Loneliness

After all the lovely inspirational comments from my friends yesterday, threw myself into writing and researching my book with a new fervor yesterday.

So I have an outline of the structure of the book, with the titles of the sections and chapters all planned out. Last week I started work on the first chapter. The first chapter will invite the reader to examine their own well-being and explore what they may want to do to maintain good mental health. As mentioned in last weeks blog I outline Martin Seligman’s suggestion of using PERMA to measure your well-being. For those of you who are unfamiliar and cannot be bothered to look at my previous blog, here is a quick reminder of what PERMA is;

Positive Emotion

Engagement

Relationships

Meaning

Accomplishment

So yesterday I was writing about what PERMA was and what it means to me, and I got to relationships. I decided to look up some statistics on loneliness, I knew there had been some kind of study recently. I found a report by the Office for National Statistics published in April this year. The results in some part were quite surprising and stark. Loneliness is a big problem in this country, and not just a threat to your well-being but to your life. Here are some of the headline figures. 1 in 20 adults experience loneliness. You are more likely to be lonely if you are between the ages of 16 to 24. You are more likely to experience loneliness if you are a women, if you live in rented accommodation and if you suffer from a long-term condition.

Over 75s experience less loneliness than any other age group. The explanation for this last statistic is what made me sit up and take notice. Most people who experience loneliness on a regular basis are likely to die before they reach 75!  Loneliness increases mortality by 25%.

The fact that young people are more susceptible to loneliness is really worrying. I wonder if the rise in the use of technology and social media is driving disconnection. Are we all spending more time on our phones looking at social media, communicating electronically rather than communicating with the people around us. When I walk into any of the staff rooms at work, I will often see 3 or 4 people all sat on their phones connecting with a digital world and not the people in the room. Is this why young adults feel increasingly lonely?

Do you recognise yourself in this description I certainly recognise some of my behaviours even if I am 47. Connecting with those around you, and forming reciprocal relationships is vital not only for you well-being, but your life as well.