Why lonely feeling

Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Feeling lonely doesn't only happen when you're alone. In fact, some people enjoy time to themselves. Loneliness is a normal, human experience. But when left unchecked, it can be bad for your emotional and physical health. Some studies have found that loneliness is just as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day.

Here are 10 things you can do right away when you feel lonely. Everyone feels lonely sometimes. Studies have found that labeling your feelings can reduce the intensity of them. Sometimes you need to solve a problem. At other times, you need to solve how you feel about the problem. Consider whether the best way to address your lonely feelings should involve solving the problem by connecting with someone or solving how you feel about the problem taking care of your emotions.

If you are feeling lonely on a Friday night and you have friends or family members you could call, you might decide the best way to tackle the issue is to reach out to someone.

You might find that talking on the phone helps. Or, you might invite someone to spend time with you. If you reach out to people and no one responds, you might feel even lonelier. Address how you feel about being lonely, rather than try to connect with someone. You might choose to engage in a healthy coping strategy that allows you to feel better. Drawing, knitting, or gardening are just a few examples of solitary activities that might help you deal with your loneliness in a healthy way.

School is designed for conformity and standardization — much of the exploration, fun, and creativity disappeared when there became less room for PE, music, art, language, and free time as part of a standard curriculum. Community and play are seen as almost frivolous. Isolation becomes part of the norm from a very early age.

This phenomenon might be particularly true for New Yorkers in that many relationships are built on what someone can do for you, rather than how much you just genuinely enjoy being around and feel close to someone.

Relationships, then, become commodities to be acquired in the same way as a new car or the latest gadget. This does not bode well for emotional closeness. As such, one is never fulfilled and just needs more, more, and more. We live in an interesting time wherein there is an expert for literally everything.

We are told what to eat, how to bathe, what our bodies should do and look like, how to breathe, how to poop, and how to make love. And, so, people tend to question everything. Emotional connection requires being touch with, well, your emotions. And, being able to trust those emotions without anyone else telling you what you should or should not do.

No one is an expert on you besides you. People can change. We are a social species. The ability to connect is inherent in all of us, even if it might look very different for any given individual. So what is going on? So what might prevent a person from being able to do that? History of Trauma Another major findings of the previously mentioned study was that individuals with histories of trauma were also those with the highest rates of subjective loneliness.

You can still cherish your most special memories with a One Line A Day journal. The process will remind you you're not alone, and the memories are bound to improve your mood. Smiling at yourself in the mirror is an unusual ask—Cacioppo gets it.

So, she recommends closing your eyes and thinking of the last time you made someone smile or laugh and let your body do the rest. Will it feel strange? But, will it help? Also yes. Just thinking of a time when you were feeling giddy will automatically bring a smile to your face—a move that will set off all those feel-good neurotransmitters in your brain and trick you into feeling happier than you were just a few secs before.

Once you're feeling a little better, hold onto that feeling by leaning into something that makes you feel really good, such as cracking open your favorite book or going for a run. When you're lonely, you'll bury yourself in your thoughts—usually bummer ones—but, as they say, "gratitude turns what we have into enough. Doing this will shift your thoughts from ones about you and your slump, to those about other people you care about and positive factors in your life.

To make sure you're letting loneliness drive you toward the right thing, consider signing up to volunteer. Dedicating a day to working with the elderly or making meals at a soup kitchen will fulfill your desire to feel needed and draw you away from the self-centered mindset that loneliness brings on. Plus, the time you spend getting to know the people you're serving will bring out some of the intimacy and connection you've been craving.

These Dog Makeovers Are Amazing. This one's great for a ton of reasons. But when it comes to loneliness, interacting with animals has the power to release dopamine in the brain, which is a biggie since the chemical is associated with pleasure and rewards. More than that, walking your dog or taking your cat to the vet for a checkup is an opportunity to start up conversations with other pet owners and maybe even make a new friend, says Cacioppo. It might make you uncomfortable at first, but it might also be totally worth it.

Sign up for a pottery class or a club for fellow true crime documentary lovers, for example. Oh, the club you want doesn't exist? Start one. Interacting with people with whom you share a common interest makes for a better chance at forming meaningful connections, Cacioppo says, which is usually what lonely people are missing from life. Yeah, you probably already have waking up, working, eating, and exercising down pat, but maybe your life's in need of a little more structure, suggests Cacioppo.

Feelings of loneliness often feel like they'll last forever and there's nothing you can do to escape the dark cloud hanging over your head, but that's not true. It can be hard to remind yourself that loneliness is usually temporary, so Cacioppo recommends a strict schedule. Anyone can experience loneliness. However, the way you experience loneliness can be different to somebody else. Some people can be alone and not feel lonely and others can be surrounded by people and feel lonely.

Do you relate to this phrase? If so, know that a lot of young people think that too, including us.