How to Deal with Loneliness: 7 ways to cope with feeling loneliness
How to Deal with Loneliness: 7 ways to cope with feeling lonely
Loneliness can happen to anyone at any time; with the COVID-19 epidemic and the extreme reduction in time spent with family and friends, many people are feeling more alone than usual.
weCall has served as a place to connect with friends and cherish them, sometimes make new ones, but online friends are not the end-all, be-all.
Feeling lonely is natural and you need It is really important to remember that loneliness and hard feelings will pass.
If you are feeling lonely right now, the following tips can help. You are not alone feeling loneliness.
1. Have weCall with friends
Think FaceTime Meets BeReal. That is weCall.
weCall enables you to use both front and back camera simultaneously during the call. On FaceTime, if you are sharing your background, you cannot see face each other, but weCall will make it!
weCall is currently very popular in California. Of course, weCall is free.
Loneliness can be because of current social media, where people are just trying to impress others instead of talking, helping, or seeking just meaningful connection.
weCall is new app where friends irl can be true-self to connect with you. Not to impress, not to boast, just for caring.
What is weCall?
weCall can be explained in a way to make friendship better. But basically it is like FaceTime Meets Green Screen!
What if we could teleport using just phone? What if you could experience what it would be like to be online in a friend's home, or to travel with a friend online? weCall is like that! weCall enables you to share the same background while seeing each other simultaneously.
You might feel less lonely since you can feel as if you are together with friends/partners.
What you can do on weCall
There are a lot of things to do on weCall to make you feel less lonely, not only just call but also create content as well!
You can just share pics you and your friends are there. You can either view your memories together or upload a dance video to dance together. If you like football you can watch football together.
2. Join communities to reduce your loneliness
Local communities
If you are lonely, the best way is to go out and find someone to talk to in real life.
If you google, there could be a lot of local communities based on hobbies, religions, gender, sexual orientation, sports and so on.
Meetup or eventbrite
If you wanna find some of local communities, meetup or eventbrite will be good options to find them, there are so many events operated by those communities.
If you are anxious about going to those communities, there are online communities as well.
Chat with friends
A new study shows that making short phone calls several times a week can reduce loneliness. This is great for those lives alone, have personal shields or a care home where they are currently unable to see their loved ones.
In a study there were 240 participants and half of them were selected to receive a short phone call from a volunteer over the course of a month; the others did not.
According to the results published earlier this week in JAMA Psychiatry, those who received the calls reported feeling 20% less lonely, on average.
The chats lasted just over 10 minutes during the first week, but 10 minutes during the remainder of the month-long study.
Researchers measured loneliness on a scale of 3 to 9. At the beginning of the study, participants had an average score of 6.5, but by the end of the study, the score had dropped to 5.2.
Share your status with your friends
Just talking to friends will help you to feel better. Even if you feel alone, if you call with friends and share your day, that will make your day.
Share your day with friends to make the day less lonely
All you need is to just share your day, hobbies, what happened today.
Sharing is caring. Loneliness can be reduced by staying connected.
found one interesting thing that the quality of cross-sex online friendships tend to be better than same-sex online friendship.
"The qualities of both online and offline friendships improved as the duration of the relationship increased, the differences between the two types of friendships diminished over time. Furthermore, contrary to the evidence typically found for offline friendships, the qualities of cross-sex online friendships were higher than that of same-sex online friendship."
3. Adopt or have pets
Pets can be a great way to ease your loneliness especially after Covid-19. All animals have some degree of compassion towards human, but dogs are the best.(personally)
Dogs are good but need efforts
that pet ownership reduces the level of loneliness.
"n = 24 studies were included. Among adult samples, the studies examining the relationship between pet ownership and social isolation found that owning a pet was associated with lower levels of social isolation. Concerning loneliness, studies that were conducted after the outbreak of COVID-19 mostly showed that pet ownership can contribute to lower levels of loneliness, but did not reveal an overall significant association until then. In turn, the studies that examined child and adolescent samples suggest that pet ownership was related to reduced loneliness before COVID-19. "
Cats are easy to have but sometimes too independent
If you are too lonely and cannot deal with it, it could be not the best but cats are so adorable. Even if you are too busy, they are okay with being alone for 12 hours, so will be easier to have them.
But at the same time, some of cats are so independent that you might feel not that attachment (This is just my opinion).
Anyways, they are so adorable. You will feel less lonely after acquiring pets.
4. Ask some of friends to hang out
The best way to deal with your loneliness is to make friends and hang out together.
Just grab a boba or a coffee
If you are anxious about asking, all you need is just grabbing a boba or a coffee together, you don't have to think too much.
Nail down a day, time, and place
And the better way to make it is narrowing down to the day, time and place so that the person who got asked will be likely to answer whether they can make it or not.
Gauge their interest in hanging out with you
If it didn't work, you need to learn how to ask your friends by showing your interests to your friends.
You might have the same interest with your friends, and friends can see fun things to do together.
If you wanna know their interests, there are some games to ask their interests.
Loneliness will be solved by making some small effort.
5. Start playing instruments
If you are not that much into friendship but you feel lonely as well, maybe you don't have to ask friends out.
Instead of that, what about starting some instruments.
Find somebody who plays some instruments
There are tons of instruments, guitar, Drum, Bass, Violin, Trumpet, Piano, Ukulele, and so on.
It is better to choose the one which you like, plus number of people is larger to make friends.
The process of learning might be hard, but that makes you busy.
Get advice from Senpai
Once you get idea to get started, join some of clubs or communities to play instruments together, and ask questions.
Everyone loves to teach, teaching is pleasure. Don't hesitate to ask questions and learn how to play it.
Play instruments together
Once you get used to play instruments, you can play that together with your friends.
6. Phone-Free Time makes you feel less lonely
Loneliness is about emotion driven by many causes, so no one can say the exact causes, it depends on the person.
But one of the possibility for you is on using the phone too much.
You might feel "No one is texting me" "Why are others so happy having party but I'm staying at home?".
If you are just away from phone and reading books, you will not see them.
Envy and numbers
Facebook and loneliness
Facebook contribute to not only loneliness, but are also likely to foster division and indirectly deepen it.
"Most people use Facebook on a daily basis; few are aware of the consequences. Based on a 1-week experiment with 1,095 participants in late 2015 in Denmark, this study provides causal evidence that Facebook use affects our well-being negatively. By comparing the treatment group (participants who took a break from Facebook) with the control group (participants who kept using Facebook), it was demonstrated that taking a break from Facebook has positive effects on the two dimensions of well-being: our life satisfaction increases and our emotions become more positive. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that these effects were significantly greater for heavy Facebook users, passive Facebook users, and users who tend to envy others on Facebook."
Envy is the key
Since you can see number of likes others get on Facebook, you will feel envy, and that contribute to your loneliness as well.
And the more close you and your friends are, the more envy you feel. You need to avoid social media based on numbers when you don't want to feel that.
7. Play game together with people
Playing game together with friends is fun. Even if you are not into game, there are some games which you can enjoy.
Among Us
Among us is very simple game. It is an online strategy game that can be played on a PC, smartphone, or Nintendo Switch.
In "Among Us," you play as crewmates trying to complete tasks, while one "Imposter" tries to sabotage you. Playing "Among Us" takes more thought than raw gaming skill, making it perfect for both casual and hardcore gamers.
Minecraft
Minecraft is also fun to play, you can play on both mobile and pc. Minecraft is about mining and crafting as name describes, where players can build anything.
The game which has been described as like an 'online Lego' involves building blocks and creating structures across different environments and terrains. Set in a virtual world the game involves resource gathering, crafting items, building, and combat.
Playing game makes you feel less lonely
There are a lot of other games playing together with friends such as Animal Crossing, PokemonGo, Roblox and so on.
Gaming hours have increased since COVID-19 came, worldwide the number of time spent on video games was up by 36%.
Gamers tend to be considered as "Lonely" but
Over a 3-year period, Verheijen studied the gaming behavior of 705 children in 7th to 10th grades. Questionnaires and in-person observational studies were used to collect data from a mix of male and female students.
Verheijen concluded that while solo play for long periods does increase feelings of loneliness, the opposite is true when playing interactive games online with friends.
See a therapist if you still feel lonely
Therapist is also good way to cope with loneliness. They are caring, patient to listen to your story, and will help you out with any kind of mental health issues (not only loneliness but sleep issues, anxiety, depression etc.)
But more importantly, they will help you how to acknowledge your feeling of loneliness.
Acknowledge your feeling of loneliness
If you want to reduce to feel lonely, you need to know what makes you lonely, why are you feeling like that, and find the way to make that loneliness better.
Being alone itself is not bad, you can allocate time to spend productively as well. So what makes you feel lonely?
Ask yourself why you feel lonely
Feeling Lonely, "Maybe I'm Crazy?" You may think, "Maybe I'm crazy. It is important to understand the cause of that loneliness by talking to yourself. The main causes of loneliness are said to be below.
A. Loneliness due to environment
Loneliness can be caused by environmental changes. Some obvious examples are, for example, moving, parents being busy, parents divorcing, etc.
Loneliness can be more intense, especially if you are moving to an area where you don't speak the language or know no one. In these cases, it may be helpful to get used to the new place, the new environment, or to come out of your shell and make friends, or make friends online.
B. Genetic Loneliness
According to John Cacioppo, "Loneliness is about 50% inherited, but this does not mean that loneliness is determined by genes. What seems to be inherited is the intensity of the pain felt when one feels socially isolated." Genes make some people more likely to feel more pain or perceive themselves as more lonely when they are not in contact with others.
C. Perception of Self
It is possible that you are not as lonely as you perceive yourself to be. You may feel psychologically lonely even though you have friends around you. In such cases, it is important to find friends who understand who you really are.
Risks of loneliness
While temporary loneliness is common for everyone and dissipates quickly, sometimes loneliness is chronic and can have serious negative effects on mental and physical health.
Loneliness causes depression and other mood disorders
When loneliness becomes chronic for a long period of time, it can compromise the immune system and negatively affect sleep quality. In addition, as loneliness worsens, it can lead to depression, memory lapses, and symptoms such as exclusion of others.
It has been shown that the more loneliness intensifies, the less positive one's perception of the world becomes and the more negatively one filters one's view of the world. We may not see the seeds of happiness lying right in front of us, or we may perceive them negatively.
Research is now revealing that the solitary brain is structurally and biochemically different. Neural responses to positive events and images are suppressed, and the world is perceived through a negative filter. When we are lonely, we are more likely to perceive things as hopeless. We may feel that the world around us is threatening or that we have no control over it. This makes it difficult to muster the energy and courage to find happiness and change.
Loneliness causes alcoholism and addiction
They may cope with loneliness in unhealthy ways, such as turning to drugs or alcohol for comfort.
When people are lonely, they are more likely to fall prey to the temptation to drink to cope; a study conducted by the
Lack of focus because of loneliness
Researchers in UK unveiled the fact that lonelier people tend to have difficulty in focusing on something they need during day.
", more than 2,200 18- and 19-year-olds in England and Wales provided information about their loneliness levels and sleeping patterns.
Between 25 percent and 30 percent of the participants said they felt lonely sometimes, and another 5 percent said they frequently felt lonely.
Lonelier people were 24 percent more likely to feel tired and have difficulty concentrating during the day, according to the King's College London researchers."
How to Deal with Loneliness
So there are several ways to deal with loneliness, and you can make your life less lonely if you have good friends or place to belong.
Explore weCall to stay connected with friends!