Do you often feel lonely from time to time?
Well let me tell you that loneliness can affect you when you are alone with no one or even when you are surrounded by many people, this is because you don’t feel proud of your relationships or you think that these people don’t fulfill you. One example is being single or in a relationship, being single can make you feel lonely more often, but even if you are in a stable relationship the feeling of loneliness can affect you. Thanks to the research of many scientists, they have discovered things you can do when you are alone to feel much better and see that you don’t need the company of anyone to feel good. Experts recommend the following activities to get rid of that lonely feeling:
If you think you are going to be alone, plan activities that you enjoy before you are alone.
Don’t waste time thinking that this is something you will do when you feel lonely, or that you don’t care and that you won’t do anything to remedy this problem, be cautious and make this list. Making this list before you feel lonely will help you a lot when you get lonely, because it is very simple, when you feel bad it is very likely that you will not have the inspiration and the desire to think to make the list. My main suggestions that you can do are: Do playful or sporting activities, look for ways to help others and do things that make you feel better emotionally.
Let’s be more concrete about the things you can do to feel better, in the part of playful activities or sports you can do things like running, jigsaw puzzles, puzzles, cycling, swimming, visiting a museum and learning new information, taking a bus trip, visiting curious places in your city….
All these activities you can do on your own and you don’t have to depend on anyone else!
In the way of helping others you could make a list of things that people need and try to solve their problems or do something for them, for example walking a neighbour’s dog, helping an elderly person to do the shopping, or visiting them to keep them company, activities like this. But I want you to know that the main objective is to get you out of your own way.
Finally, another thing you can do to lift your emotions is to listen to music that fills you up and stirs memories, a kind of music that you like and that helps you to awaken connections between yourself and life. If you are reading this and you still don’t feel you can do any of these things to feel better, it is important that you finish the whole list.
Listen to stories and read
One of the ways you have to get out of your head is to read or listen to stories, this way to get out of your problems is supported by many professionals in clinical psychology and psychotherapists, the benefits that give you do this activity are very clear, you enter a parallel world to hear the versions of people and events that have happened to them in life, learn to see the luck you have and start to get out of your own thoughts, also give you ideas to do things and that is very important. You can find these stories on people’s podcasts on the internet or on spotify. An example could be “The Moth”, a podcast where they tell wonderful stories which share human experiences by looking at it from many human perspectives.
Another advantage and benefit of listening to stories of other people who have gone through difficult situations or shocking things in their lives is that you feel connected to others and develop empathy.
Listening to stories makes you travel emotionally and without running the risk of feeling connected to other people, you will get an insight and a perspective of the situation they have lived through and you will be able to gain experience from other situations. Apart from all this it is very entertaining and a very interesting activity.
Volunteering in social or recreational actions.
One of the ways that can make me feel better is not only to give something back to other people, this gesture will help you and them. Being a kind and polite person will make you bring a smile to other people’s faces and you can’t pay for that with anything in the world, it’s a very nice and unique gesture. By making this gesture you break down the isolation and negative feelings that loneliness can cause, you help other people and you help them and your mental health. Research by the British Medical Journal showed how helping people and not being selfish improved emotional wellbeing. This was especially true for people over the age of 40 who are reaching old age, these are the years when people feel most lonely and neglected.
The best places you can look for to volunteer and help others are places where you see that people can feel lonely, an example of such a place would be Meals on Wheels, an organisation that helps children in wheelchairs. An example of this is Meals on Wheels, an organisation that helps children in wheelchairs. The key to all of this is to donate your time to people in need and by donating your time you will make them feel better and supported, exactly what you need. This will quickly make you value the time with your friends or with people, as we said before you are doing someone a favour and you are also doing yourself a favour.
Another phrase to remember is: You have to find a way to connect with the world and with others, some people are less fortunate and we don’t realise it and we think we are in the worst situation we could be in, but we are not. Many places have phone numbers to sign up and go and volunteer, if not you can look for websites where you can sign up virtually.
Make anything
Normally you will always feel much better after creating anything, it can be anything, it can be something material or a drawing, something to eat, whatever your imagination wants! The aspect that can bother you the most and can make you feel depressed is the fact that you feel empty and out of connections with the people in the world. But it won’t go on forever and there is a solution, so look inside yourself.
You may think that drawing or writing doesn’t work but it doesn’t, it works in such a way that we start from a first point which is a blank page, and from there we gradually make things and fill the page, we make decisions about how to do it and what we want, we explore where the kind of decisions we make to fill that empty space will lead us.
When you create things you get in touch with your inner self and that helps you to know yourself better and to connect with yourself. The key is to learn to express our life with our inner self and put it somewhere, what you do is very useful and you improve as a person, the feeling is highly dangerous because it is very rewarding. The creativity we develop is very attractive to our brain and our emotions.
Learn to meditate
Why do I say learn? Well, it is very common that you have not meditated because it is not an action that many people do. Have you ever meditated yourself? If you have, you will already know all the great benefits it has, but if you haven’t, it is important that you start practising meditation. It’s not as daunting as it sounds and it helps your mental and physical health – a moment of relaxation a day never hurts. Sit down, get into a comfortable position, find the part of your body that feels tight, after scanning your body and noticing the forces that make it up, move on to notice the parts that make it up and move it, learn to see it and feel it. Breathe strongly and send strength to the part of the body that you notice is weaker.
After having sent strength and improved the areas where your pains come from, take the opportunity to continue sitting and think about people who have the same feeling as you and who also feel lonely, think about other cases and other situations in which you could find yourself which are much more frightening. Continue to sit and think about how things are going and take the opportunity to send strength and light to the other people who are not well. You have to get to feel how you are bathing their heart with an energy that will heal them and notice how we are all connected to each other. We all carry the feeling of loneliness within us, we just carry it differently. Use it to help yourself and apply yourself and include yourself in the cycle of people’s relationships.
Just as listening to stories will connect you to the emotions of others, this exercise will help you feel connected and empathise with other lonely people, which will help you feel less lonely.
Move your body
Start exercising and using your strength, it doesn’t need to be very hard, a movement of the body already helps to get rid of the feelings of loneliness. The problem when we feel lonely is that we end up spending a lot of time in our head, thinking about the feelings our body endures and how we see our life. The moments of loneliness come when we are isolated or don’t have activities to do, that’s why it is so important to move and be busy, so you will counteract the moments when you feel bad with activity and find a point of balance. Another good thing about doing sport, apart from all the advantages it has for your health, is that when you do sport you release endorphins, this substance helps you to be happy and in a better mood, it also increases your concentration and helps you to free your mind from the feeling of loneliness.
You have many options to do sport and it is not difficult, you can go to the gym, you can dance in your living room, you can go jogging in the street… The only thing you need is the desire to do things and a little motivation.
You just need to start, and when you do, you will see how the feelings of loneliness start to disappear. We only find advantages with sport, that’s why it is so important that you start doing it.
On the internet you can find a lot of ideas and routines which you can start to do at home and that will help you to follow a routine and not get rid of a day of not doing sport, once you start and you have it as a routine you will notice how everything becomes easier, and in the case that one day for some reason you can not do sport or practice your routine you will miss it and you will notice a feeling of wanting to do it if or if whatever it takes.
Try signing up for activities.
If you don’t have the financial support to do an activity like yoga I recommend that you do it at home, but if you really feel like it and want to meet new people join a gym where they do the activities you are looking for, there you will meet new people and future friends, this can happen because the people you are going to meet are people with the same interests as you and there is more likely to connect with you.
Activities you can try are yoga or dancing, for example. The friends you make will get you out of the house and alleviate that feeling of loneliness, a two in one.
The recommendations I’m going to give you, apart from being classes in some of the things you might like to do, I also advise you to take some improvisation classes, which are becoming very popular, so that you can gain more confidence and develop valuable interpersonal skills. Whatever it is that you like most there are always things for you, and if you really think you don’t like anything learn to know yourself first and then you will see what you are passionate about. Everyone in this life has a purpose, whatever it is, it all depends on how you take life and the desire you have to do good things and overcome your fears and your biggest challenges, you always have to enjoy and learn to see things from another point of view because everything has a way out. So get out of the routine that bores you and sign up today to whatever it is that you like.
Look for the reason of loneliness
Even if you are going through a bad time it is important that you think about the mistake you may have made or why you do not want to have social relations with anyone, this may be due to several things. The problems that you may have you have to know that they are substantial and that they do not affect the rest of your life, everything passes and if it does it is good because you will gain experience of the things that you do not want to happen again and why they have happened to you. Even if you are older, live with a young soul and you will notice how your life has a different meaning and that it is not as bad as you thought.
Walk in the mountains
Walking and taking a walk in the mountains or in the greenery away from the pollution and saturation of the city can do you a lot of good. A routine you should apply even when you are well enough to meditate while doing sport. Walking and observing free animals and vegetation that has been there for many years helps to understand things about life that can only be achieved in this way. Run, be free, take advantage of the fact that you can walk and that you can be free during certain moments of your life, apply and engrave this phrase in your head “The game is not over until you lose your life”. If you keep breathing you can keep doing things so forget about your thoughts and go out there.
Disconnect from the internet
Social networks and connections with other people who are just posturing people is a problem, social networks have that kind of difficulty, they tend to be platforms where people only expose the good things and the things they want some people to see in order to appear to be other people and happier. By disconnecting from the internet you will see how your life will focus more on you and not on what you don’t have or what you should have, young people usually waste a big part of their day spending it on social media and seeing how other people appear to be happy when they are not.
