Have you been feeling lonely lately? You’re not alone.
A recent study from the BBC found that young people are the most lonely age group: 40% of young adults say they are lonely “often” or “very often.” And that loneliness has only gotten worse due to COVID-19. Another survey found that 79% of Gen Z-ers felt lonely in 2019 and that 75% of Gen Z-ers feel more lonely because of the pandemic.
All of this shows that loneliness is a very common experience. It’s easy to assume that you’re the only person feeling lonely or isolated from others, but most people deal with the feeling of loneliness at some point throughout their lives.
What makes people unique is how they cope with loneliness. Loneliness can be a self-sustaining cycle: the more lonely and isolated you feel, the harder it becomes to reach out. That’s why the need for resources to deal with loneliness is so great. You can break the cycle of loneliness by learning how to:
- Be kinder to yourself.
- Reconnect with others.
- Build strong, new relationships.
How to Care for Yourself:
You may think loneliness is all about your relationships with other people. For example, many people feel lonely after a breakup or when they haven’t seen their friends in a while. But loneliness is also about your relationship with yourself: if you can’t care for yourself, then it’s harder to feel confident and content.
When you feel lonely, you might start to be mad or disappointed with yourself. Many people who feel lonely or depressed ask themselves:
- Am I crazy for feeling so lonely?
- Is it my fault for feeling lonely?
- Is there something wrong with me?
These questions only make loneliness worse. You can begin to think that your loneliness is inescapable or neverending. By reframing your thoughts and doing mental health activities for teens, you can improve your mood and stop feeling lost and lonely.
Self-Care Activities:
Especially if your loneliness is short-term or intermittent, you might just need some time to relax and reset. Feelings of boredom, sadness, and stress can all contribute to loneliness, so addressing these emotions can also help you stop feeling lonely.
In these situations, simply taking good care of yourself can make you feel better. Spending some time on a relaxing activity can distract you from your feelings of loneliness and make you feel happier. If you’re feeling lonely, you could try:
- Taking a long shower or bubble bath
- Listening to your favorite song
- Taking a long walk or jog
- Getting a good night’s sleep
- Eating your favorite meal
- Playing with your pet, if you have one
And if you need more ideas, check out these mental health activities for teens, this advice about how to take care of yourself emotionally, or these stress management techniques for students.
Communication Skills:
Research shows that loneliness isn’t related to social skills — in fact, people who regularly feel lonely tend to be more empathetic. However, working on your communication skills can increase your confidence in your ability to make friends.
This guide to communication skill-building is a good place to start. There are three basic types of communication:
- Passive communication: avoid sharing wants/feelings
- Aggressive communication: share wants/feelings in a mean, ironic, or threatening manner
- Assertive communication: share wants/feelings in a clear, honest, and respectful way
Learning to communicate assertively can improve your existing friendships and make it easier to form new ones. If you can clearly and respectfully communicate with others, they’re more likely to want to continue talking with you.
Try observing how you communicate with others in your daily life. Do you have a tendency not tolisten to others? Do you agree with everything to avoid conflict? Do you have a hard time saying what you really mean? Once you know where you’re struggling to communicate with others, you can work to shift your behaviors, one day at a time.
In addition, one way to cope with loneliness is to change the way you communicate with yourself. Even if loneliness has an external cause, like a breakup or sense of exclusion, it generally has an internal one, too: negative self-talk. When you think of yourself as awkward or unloveable, you start to feel more isolated and alone.
You can start to alter those thought patterns by actively changing the way you talk to yourself:
- Validate your emotions: When you’re feeling lonely, remind yourself that it’s okay to experience negative feelings and that everyone sometimes feels lonely.
- Use the reverse golden rule: Treat yourself the way you’d like others to be treated. If a friend were feeling sad, what would you say to reassure them? Try saying that to yourself.
- Practice gratitude: Make a list of at least five things you love about yourself. Remember that you have worth and that others should appreciate it!
How to Reconnect With Others:
Loneliness has many different causes: it’s possible to be lonely when surrounded by a group of friends, just like it’s possible to feel happy while spending time by yourself. But for many people, loneliness happens when they feel disconnected from others and out of touch with their friends.
Feeling lonely doesn’t mean that you have no close relationships: it might just be that you haven’t reached out to your friends in a while. That’s why one of the best ways to deal with loneliness is to reconnect with others in a simple three-step process:
- Identify the people you want to reach out to.
- Reach out!
- Set up a way to keep in touch.
Identifying Who to Talk to:
Sometimes identifying the person you want to reach out to is easy. This is especially true if you feel lonely for a highly specific reason.
For example, imagine you feel lonely because two of your friends are hanging without you. You might realize that you haven’t spoken to those friends in a while and that you miss spending time with them. Rather than losing yourself in a spiral of negative thoughts — “Why did they leave me out?” “Do they secretly dislike me?” “Are they not really my friends?” — remind yourself that your friends are your friends, and reach out!
At other times, though, it can be harder to figure out who is the best person to help you stop feeling lonely. You can use a few different strategies depending on your situation.
If you’re feeling lonely in a relationship, you have a few options:
- Consider talking to the person who makes you feel lonely. Maybe there’s a problem in your relationship, and discussing it with them could help: for example, you might feel lonely because they aren’t actively listening when you speak, and raising the problem with them can help them change their behavior.
- Consider spending time with people who make you happy! If one friendship leads you to feel drained and lonely, then taking a step back and interacting with the people you know you’re close to can make you feel better.
- Consider whether you’re in a healthy relationship. If someone regularly makes you feel isolated or unsure, and if talking to them hasn’t helped, then it might be time to move on from the relationship.
If you’re feeling lonely and haven’t seen your friends in a while, try identifying the people that you want to talk to and be closer to. Maybe there’s a friend who’s on your mind and whom you haven’t texted in a while. Maybe there’s a classmate whom you want to get to know better. You might want to make a list of people to reach out to when you feel lonely. And when you’re really stuck, try this support mapping activity. Asking yourself the following questions can help you find the people who will reduce your loneliness:
- Who is someone who brings me joy?
- Who is someone who never judges me?
- Who is someone who makes me feel heard?
- Who is someone I can go to when I’m struggling?
Reaching Out:
Now that you know who you want to reach out to, all you have to do is reach out. Easier said than done, right? Loneliness can increase anxiety, including social anxiety, and make you afraid to contact people, especially if you feel like you’re not very close with them.
First, remind yourself that all of this is totally normal. Your friends will appreciate it when you reach out to them — they probably miss talking to you, too! This video from Peer Health Exchange Health Educator Wasan about how a simple question turned his day around shows how nice it is to receive a check-in text from a friend you haven’t spoken to lately.
Then, identify how you want to reach out. The options are practically endless.
This video has other ideas for how to stay connected while social distancing, from watching movies together on Netflix Party to sending them a conversation-starting tweet.
Staying in Touch:
Having one conversation is nice, but it’s easy to end the communication there. To deal with loneliness long-term, you need a way to stay in regular contact with your friends.
This might not be a problem for some of your friends: maybe you text each other regularly or see each other in school every day. But for other friends, you might need a system in place to make sure that you don’t let the relationship fade.
It’s not essential to do this for every friendship. You’ll want to talk to some friends daily and some friends every once in a while. However, if there’s a relationship that you realize you’ve been neglecting and that you want to start to prioritize, these ideas can help.
- Set up a regular time to talk: Having a consistent way to interact can prevent you from forgetting about the connection and feeling lonely all over again.
- Fill out this #ShowUp BINGO over time: Try doing something small with them every week, from sending them a text to working on online assignments together.
- Rethink your priorities: Maybe you’re spending too much time on schoolwork, or maybe you want to cut back on the time you spend scrolling through social media. Identify the activities that make itt hard for you to spend more time with your friends and prioritize your mental health.
How to Make New Friends:
If you already have an established social network, reconnecting with old friends might be enough to cope with your loneliness. But maybe you’re wondering how to deal with loneliness without friends: you might have just started a new school, or you might be dissatisfied with your current friend group, or you might just want to meet new people.
Whatever the case may be, there are plenty of ways to connect with new people online and in person, allowing you to overcome your loneliness by forming new friendships.
Ways to Meet People Online & Ways to Meet People In Person:
Explore social media communities (like subreddits or Discord channels) for people with similar backgrounds, hobbies, or interests.
Join a club at your school based on an interest of yours. Consider trying something new!
Use a site like Meetup to find virtual and in-person groups with shared interests or another app designed to help you meet others.
Start volunteering at a local nonprofit or apply for jobs at nearby businesses. Having a shared activity makes it easier to become friends with your coworkers.
Use platforms for young people with certain identities, like TrevorSpace, a community for LGBTQ teens.
Visit a local community center or library. These spaces often have events for young people.
If you regularly experience loneliness, anxiety, depression, and other negative emotions, you might also want to seek therapy. Professional mental health counselors can help you work through social anxiety and find new ways to cope with loneliness. Try talking to your parents or school counselors about therapy, or use the following resources:
- Ways to talk about mental health with others
- Strategies for accessing low-cost therapy
- Advice if your parents won’t help you get therapy
And if you’re in a crisis and need to talk to someone, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255).
What’s Next?
The way you decide to deal with loneliness will depend on a range of factors like why you’re feeling lonely, how often you feel lonely, and how strong your relationships are. The way you cope with loneliness after a breakup is probably different from the way you overcome chronic loneliness and depression.
Try a few different strategies and see what works for you. Sometimes, you only need a day of rest and relaxation to feel more satisfied with your life and friendships. At other times, you might want to reach out and meet new people to find a social circle that you enjoy. Above all, remember that you’re not alone: by being kind to yourself and reaching out to others, you can not only improve your mood but also help those around you.