Why we feel loneliness? Explains a Psychologist

Loneliness is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation or lack of companionship. The state of being lonely or unfrequented is known as loneliness. Loneliness typically includes anxious feelings about a lack of communication with other beings. But being alone doesn’t mean you are lonely. When you are enjoying your solitude it means you are not feeling lonely. You can be alone without being lonely. When you feel isolated in a negative way it means you are lonely. How often do you feel lonely? Loneliness is a state of mind linked to wanting human contact but feeling alone.

Loneliness is often seen as rooted in weakness or self-pity as something that supposedly the individual should be able to eliminate since it is not a physical ailment. Loneliness affects people in different ways and for this reason, psychologists told that there are four types of loneliness i-e emotional, social, situational, and chronic.

Emotional Loneliness can be felt when you need someone to talk about something going on in your life but feels that there is no one available to contact. The person might be lonely for a close friend, a parent, a sibling, and so on. The person whose heart has broken might feel lonely for the person who has moved out of your life. Social loneliness describes the absence of social contact. Socially isolated people may lack friends and they often feel lonely or depressed. Situational loneliness is an impermanent experience although painful.it is a type of loneliness that occurs as a result of a person’s environment changing or their needs not being met. Chronic loneliness occurs when feelings of loneliness and uncomfortable social isolation go on for a long period of time.

Social media has completely changed the way that people communicate. The number of people experiencing loneliness is growing because of social media. Excessive social media participation can actually cause loneliness. A recent survey sponsored by the Psychologist from the University of Michigan, lead a study of the effects of social media on the moods of residents of Ann Arbor. Participants were asked five times per day how they were feeling in terms of happiness, loneliness, or depression. The results show that the more each person used social media in between being interviewed, the more they indicated they were feeling unhappy.” Asking if social media makes you lonely is a little asking if eating makes you fat”. While researchers aren’t entirely sure, it may be due to the lack of depth that these online relationships provide. Another way the use of social media correlates with the level of loneliness someone feels has to do with material goods and opportunities for example many people who don’t have much money get depressed and feel more isolated when they look at their friend’s feeds. These friends could be posting pics about their latest vacation. They might feel an even greater level of loneliness.” What are social characteristics of those who are lonely”?

Social media made us closer to people that are far away and make us too far away from those who are just next to us. Social media has changed the way we interact with our loved ones. it’s everywhere.it’s powerful. It’s not social media’s fault, it’s ours.

I have definitely witnessed especially between these years, the immense pressure that they endure. We have become exposed to an illusory world where we are witnessing perceived perfection from all angles. We see people looking like they have this “perfect life” full of perfect pictures, and it creates this paradigm in people’s minds that they do not compare to that and that they are not “good enough”.Studies have reported that people who excessively use the internet, spend less time interacting face to face which in terms results in loneliness what we found overall is that if you use less social media you are actually less. Is there a spatial component to loneliness?

Some might use social media to feel connected around the world and to know what is going on in other people’s lives. Some people might use social media to share some hidden aspects of their personality that are not revealed in the real world. Does happiness on social media make people lonely?

Individuals have a tendency to judge the people they see on social media sites as happier than themselves and as people who lead more exciting lives than they do. This view of others leaves the individual feeling worse off. The social comparison appears to be a key component of the association between network use and loneliness. In social media, We are the products, and we are letting others attribute value to us. Loneliness is very common. Everyone feels lonely from time to time but it is not a normal thing to have. Loneliness is a trigger in our mind that something is wrong. Loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Some doctors are trying to find the cure for loneliness i-e pills. Humans’ problems are connected to loneliness. The biggest cure for loneliness is to understand your problem. when we are isolated for too long a period of time our body signals loneliness so we have to fix it. They compare the craving of the company in socially isolated individuals to hunger states that trigger the search for food. So our body is literally searching for connectivity. The second step to cure loneliness is “Make a change”.when we want something that could be very uncomfortable, there is always going to be an excuse for everything. so it is going to be uncomfortable and more uncomfortable this thing is for you to do the more excuses you find. we need to break those excuses and learn what we are doing for our health and happiness.

So it is going to be uncomfortable a lot of time to make these changes especially if you are very shy. The third step to cure loneliness is to bring an old hobby back to your life. Some hobbies might include Reading regularly, playing a sport, painting, gardening, cooking, and so on. Whenever you are hit with those pangs of loneliness, make a conscious effort to go spend time on your hobby. The fourth step to cure loneliness is to make big plans so that you have events to look forward to. Take time to make a list of possible activities you might want to do. Loneliness can really hurt sometimes, but it gives you the opportunity to learn, heal and show yourself, love. To anyone who is struggling with loneliness, don’t lower your standards or remove your boundaries simply to be involved with others! what is meant to be, will be! Sometimes you just have to rock out by yourself! Know when to engage or disengage from the online world when combating loneliness. I have seen a massive increase in panic attacks, and anxiety on a whole, especially in young people. Hopefully, this discussion around mental health as a whole can be accessed more. We should use it only in an inspirational way so that we can feel better and not worse at the end of our day.