Not so long ago, a member of our Facebook group dedicated to self-development, asked a question, “what do you do to combat loneliness?” Being helpful, quite a few of us jumped in to share some thoughts on the subject.

After having seen some very insightful answers, I decided that the subject of “loneliness” deserves more attention and needs to be taken outside of the group’s boundaries.

After all, who of us has never been lonely? Who of us has never felt miserable because of moving to a new area with no friends around, losing a close relative or being thrown out of a long-term relationship? Those that get to experience the joy of life, will also inevitably feel sad, lonely and miserable from time to time.

Those that get to experience the joy of life, will also inevitably feel sad, lonely and miserable from time to time.

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Below you will find my 10 tips on how to avoid loneliness. Some of them were inspired by the answers given in our Facebook group, and some come from personal experience of the times when I, too, felt really lonely.

How to avoid loneliness

1. Where is the loneliness coming from?

In order to change any undesirable state of mind, we must first find out what the root cause of it is. Therefore, my first tip to you on how to avoid loneliness is to understand where that feeling is coming from.

Are you aware why you feel lonely? Remember, being lonely does not mean that you are isolated. In fact, more often than not we can feel lonely despite having friends and family around us.

Loneliness can be a combination of difficult unrelated life events piling up on top of each other, eventually causing us to slip into that negative state of mind.

Whether it is anger, sadness or loneliness, we may be caught up in these feelings for weeks or months on without even fully understanding where they are originating from or why we have to go through it all. That’s why it’s so important to identify the exact cause of your loneliness.

And once that cause is found, you can begin taking steps to pull yourself out of the hole you got yourself into, or walk around it if you’re fortunate enough to not be in it yet.

2. Keep yourself busy with the things you love to do

One of the easiest things to do when you are feeling lonely is to keep yourself busy with the things you love doing.

Drawing, working out, walking in the park, playing computer games, playing the guitar, watching comedies… whatever makes you happy, do as much of it as possible. You need that positivity in your life.

3. Keep yourself busy with the things you have never done

Another thing that works really when feeling lonely is to do things that are new to you. Maybe you have always wanted to learn German or how to play the guitar… now is the time to occupy yourself with it.

Doing something new and unexpected can cause you to experience a rush of excitement and motivation, something that you so genuinely need more of when learning how to deal with loneliness.

4. Read books and watch videos about the psychology of loneliness

There was a period when I felt desperately lonely. I had absolutely no idea what to do with my life.

I did understand WHY I was feeling that way and I even knew that it will pass, but I wanted to know more. I wanted to know HOW I can make it go away faster. I wanted to know how to avoid loneliness in the future.

I began to read books and watch videos on the internet. What especially helped me were psychology books that dissected human feelings. The feeling of loneliness was one of them.

Whenever you can’t understand something or you don’t have an answer to, I strongly suggest that you go and find an answer to it from somewhere else. Reading books about it or asking qualified on the subject people are your best options.

Once I learned more about loneliness from the point of view of psychology, it got A LOT easier to cope with. Not only it became clear to me that it’s normal to feel this way for us – humans, but I also found some strategies that I instantly began to apply. Some of them I share here with you.

Recommended: 50 Best Self-Help Books That Will Change Your Life Forever

5. Watch for events in your city and attend them

The feeling of loneliness can hold us back from leaving our house. All we want to do is sit at home and keep feeling lonely. It sucks, but it’s true.

The paradox of the situation is that you should actually be active to stop feeling the way you do. Your house is where you feel comfortable feeling lonely, so don’t stay there. Get up and change your environment. Go out and see the city, parks, forests and other people.

If you have moved to a new city or country and you don’t know what to do, go on social networks and look for fun activities and events in your new area. Make social networks useful for once. 🙂

If you want to meet people around some specific hobby that you enjoy doing, you can also check out Meetup.com. I’ve found it to be super helpful.

6. Go and exercise!

I always say that if you want to live a happy life, you need to exercise. Exercising doesn’t only keep you in good physical shape, but it also helps you mentally.

During exercise, toxins, which is basically the waste of your body, are released more efficiently. Their faster release makes the body healthier, and that positively affects the mind as well.

Additionally, by exercising regularly, you also release endorphins, which help to reduce stress, alleviate pain, improve sleep, help with anxiety and even depression.

I can honestly say that at the time when I felt extremely lonely, the most effective weapon against it was to work out. If on any day I missed a workout, I felt A LOT worse.

You don’t necessarily need to work out at the gym if that’s not your thing, but lifting weights seems to work especially well when it comes to stress relief.

7. Understand that it will pass

If you are trying to figure out how to avoid loneliness, one thing that you need to understand is that loneliness will pass.

During the periods of life when we feel anxious, depressed, sad or lonely, it often seems like these things are eternal, like they will never end. Thinking that way unfortunately makes that time even darker.

But regardless of how convincing your thoughts about “eternal loneliness” may sound, they’re simply not true.

For a long time, I suffered from anxiety. It felt then like I was doomed forever. But you know what? I told myself that it will get better.. “It must get better at some point”, I thought to myself. And it did. Partly, I am sure it got better because I kept reminding myself that it will.

It’s no different with loneliness. As long as you take certain steps mentioned in this text to improve your mental health, you will begin to feel better. It may be quick, or it may take a bit longer, but the bottom line is that it will get better eventually.

Humans get over and used to many things, including losses, breakups and other difficult experiences.

Recommended: How to Deal with Anxiety Attacks: 10 Truths You Need to Know!

8. Reach out to people

As already mentioned earlier, most of the time being lonely does not mean being isolated. You probably have people to reach out to, but you simply don’t want to because of how crappy you feel. You are having a hard time forming personal connections with them.

Don’t be shy and don’t turn away from people. Call your friends and relatives, and talk to them. Talk to them about anything, ask them to meet you. Keep yourself active.

Again, another way make use of social networks is to connect with people that you haven’t chatted with in a long time. See how they are doing, ask them out for a coffee. Don’t feel like you are doing something wrong by reaching out to someone that you haven’t spoken to in a long time. Who knows, maybe this is the beginning of a new awesome friendship. 🙂

9. Avoid toxic relations

Although not always apparent, sometimes we may become lonely because we have too many toxic relationships in our life.

People may make fun of you too often, not be honest with you and even use you. This will significantly lower your self-esteem, which may then lead to chronic loneliness. You need to figure out whether this is your case.

Analyze your surroundings and ask yourself, “am I being around the wrong people?” If so, try to avoid these people or at least limit the time you spend with them.

10. Lower your expectations

The last but not least tip on how to avoid loneliness is to see where your expectations of other people are at.

What do I mean here? Well, sometimes we expect too much of other people. We want them never to be late, to always call us first, to say and do certain things around us.

Naturally, if we have high expectations of them that they don’t live up to, we will feel disappointed. And if we feel disappointed with other people, sooner or later, we will start feeling like we are all alone on this planet.

If this is you, then you need to let your expectations go and enjoy people for who they really are. That’s the exciting part about life – we are all different. We cannot and should not control anyone, but we can learn to accept them and understand them.

One simple sentence that has always helped me to have my expectations at a realistic level is:

Nobody owes me anything.

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Maybe it will help you as well. 🙂

These were the 10 tips on how to avoid loneliness. One last time, the most important thing is that you do not stay still. The fastest way to get out of loneliness is to take your life under control, both physically and mentally.

Thank you for stopping by and good luck!

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