Why You Are Feeling Lonely—and What You Can Do About It

What Does it Mean to Be Lonely?

Most of us know what it feels like to be lonely. Loneliness hits us in the face with waves of negative emotion. Researchers studying loneliness have gathered descriptions of the experience from lonely people, who use words like “lostness,” “wrong and ugly,” “helplessness and emptiness,” “painful feelings,” and “anxiety and distress” to capture snapshots of their feelings.

It might also be helpful to consider what is NOT loneliness. First, depression and loneliness are distinct states. While it’s true that experiencing depression and loss often leads to loneliness, loneliness can exist without depression.

Loneliness is also not the same as simply being alone. This surprising observation arises from the formal definition of loneliness as a perceived discrepancy between the amount of social contact you want and the amount you actually have.

Loneliness is in your head, not some fixed reality based on the number of friends you do or do not have. Loneliness works like the thermostat in your house. You have a set point for the amount of social contact you want, just like you set a comfortable set point for the temperature in your home. Deficits from that set point stimulate a programmed set of responses, whether that is feeling lonely or turning on the furnace.

For some people, that set point is very high. These individuals might still feel lonely when they outwardly appear to be surrounded by a rich network of friends and family members. Other people seem quite content with a much smaller social circle or perhaps just a friendly pet. The important point is that loneliness happens when you want more social contact than you have.

Loneliness operates at different levels, from intimate to relational to collective.

• Intimate loneliness occurs when a person feels a lack of very close relationships, such as those we typically find with a romantic partner, family members, or intimate friends.
• Relational loneliness refers to a deficit in contacts from a somewhat larger sphere. A student might sit alone in the cafeteria at lunch or coworkers gather for an after-hours drink without you.
• Collective loneliness comes from feeling left out of the larger group, whether that is your community, culture, or even nation.

When I poll my college students, most of whom are in the emerging adulthood stage of life, they overwhelmingly choose intimate loneliness as their most frequent loneliness experience. I know Erik Erikson is a bit out of fashion these days, but his depiction of the major challenge of young adulthood as “intimacy versus isolation” certainly seems to fit my students’ responses. It is likely that intimate, relational, and collective loneliness form complex interactions not just with age, but with many other variables that psychologists are only now beginning to explore.

Why Do We Get Lonely?

William James, our first official American psychologist, proposed a model of functionalism that saw behavior as purposeful rather than random. If James is correct, what possible function can loneliness play? Isn’t it just something terrible that we should get rid of?

One of the clues that tells us loneliness is purposeful is the fact that genetics play a sizeable role in our experience of loneliness. Whether you need large or small numbers of connections to avoid loneliness is about 55 percent heritable. This means that over half of the variability we see in people’s desired connectivity is due to their genes.

Evolution works to sustain traits that contribute to survival and reproductive success. To understand why we might have evolved the ability to feel lonely, it is important to remember that human beings are remarkably social as a species. Individual humans are not very fearsome. We lack claws and fangs, and we’re not all that fast. What makes us formidable is our ability to cooperate to meet goals.

Single humans might not get much done, but groups of humans built the great pyramids of Egypt and put astronauts on the moon. Along the same lines, single humans are not as likely to survive. In our hunter-gatherer days, which comprise at least 90 percent of human history, an isolated human was unlikely to last very long. Obtaining food and avoiding predators would be very difficult.

It’s no wonder, then, that we experience such a strong, negative response to perceived isolation. After all, one of the very worst things we do to other human beings is to hold them in solitary confinement.

We can therefore view loneliness as an evolved response to perceived social isolation. It serves as a yellow alert warning that our social connectivity is at risk, and this can have significant implications for our survival.

Stopping the Loneliness Spiral

Left unchecked, this spiral of self-fulfilling prophecies will work to make the person more and more lonely. The stress of continued loneliness has clear and negative effects not just on psychological well-being but also on physical health. A large meta-analysis (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010) found that the effects of loneliness on mortality were similar to those of known health risks, including smoking and obesity.

But how do we intervene? The first step is insight. Knowing that what we’re feeling is loneliness, why it’s there, and what it does to our behavior and cognitions are key steps on the way to feeling better. As with all psychological conditions, our tendency to feel like we’re the only ones on the planet with the same problem is a considerable obstacle to recovery. Understanding that what we’re experiencing is normal and well-understood takes some of that fear away.

Next, we can audit our “strong” relationships. These are existing relationships, usually long-term ones, that we might be neglecting. Some might be beyond repair, such as romantic relationships with an ex, but others might be salvageable. Maybe in the flurry of work, kids, and laundry, you’ve failed to stay in touch with a sibling. Taking a little time out to reconnect might be just what you need.

Even if you can’t improve existing strong relationships, we can take heart from research findings that say a few interactions with “weak” connections add up to the benefit of a few strong connections. Don’t let these opportunities go by. Greet your neighbors and compliment them on their flowers while you’re out walking your dog. Ask your barista how her day is going. People in service industries who wait on the public can tell you how meaningful it is to be treated like a real human rather than a latte-making robot.

For people raised to fear “stranger danger,” it might be hard to start conversations with people you don’t know, but cultivating this social skill can bring very positive results. I am not one of those people who insist on conversing with people seated next to me on airplanes, but if someone wants to talk, I’m happy to participate. I’ve learned some very interesting things this way, including what a 30 percent chance of rain really means from a young naval officer who provides his unit with weather data.

I sat next to an elementary school principal from the Los Angeles area, an immigrant from Cuba, who chided me because my university thought training teachers as bilingual meant Spanish/English when most of her families were from the Ukraine. Then there was the Australian man who was most excited about renting a “big American truck” while taking his family on a holiday across the US. These little interactions remind us of our own humanity and our connections with others, which is just what we need to hold off loneliness.

In 2016, a UK Member of Parliament, Jo Cox, advocated for government attention to loneliness. After her tragic murder, her Commission on Loneliness became even more motivated, and the UK appointed the first Minister for Loneliness in 2018. The UK Campaign to End Loneliness presents a wide range of strategies and programs aimed at reducing loneliness.

It is hard to imagine another psychological phenomenon that cuts across so many domains as loneliness does. Whether you are focused on gender-related issues, youth suicide, bullying, substance abuse, cognitive decline, or any number of psychological challenges, loneliness and social isolation are a constant. Addressing loneliness in conjunction with other problems might boost our abilities to improve the well-being of clients.