“Loneliness is as natural as feeling hungry or thirsty.”
We all feel lonely from time to time. Whether you’ve just moved to a new city or made a major life change like retiring after 30 years in the workforce, it’s completely normal to feel a sense of longing throughout various stages of your life.
“Loneliness is as natural as feeling hungry or thirsty,” says Brigham Young University professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Ph.D., who studies the effects of social relationships on long-term health. “It’s our biology signaling that we have unmet needs, and those are important survival needs.”
But if you go too long without addressing loneliness, it can have some pretty serious consequences on your health. Believe it or not, the effects of prolonged isolation are equivalent to that of smoking 15 cigarettes a day and can shorten a person’s life span by as many as 15 years, according to the National Institute on Aging. That said, feeling lonely and being alone aren’t one and the same. One important distinction to make that is loneliness is a specific emotion, while being alone is a state of being. So you can be by yourself and not feel lonely. In fact, you can be in solitude and feel freaking fantastic — we all know that welcome sensation of silence after a long family dinner or evening out with friends.
“The key to identifying loneliness is connecting with whether or not you feel a sadness related to not having a connection with others,” says Nina Vasan, MD, the founder of the American Psychiatric Association’s Psychiatry Innovation Lab, which has helped incubate more than 60 mental health startups.
If it’s loneliness you’re experiencing, there are some ways to cope. We talked with three different mental health experts about how to approach those lonesome feelings when they come knocking on your door.
Nurture your relationships with family and friends
Counter to what you might think, feelings of loneliness don’t necessarily have to do with how big or small your support network is. Consider this permission to apply the “quality over quantity” rule to your friendships (and cancel your plans with that one old friend you’ve come to dislike): Dr. Vasan says you only need two or three strong and supportive friendships. This seemingly goes against the typical advice you might receive if you express feelings of loneliness, which tends to be “Get out and meet new people!” But if these connections aren’t fulfilling, that effort could actually backfire.
“If we only focus on increasing social contact without attention to quality, we could suffer unintended negative consequences,” Dr. Holt-Lunstad tells us. “While it could increase positive interactions, it could also increase negative interactions — and we need to aim for high-quality social connection.”
If you have a small-but-mighty support system, make sure you nurture those relationships, instead of seeking out new ones the moment loneliness hits. The key could be as simple as calling a loved one and starting a conversation about current events or an issue that’s important to you. Don’t let an intense conversation intimidate you, though — it doesn’t always have to be that deep. A casual check-in just to say “hello” could make a marked difference in your mood and theirs: A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2022 found that people consistently underestimated how much those in their social circles were happy to hear from them via text message — and the less-expected the outreach, the greater the impact the message had on them.
Consider adopting a pet
Adopting a pet is a huge responsibility and shouldn’t be taken lightly, but in terms of emotional impact, it’s one of those gifts that just keeps on giving. The unconditional love a pet dog, cat, or even gerbil provides can ease feelings of isolation: A study published in the journal Aging and Mental Health found that pet owners 60 years and older were 36 percent less likely than non-pet owners to report loneliness. Of course, these findings don’t prove that pets alone can alleviate loneliness, but it’s common knowledge that animals can help provide steady companionship.
And, for better or worse, they’re consistent. You can pretty much count on them to let you know when they need to go to the bathroom or when they’re hungry by way of pawing, moaning, or some other annoying signal to wake you up at an ungodly hour. So even though taking care of a pet isn’t always convenient, routine can be comforting, and walking or engaging with an animal can snap you out of a sedentary situation, even if only for a moment.
Activities like simply going outside may decrease your feelings of social isolation, and while it might be hard to find the motivation to do so in dark times, the risk of a pet relieving themselves on your carpet will get you off the couch. Plus, Dr. Holt-Lunstad points out that pets — especially dogs — can help facilitate interactions with other humans, as well. While we can’t guarantee a leash-entangled love match a la 101 Dalmatians, animals are an easy conversation starter — even for non-pet owners! “Can I pet your dog?” is such a commonly asked question, it’s led to some hilarious exchanges.
“While both cats and dogs might provide companionship, you typically have to walk dogs, which means you’re getting outside, you’re being more active,” Dr. Holt-Lunstad tells us. “They can become a buffer for interacting with other people who might ask to pet your dog and then suddenly you’re having conversations with other people.”
Reset your perspective
One of the many downsides to loneliness is it can make you fall into a cycle of self-defeating thought patterns, according to psychologist Richard Weissbourd, a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.
“You have a tendency to overestimate how critical people are when you’re lonely, and you also tend to think that you’re reaching out to people more than they are to you and that’s often not the reality,” he says.
One way to avoid this unhelpful thought spiral is to practice mindfulness, a type of meditation that involves focusing on being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling in the moment. Dr. Vasan recommends setting aside time once a day to clear your mind and ground yourself in the present moment.
Believe it or not, loneliness can be good for you sometimes because a moment of solitude can lead to life-changing revelations. “A lot of times when people are lonely, they become more reflective about their relationships, including what is and what isn’t gratifying,” Weissbourd tells us. “It can really help them rethink and refocus.” So if you’re with a friend but you notice unexpected loneliness creeping in, that could be a sign the friendship isn’t fulfilling or healthy. And then you have that feeling to thank for showing you who isn’t serving you in your life.
Don’t be afraid to ask for professional support
Over time, ignoring severe loneliness can lead to serious mental health disorders and addictions. Social isolation isn’t just a telltale sign of depression — it can actually fuel feelings of lonesomeness.
“Depression and substance use are particularly impacted by loneliness, because loneliness makes it harder to seek the resources you need in order to get better,” says Dr. Vasan. Depression leaves some struggling just to get the support they need, because many already find it difficult just to function and do everyday activities like taking a bath or getting out of bed.
If you notice that you’re turning to substances to quell your yearning for companionship, our experts agree that it’s important to consider seeking help from a psychologist or mental health expert. We have tips on how to find the right therapist for your needs, and it might also be beneficial to check out online support groups for your specific concern, such as addiction or depression. Most of these are free or ask for a small donation.
Dr. Vasan points out, “Being able to actually connect with someone else who is also experiencing depression helps because it’s inescapable evidence during a dark moment that you’re not, in fact, alone.”
