Before I go on, I must say that I am not a licensed therapist or a professional psychologist or psychiatrist. What I share are my own thoughts and observations on signs of feeling lonely and how I’ve experienced loneliness; I am not sharing medical advice.
Loneliness is a heavy feeling – one that can stick around for a very long time. To be quite honest, I have been feeling a profound sense of loneliness over the last two weeks. Even though I was fortunate enough to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends, I still felt so lonely being back home.
On the other hand, I feel like these last two weeks have also given me the chance to do a lot of introspection – to figure out why I’ve felt this way and what I can to start feeling less lonely, which has improved my mental health and fitness.
I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you. I hope it can serve you in some way – whether it’s to know that somebody out there is going through a time of loneliness or if there’s a way to alleviate this feeling.
Let’s start with 6 psychological and physical signs of feeling lonely.
You feel alone even when you’re in a crowd
Whether the crowd consists of your friends or strangers, you feel like they don’t understand what you’re going through so you indirectly isolate yourself.
I was playing volleyball with some random folks at Huntington Beach over Thanksgiving weekend. I was playing 4’s with most of the people on the center courts. It was fun. I felt elated, but as soon as I switched to a further court for some beach doubles, I felt kind of left out.
The people knew I was playing over there because they had asked me if I wanted to play doubles or 4’s. The court was only like 20 feet away from the center courts too, but it felt like I was being isolated or left behind.
You find it hard to be yourself around others…
…because you think that others won’t like who you are as a person. You constantly think whether or not you’re good enough in front of others. And this becomes exhausting.
You don’t want others to know how lonely you feel so you put up a front and show that you’re alright. You may feel the need to overexaggerate certain emotions to attract attention. That’s what I did.
I remember playing volleyball in Tucson Sunday morning after coming back from California. I was definitely not myself. I was trying extra to feel noticed by being over dramatic and extra funny. It honestly felt uncomfortable for myself.
I don’t think most people would like that feeling of loneliness. They don’t want to admit that or show that in front of other people. So it’s hard to be yourself, even with friends.
It’s hard to connect with other people
If you’re feeling lonely, it’s hard to believe that people like you and want to be with you. I mean you find it hard to connect with yourself. So trying to connect with your friends or even a stranger can become difficult.
When I was over for Thanksgiving at my family friend’s house, I was introduced to several new faces I hadn’t seen. In my mind, I was excited. I was like “Man! New faces! I can’t wait to talk with them and just feel somewhat noticed.” But as soon as I introduced myself, I found myself incredibly nervous.
It was like there was a mental block with trying to ask any question to get to know the other person. Like I couldn’t find anything I would want to ask to get to know them. Nothing seemed interesting. I was forcing the conversation but couldn’t find a good way to connect with them.
You try to buy your way to feeling fulfilled
If you’re feeling lonely, you’re looking for something to fill that empty hole in your heart. And the easiest thing nowadays is to use materialistic things to fill it. So if you find yourself buying a lot of things that you may not normally buy, consider that to be a sign of feeling lonely.
I rarely buy gifts for myself, but this past Black Friday, I was purchasing stuff with no guilt. Every time I made a purchase, I felt good. I thought that the new athletic clothes would fill up that hole that was in my heart. It didn’t. It filled it up for like 5 minutes and then those good feelings of having the items fleeted.
You feel like you’re constantly cold or sick
This is actually a rather surprising sign that I found out while reading what others experienced when going through loneliness. After reading some research that other websites had published, it made sense to me why you might feel constantly cold or sick or just plain tired when you’re lonely.
I felt like I was sick like every other day. Body aches and headaches. I would drink Nyquil and feel better the next day, but then only to feel sick again the next day. This happened over an entire week.
According to Steve Cole, a genomics researcher at UCLA, loneliness has been linked to a lot of poor health outcomes. Loneliness increases activity of white blood cells, which increase inflammation. This is part of the body’s immune response to bacterial infection. So if your body is on this high alert and fight mode all the time, you can potentially feel tired and achy all the time.
You notice that you’re not doing your healthy habits
I feel like a good contributor to loneliness is the confidence you have in yourself. As the saying goes, you have to be your own greatest cheerleader or best friend. And what do best friends or cheerleaders do? They want the best for you. By avoiding your healthy habits, you’re avoiding doing what’s best for yourself.
And you notice that you’re not doing the things that are good for you when you’re feeling lonely. It’s both frustrating and sad. You want to do those healthy habits but you can’t seem to muster the drive to do so. As if you felt like the effort wasn’t worth it.
So you know you’re feeling lonely…what do you do?
Hard to say. Feelings of loneliness are personal and experienced differently from person to person.
Sometimes, just listening to somebody speak about their feelings can be more helpful than offering advice.
I have a couple of words to say for people who might fit into some categories down below:
To those who are in the early stages of feeling lonely
Don’t avoid this feeling. I think it’s a rather natural response to want to avoid feeling lonely. I think it’s a rather natural response to want to avoid feeling lonely. That’s what I tried to do, but avoiding the problem won’t fix the problem.
I encourage you to notice how you feel. I think it helps to write down those feelings. It will bring clarity and with clarity brings insight to living a less lonely life.
To those who are just down deep in loneliness
If it’s real bad and you feel like you got no close friends to talk to, then I’d recommend talking to a professional. Our bodies were not meant to experience long periods of loneliness – so consider getting help!
If you have a good social support network, would also recommend also finding a friend who can just listen to you speak your truth about how you feel. Talking to a person really helps you think about how you feel and the questions they may ask can give you insight to why you’re feeling the way you are.
