Today, we’re discussing something that troubles lots of people; LONELINESS or BEING LONELY. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines lonely as ‘sad from being apart from other people’, ‘causing sad feelings that come from being apart from other people’. Looking at the two definitions, we notice two things are common. First ‘sad’, the second, ‘being apart from other people’.
Is being apart from other people not BEING ALONE? Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ALONE as being ‘without anyone or anything else’ or ‘without people that you know or that usually are with you’. What is now the difference between BEING ALONE and BEING LONELY?
Looking back at the definition of lonely, we find the exact difference. Being alone is a state of being, while being lonely is a feeling of that state. To be alone, people would not be around you. It’s you all by yourself. Being lonely, however, is different. You can be among people and still be lonely, which points to the fact that you don’t need to be alone to be lonely. You can be lonely around people. So why is loneliness a concern? In the article preceding this, DEPRESSION was discussed. Let me draw some points from there. Recall we talked about the effect of depression and how it can cramp a person’s life. Loneliness is not depression, but it can lead to it. How so?
1.Loneliness can affect one’s mental health. Being a sad feeling for being alone, some tend to look for things that would take their minds off the feeling. This leads some to alcoholism also known as alcohol use disorder. Some tend to start using drugs in a bit to end that feeling. This therefore affects their sleeping habits, eating habits, and thus, thus develop depression. If you would like to know about depression, see the article preceding this. There I highlighted on depression that many don’t know. THE SMILING DEPRESSION. Check it and see the risks of smiling depression.
- Physical health. When someone gets lonely to the point that it becomes chronic loneliness, it can be dangerous. The person could start having thoughts of suicide. And definitely carry it out. Loneliness could also push those who have thoughts of suicide to want to include others out of anger that they contributed to their suffering. They can thus, try to harm other people as themselves. Remember, it can cause poor sleeping habits and poor eating habits.
WHAT CAN BE DONE
Doctors talk about therapy. While it’s good to go for therapy as it is the medical way to solve this, there could be other ways to help suppress loneliness. Let’s take a few. - Get a pet. Having a pet could help suppress this as they often get to make you think about them and want to see them fine. They often do things that give us extra work, but when you’re caring for them, time passes and you end up not brooding about being alone.
- Get a job. For those who getting pets wouldn’t help, getting a job could surely do the magic. Jobs tend to take our minds off issues outside of the work place. There you get to relate with people. You find yourself doing something most of the time, giving you a lesser problem of thinking about loneliness.
- Go out. Take yourself out. Go shopping, go play games in stores. Just find a way to keep yourself busy. That’s the aim. You might go with a friend shopping, you might find out that you have some things in common and you get to talk for long thereby killing that feeling of loneliness.
- Go see movies. Movies are at least 1 hour 30 minutes. That time spent seeing movies could be the life saver. Watching the latest releases could prove helpful. You think about the movie almost throughout the day. It can give a sense of satisfaction.
To also prevent loneliness, you can follow those 4 steps. Your life gets filled with different activities that won’t make loneliness come into your life. Loneliness affect a lot of single people today. They want to be loved or shown love. They want people to show concern. To want to help. That’s why when this acts don’t come often, they tend to fall into loneliness which gradually leads to depression. Following those 4 steps will help you overcome that feeling. Remember, loneliness is a feeling. Feelings can be controlled to your benefit. Always remember: being lonely do us not good.
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