprived of the opportunity to watch, hear and touch people go crazy.
"
In 2008, clinical psychologist Ian Robbins, in collaboration with the BBC, repeated Hebb's experiment. He put six volunteers for 48 hours in the soundproof chambers of a former nuclear bunker. The results were similar - the development of anxiety, increased emotionality, obsessive thoughts, mental disorders, hallucinations. Why does the brain of a tactile-deprived person behave this way? Cognitive psychologists believe that the part of the brain responsible for performing current tasks gets used to receiving and processing a large amount of information coming to the senses. Robbins notes that when sources of information disappear, the nervous system still continues to transmit signals to the central processing unit of the brain, despite the falsity of these signals. The brain, in turn, tries to interpret them, creating holistic images on this basis. In other words, he tries to construct a world on the basis of impulses that are weakly reaching him, as a result of which he creates a fantastic reality.
Such mental deceptions should not surprise us. First, we know that other primates are also poorly adapted to social isolation. Harry Harlow, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, decided to study this issue in the 1960s using rhesus monkeys. Newborn macaques from a few months to a year grew completely alone. They showed anxiety already after 30 days, after a year their ability to social contacts of any level was practically destroyed. Secondly, because a person learns to be aware of his emotions through communication with other people. Biologists believe that it was the cooperation of our ancestors in the distant past that contributed to the evolution of human sensory experience. The primary function of emotions is social. If there is no one who can share with us the feeling of fear, anger, anxiety or sadness, and evaluate their relevance, then a person will live with a distorted idea of himself, an irrational perception of surrounding events and phenomena.
Currently, there are about 25,000 prisoners in specially protected prisons in the United States.
Without social interaction, such prisoners have no way to test the reality of their emotions and the adequacy of their thoughts, argues Terry Coopers, a forensic psychiatrist at the California Institute at Berkeley. This is one reason many people suffer from anxiety, paranoia, and obsession. Craig Haney, a psychologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a leading specialist in the mental health of US prisoners, argues that some of them deliberately start an open confrontation with the guards in order to confirm their existence, to remember who they are.
Coping strategies
Social isolation can destroy a person's consciousness, but there are ways to counter it. Everyone copes in their own way - some better, some worse. Is there a way to protect yourself if you happen to be imprisoned? Scientists do not have a single opinion on this issue, but let's look at examples of those people who managed to avoid insanity after many years spent alone with themselves.
When Sara Shurd was arrested in Iran, she was definitely not ready for it. For any person in such a situation, the world can turn upside down. He has no one to help, no one to share his experiences with. He must find strength in himself and realize all the difficulties that he will have to face. Understand how he can exist in the new reality.
Hussein Al-Shahristani was Saddam Hussein's chief nuclear adviser. He was imprisoned in the Abu Khraim prison near Baghdad after he refused to support a project to develop an atomic weapon for Iraq. Hussein managed to maintain his sanity during 10 years of solitary confinement, he trained his brain by solving mathematical problems that he composed for himself. Today he works as the Deputy Minister of Energy of Iraq. A similar method was used during her seven-year captivity by the Hungarian communist government by Edith Bohn, MD and translator. She constructed an abacus from slices of stale bread and mentally ran through the six languages she was fluent in.
Members of military organizations endure isolation relatively easier. Caron Fletcher, a consultant psychiatrist who works with ex-POWs, says the detentions and interrogations he endured while serving in the RAF are good preparation for his own conclusion. “You learn the basics of resistance,” he says. “Besides, you believe that your friends and colleagues will turn themselves inside out to free you. In my opinion, military people are less likely to succumb to despair in a difficult situation. Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness can play a trick on you, they undermine morale and the will to live. "
US Senator John McCain proved by his own example that a military mentality provides psychological advantages in this matter. The five and a half years he spent in prison in Vietnam only strengthened his spirit. About two years of his imprisonment, he says this: “Solitary confinement is a terrible thing. They crush your spirit and weaken your ability to resist more than any other form of cruelty .
.. Despair seizes you immediately. It is your main enemy for the period of confinement."
Extreme reality
Psychologists who study how people cope with the effects of isolation have learned a lot from the experiences of the pioneers and climbers. For many adventurers who voluntarily withdraw from society, being in contact with nature can serve as an effective substitute for face-to-face contact. Norwegian psychologist Gro Sandal from the University of Bergen conducted a survey of a group of travelers on how they cope in extreme conditions alone, and noted that the ability to accept the situation is the main method of solving this problem: “Then they feel safe, feel less alone ". A similar psychological phenomenon explains why shipwrecked and stranded sailors develop fictitious friends, and sometimes groups of imaginary associates, with whom they try to share loneliness. Such madness is simply a defense mechanism. As in the story of the traveler Ellen MacArthur and her trimaran called Moby.
During her circumnavigation in 2005, the girl sent letters to friends with the signature "Love, E. and Moby." In her public records on the Internet, she used the pronoun "we" instead of "I".
There is no better illustration of the power of loneliness, which can crush one person and liberate another, than the story of Bernard Moitessier and Donald Crowhurst, two participants in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe round-the-world regatta. Moitessier, an ascetic Frenchman, practiced yoga throughout his journey and fed the petrels that landed on his stern - he liked the process so much that the idea of \u200b\u200breturning to civilization became alien to him. Having sailed one more time around the earth, he landed on the island of Tahiti: “I spend all my time on the high seas, because here I am happy,” he said. “Perhaps this will help save my soul.” The second participant, Crowhurst, felt miserable from the start. He left England insufficiently prepared for the event, and from the very beginning of the journey he sent false reports about his whereabouts.
He drifted aimlessly for several months off the coast of South America, and his despondency and loneliness only intensified. In the end, he closed himself in his cabin, wrote a suicide note and jumped overboard. His body was never found.
What conclusion can we draw from these stories of opposition and despair? Obviously, we lose a lot of strength by being outside of society. Isolation, according to writer Thomas Carlyle, is at the root of unhappiness. However, there are more optimistic assessments that are no less true - we can always stay sane, even when we are alone, if we manage to find solace outside our own self. You must always be ready and be able to show stamina. At the same time, one should not underestimate the power of our imagination, which knocks on the walls of solitary confinement, penetrates inside ice caves and introduces us to imaginary friends.
Corona crisis: how to overcome loneliness? | eurotopics.net
Covid and the crisis caused by it threaten not only the physical but also the mental health of a person: according to scientific data, more and more people are experiencing a feeling of loneliness and isolation from society.
The results of a study commissioned by the European Commission show that during the coronacrisis, the number of people suffering from loneliness has doubled. The European media draw their own conclusions from this.
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El Periodico de Catalunya (ES) /
| country of issue | Spain |
|---|---|
| edition language | Catalan |
| publication category | daily newspaper |
| frequency | daily |
| geographic distribution | nationwide |
| political orientation | left-liberal |
| edition | 66.000 (2020) |
| views | 1.000.000 - 5.000.000 |
| publisher / publisher | Ediciones Primera Plana, S. A. |
| types of electronic payments | partially paid content |
A person needs social contacts!
In their article in the newspaper El Periódico de Catalunya, scientists Nuria Oliver and Marina Martínez Garcia share the results of their research on covid and social isolation:
“The results are shocking. More than a quarter of the population said that they are experiencing social isolation, and, surprisingly, this concerns middle-aged people (from 40 to 59 years) most of all. This level of isolation is unprecedented. ... Given that social contact is critical to a person's mental and physical health, programs and interventions need to be developed to help people reconnect with friends and family. ... This is a physically imperceptible, but extremely important investment in our mental well-being.”
Nuria Oliver
Marina Martínez García
original article
Õhtuleht (EE) /
| country of issue | Estonia |
|---|---|
| edition language | Estonian |
| publication category | daily newspaper |
| frequency | Monday to Saturday |
| geographical distribution | nationwide |
| political orientation | liberal |
| edition | 40. 900 Print, 12.000 Digitalabonnenten (2020). |
| views | 500.000 – 1.000.000 |
| publisher / publisher | AS SL Őhtuleht |
| types of electronic payments | partially paid content |
Mental health concerns
Today, it is not the situation of covid per se that should be of more concern, but the mental health of people, writes Õhtuleht:
“The coronavirus crisis will end soon, but the clouds of crisis are already gathering in the field of mental health. More and more people are in need of professional help. If you can't get an appointment with a doctor, you might want to look for books with advice on how to help yourself. There are some really useful books, but there are many others that would be better off not printed at all. A confused and confused person is easy prey for charlatans and pseudo-therapists who can only aggravate the situation.
It is necessary to reform the system of providing psychiatric care as soon as possible - so that each person has the opportunity to receive the desired treatment within a reasonable time, and, if necessary, state support in terms of access to medicines.”
original article
Cyprus Mail (CY) /
| country of issue | Cyprus |
|---|---|
| edition language | English |
| publication category | daily newspaper |
| frequency | several times a week |
| geographical distribution | nationwide |
| political orientation | liberal |
| edition | 2.500 (2020) |
| views | 5.000.000 – 10. 000.000 |
| publisher / publisher | Cyprus Mail Company LTD |
| types of electronic payments | free content |
Enough fear!
The Cyprus Mail writes about why the time has come to lift most of the restrictions:
“The overprotectiveness advocated by scientists may at first glance seem reasonable, but it is not. At least not in a situation where two years of a pandemic are behind us, during which most people lived in fear - fear that was sown and supported by the government and its scientific advisers and which caused only chronic stress and psychological problems for many people. ... For the sake of our mental health, we should look ahead - and gradually return to the normal life that it was before 2020.”
original article
Habertürk (TR) /
| country of issue | Türkiye |
|---|---|
| edition language | Turkish |
| publication category | internet portal |
| frequency | daily |
| geographical distribution | nationwide |
| political orientation | liberal conservative |
| views | 100. 000.000 – 150.000.000 |
| publisher / publisher | Ciner Yayın Holding / Turgay Ciner |
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Depression is contagious
The pandemic and the economic crisis primarily hit the psyche of our youth, writes the newspaper Habertürk, urging, however, not to hang up:
“You shouldn't be discouraged at all! If people are always discussing such an obsessive topic, then this only contributes to the spread of an atmosphere of pessimism and despair in society. But, you know, despondency is contagious. ... It makes us and all our environment unhappy, so things only get worse. ... But there is no such sadness that would last forever. Remember the years gone by! What problems and crises we, as a country, have not had to endure. But everything passed, changed - and became better. The hour will come, and today's days will surely end someday!
Kemal Öztürk
original article
Tages-Anzeiger (CH) /
| country of issue | Switzerland |
|---|---|
| edition language | German |
| publication category | daily newspaper |
| frequency | Monday to Saturday |
| geographical distribution | nationwide |
| political orientation | left-liberal |
| edition | 131.    Copyright © · The Wright Initiative · Articles · Site Map 
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