Contributing factors to loneliness include situational variables, such as physical isolation, moving to a new location, and divorce. 2 The death of someone significant in a person's life can also lead to feelings of loneliness. Loneliness can also be attributed to internal factors such as low self-esteem.
What causes loneliness? There is not one single cause of loneliness. Loneliness can often be a result of life changes or circumstances that include living alone, changing your living arrangements, having financial problems, or death of a loved one.
Some of the most common causes of loneliness include: Social Anxiety, Isolation, Difficulty with Assertiveness, and Poor Self-awareness. Common types or forms of loneliness include: Lack of Physical Connection, Lack of Common Interests, Lack of Shared Values, Lack of Emotional Intimacy, and Lack of Self-Intimacy.
Loneliness affects people in different ways, and for this reason there are four distinct types of loneliness identified by psychologists: emotional, social, situational and chronic.
A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) points out that more than one-third of adults aged 45 and older feel lonely, and nearly one-fourth of adults aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated.
When someone feels lonely they are more likely to try to distract themselves with the other things in their lives. So if your colleague is always talking about their stamp collection, or always flying away on exotic solo city breaks rather than spending weekends at home, they might be feeling alone.
Research has linked social isolation and loneliness to higher risks for a variety of physical and mental conditions: high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, Alzheimer's disease, and even death.
Your nervous system goes into fight-or-flight mode, making it harder to sleep. When you're lonely, research shows that your brain can produce an excess of norepinephrine, a hormone that's a crucial “signal during the fight or flight response.” Loneliness can feel, to our social selves, like dire straits.
Most notably, researchers found that loneliness rates peak among people in their 20s, and reach their lowest point among those in their 60s. Many people also experience a spike in lonely feelings around their mid-40s. These findings are as confounding as they are surprising, at least initially.
One common description of loneliness is the feeling we get when our need for rewarding social contact and relationships is not met. But loneliness is not always the same as being alone. You may choose to be alone and live happily without much contact with other people, while others may find this a lonely experience.
If you're lonely, you may feel sad, empty, or as if you're lacking something important when you spend time by yourself. Chronic loneliness can also involve the following symptoms: decreased energy. feeling foggy or unable to focus.
Long term feelings of loneliness and social isolation can also reduce cognitive skills, such as the ability to concentrate, make decisions, problem-solve, and even change negative self-beliefs. And it can ultimately lead to depression.
"Lacking encouragement from family or friends, those who are lonely may slide into unhealthy habits," Valtorta says. "In addition, loneliness has been found to raise levels of stress, impede sleep and, in turn, harm the body. Loneliness can also augment depression or anxiety."
The reason you have no friends may be because you are shy, uncomfortable interacting with others, or simply don't go places that would lead to meeting new people. You don't have friends may have a lot to do with your mindset.
"Loneliness can change the neurochemistry of the brain, turning off the dopamine neurons, which trigger the reward response, and causing some degeneration in the brain when the reward response is not activated," says Katherine Peters, MD, PhD, FAAN, associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Duke University.
Moving has a host of benefits, including helping you beat the blues of loneliness. Try dance, yoga, or going for a walk, or find an exercise class online. Staying active can help with depression, anxiety, stress, and a host of other things that can come with being lonely.
It may take some time, but it's very possible to build new relationships or deepen existing connections in your life. If you aren't sure what you can do to feel less lonely, consider reaching out to a therapist who can offer help and support.
These feelings of loneliness may ultimately lead to posttraumatic stress symptoms via a number of pathways. For example, loneliness may lead to the development of negative cognitions (Cacioppo and Hawkley, 2009), which can predict future PTSD symptoms and impact PTSD treatment (Brown et al., 2019).
For instance, loneliness is correlated with social anxiety, social inhibition (shyness), sadness, hostility, distrust, and low self-esteem, characteristics that hamper one's ability to interact in skillful and rewarding ways.
Defining Chronic Loneliness
You don't have any close friends. The people you see are casual acquaintances you can spend time with, but you don't have a deep connection with them. You experience feelings of isolation even when you're surrounded by other people or in large groups.
Researchers find that loneliness ebbs and flows as we age, in relatively predictable ways. Counterintuitively, we tend to be lonelier when young—and also when old. Among those high-risk groups, as many as one quarter of people may feel lonely on a regular basis.