Loneliness Awareness Week is hosted by the Marmalade Trust and runs from 12th to 18th June 2023
Everyone can feel lonely at some point in their life.
You can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely.
This week is organised to raise awareness of loneliness and to encourage conversations about feeling lonely.
One common description of loneliness is the feeling we get when our need for rewarding social contact and relationships is not met. But loneliness is not always the same as being alone. We all experience loneliness in different ways. Some people enjoy their own company, but others need people around them all the time.
Historically, loneliness is seen to be something for older people. Did you know that young people aged between 16 – 24 are most likely to be affected by loneliness? *
There are different types of loneliness:
- Situational – when you have moved to a new area
- Bereavement
- Relationship breakdown
- New workplace
- Emotional – when you don’t feel close or connected to your family or people around you
I have lots of people to do things with but nobody to do nothing with.
Esther Rantzen
Being able to recognise and share your feelings with someone is the start of building or rebuilding your social connections. Whether it be going for a coffee and talking to the people in the café or going to your local shop and interacting with the staff. Small steps can lead to big steps.
Feeling lonely is not a mental health condition. However, if left it can result in deteriorating mental and physical health. The amazing people at the Marmalade Trust provide support and advice on loneliness and work tirelessly to help people to understand and act on their feelings.
Together we can feel less lonely.
* Source C/O The Marmalade Trust *Statistics: ONS, UCL Covid-19 Social Study and Campaign To End Loneliness.