Loneliness and the Introvert: What To Do If You Are Feeling Lonely
The critical distinction for introverts:
Solitude versus loneliness
Have you ever been in a room full of people and felt lonely?
And, have you ever found yourself in the middle of nowhere without a soul in sight and felt completely connected and nourished?
I have.
In a way, loneliness and solitude are like identical twins. They can look and sound alike, yet they're not the same. Though there are striking similarities, each is a unique and distinct experience.
No one knows this better than introverts.
Our time alone can be spent skittering about on the knife's edge of a mountain peak. On one side, is the verdant valley of solitude, where we find deep connection with ourselves. On the other side lies the unforgiving, rocky desolation of loneliness.
One fills us up, while the other leaves us careening down a slippery slope.
The Landscape of Loneliness and Solitude
What's the difference between loneliness and solitude?
Loneliness is the soul-crushing feeling of isolation without the support, meaningful connection, or shared purpose we crave.
It's the feeling that you could disappear and no one would notice - a sensation that you're invisible and irrelevant. Loneliness robs you of your sense of belonging.
Solitude, on the other hand, is about sanctuary.
It's a private space, quiet or loud (my preference is quiet), that creates a sense of expansiveness and freedom. Solitude fosters creative thinking, self-reflection, and the liberty to think and act authentically. Perhaps surprisingly, it can even foster greater connection with others.
When it comes to loneliness and solitude, introverts crave the latter and, at times, risk the former.
Interestingly, our Western society simultaneously steals our ability to find solitude while pushing us increasingly toward loneliness. This blog is an exploration of the latter.
One thing's for sure: we're not alone in our loneliness.
This trend has become so alarming that the United States (US) Surgeon General issued a 2023 advisory titled "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation." It's an 81-page red-alert warning advising us of the dangers of a condition so broadly felt that it can sometimes be hard to define. It has so many manifestations that The Roots of Loneliness Project has identified over 100 types of loneliness.
Sadly, the most recent 2024 Gallup Panel revealed that 20% of US adults raise their hand in the affirmative when asked, "Did you experience loneliness a lot of the day yesterday?" In the same year, a Healthy Minds Monthly Poll found that 30% of American adults reported feeling lonely at least once per week in the last year.
Poll after poll confirms the pervasiveness of loneliness in the US and across the world.
The Introverted Healthcare Professional's Path to Loneliness
The word loneliness may initially bring to mind someone who's alone. But that vision of loneliness is insufficient.
Loneliness is not simply social isolation.
As mentioned above, there are many ways we can find ourselves feeling as if we're lost and wandering in the forest alone (over 100!)
How do we arrive at this place where we perceive a lack of close, meaningful relationships or a deficit in our sense of belonging?
Loneliness has been divided into three broad categories:
Social or relational - having few quality social connections or contacts
Emotional or intimate- missing close relationships or confidants that affirm your value as a person
Existential or collective - feeling entirely separate or disconnected, not feeling part of a community
Our risk for loneliness is determined by genetics and, more so, the circumstances we encounter. Those circumstances can arise from transient life challenges or feel like a never-ending drag on your psyche.
Our mental and physical health can also influence - and be influenced by - our experience of loneliness. Similarly, our mindset can impact the degree of loneliness we may experience. Because loneliness is subjective, if you think and feel you're lonely, you are lonely.
In addition to these factors, consider what happens when we toss the demands of a challenging healthcare career into the mix.
The 2024 Making Caring Common Project Report indicated that 62% of respondents named "working too much or being too busy or exhausted" as contributing to loneliness in America. Note that excessive workload and exhaustion also contribute to another widespread challenge of our times: burnout.
To make matters worse, burnout frequently causes feelings of frustration, resentment, and cynicism. Often, these feelings affect our behavior and can end up repelling, not attracting, people to us. The resultant isolation and lack of support fuels progressive loneliness, which then contributes further to symptoms of burnout, and so on.
It's a sad, downward spiral.
Loneliness turns your precious alone time into something painful and depleting. For us introverts, that's really not OK.
When you find yourself in this place, you need a proverbial ice axe to thrust into the mountainside and slow your descent.
What to Do If You Are Feeling Lonely
You've probably noticed the experience of loneliness is complex and multifactorial.
You may have had a tendency toward loneliness for the majority of your life, perhaps due to your worldview, mental or physical health challenges, or past experiences. Feelings of loneliness can also creep in during times of loss, transition, and overwhelm.
One of the first things to do when you feel lonely is to ask, "How did I get here?"
Let me stress that you're not asking the question in a "woe is me" self-pity sort of way. The tone is very different. By getting curious, you help yourself start finding solutions.
Have you always felt isolated or different from others? Do you feel anxious around others? Has life been so busy that you've been distracted and failed to nourish existing relationships? Or have found yourself in a new place after a move or career shift and been unable to establish a support system?
Whatever the cause, the first step away from loneliness and toward connection is creating awareness.
Once you've identified the factors that have set you on the path to loneliness, the next step toward figuring out what to do if you are feeling lonely is acknowledging what loneliness makes you feel.
Loneliness can affect your sense of self-worth, contribute to anxiety, and send you into self-protection mode. For healthcare professionals, loneliness can compound any resentment and cynicism brought on by burnout.
When this state is your lived experience, loneliness can change your perception of the world and your place in it. That's why it's essential to have tools that can anchor and support you.
Armed with the how and what of your particular experience of loneliness, let's start exploring in greater detail what to do if you are feeling lonely.
Keep in mind there are hundreds of books, articles, and research papers addressing loneliness. This blog isn't meant to give you a one-size-fits-all solution. It's my hope, however, to help you start teasing apart the knots of loneliness that keep you trapped in isolation and, possibly, shame.
We want to find that one strand that, when loosened a bit, gives you just enough wiggle room to create connection and find a sense of belonging.
So, what to do if you are feeling lonely…..
Connection Tip #1: Create connection with yourself first.
I caught that eye roll (even if it was just in your head). This advice can feel cliche - at least, it did to me when I first heard it. But it's true.
Earlier in the blog, I asked you to name how loneliness makes you feel. What came up?
If you don't feel good about or enjoy being with yourself, your subconscious brain will assume that no one else would want to spend time with you, either. The people around you pick up on that.
Here's a profoundly unfair truth: when we feel lonely and discouraged, our negative feelings can push others away. We can inadvertently sabotage the connection we need and want.
It may seem paradoxical, but one of the most critical steps in banishing loneliness is getting back in touch with all the ways you can be happy and satisfied on your own. Honoring your authentic self, knowing your values, and understanding your worth are all essential elements to creating a connection that lets you and those around you feel valued, supported, and accepted.
Connection Tip #2: Reverse engineer your path to loneliness.
This is when knowing how you got to this place of loneliness becomes helpful in devising a unique-to-you strategy for fostering connection.
If loneliness has seemed a lingering and ever-present shadow in your life, your approach might include shifting your mindset, learning to adopt new perspectives, and seeking formal support. To be clear, experiencing chronic loneliness doesn't imply there is something wrong with you. Instead, it might suggest there are opportunities to change your situation through self-reflection and personal growth (which is amazing because it's much easier to change ourselves than to try to change others).
You may be transitioning from a season of life in which fostering connection wasn't your priority, and you lost touch with old friends. We all have limited time and energy and can't always give equal attention to every domain of our lives. For example, supporting an ill family member may have taken time away from other relationships. In this case, your path out of loneliness might include examining your priorities, considering how you manage your time, and being creative in how you can nourish connection.
Or, it’s possible you’ve found yourself in a new city while also being inundated and overwhelmed with work obligations. You might feel you barely have time to eat or breathe. You struggle to find your much-needed alone time. The idea of taking time to socialize and make new friends seems impossible. In this case, you might find new ways to foster connection by learning to delegate and establish effective boundaries that free up time and energy. This lets you pursue hobbies and interests and engage with others outside of work.
The scenarios and options are limitless. Knowing what to do if you are feeling lonely requires assessing your situation non-judmentally and identifying the small shifts that help move you toward connection.
Connection Tip #3: Go first.
Trust me, I kind of cringe at this one, too. When you feel low in energy and enjoy your alone time, breaking the inertia that keeps you flying solo can be difficult. There's also that aspect of loneliness that creates an intense desire to matter to someone. So, part of you keeps waiting for that someone to reach out to you.
Stop waiting. This is why: it's possible there's someone out there who could be your greatest confidant. And he or she is waiting, too. Someone needs to go first.
I'm not suggesting you force yourself to "extrovert," go to events that make you miserable, or give up your alone time.
Start with small, meaningful ways to let others know you're interested in connecting. By using low-pressure, introvert-friendly strategies, you can build momentum to create connection. For instance, make a game of it and challenge yourself to engage socially with 3 new people per day. That might mean waving or smiling at a stranger or initiating a brief conversation.
A simple, "Hello! That's the best ugly Christmas sweater I've ever seen!" counts. Given the opportunity, who knows where the conversation might go?
Connection Tip #4: Approach connection with creativity and open-mindedness.
What does connection and belonging look like to you? If you've quickly rattled off a very specific and narrowly defined ideal, your efforts at creating connection may be more difficult than they need to be.
Allow yourself to assume connection potential in everyone you meet. Let go of the unspoken rules. Your pool for connection drastically increases if you're not focusing on gender, age, profession, race, religion, or some other demographic.
Instead, let your connections be guided by shared interests, values, and hobbies. You can even bond over your love of alone time!
Remember, too, that language isn't the only way we connect. Proximity plays a powerful role in connection. If the thought of small talk is unbearable, consider opportunities that let you be around and with others without the obligation of carrying a conversation. For example, many volunteer opportunities are organized around a specific activity. These can require less social energy than meeting up for tea and coffee.
Lastly, recognize that you (and others) are delightfully complex. Everyone has a wide range of needs and interests. Be open to the idea that different people will boost your connection meter in different ways.
Not everyone is going to be a best friend, but don't let that knowledge rob you of the opportunity to connect with someone who may be the only person who loves talking competitive dog grooming with you - if that happens to be your thing.
Connection Tip #5: Practice patience and persistence.
We all know introverts would gladly skip the social niceties and go straight for trusted, safe, and quality connections if we could.
We may get lucky once in a while and find a relationship that quickly gives us the depth of connection we desire. But more often than not, we'll need to invest time and effort to find meaningful and lasting connections. Should you feel alone in your search, the US has a three billion dollar online dating market to prove you're not. Whether you're searching for a friend or an intimate partner, if you want to find a prince or princess, you have to be willing to kiss a few frogs.
Connection happens when you've created the "just right" cocktail of time spent together, shared experiences, and developed mutual vulnerability, support, empathy, trust, and respect. Physical proximity can be important, too, though its necessity in our online world may vary depending on the type of connection you seek.
If your efforts to create connection are taking time to gain traction, hang in there. Your attempts at connection won't always be rewarded. It doesn't reflect something negative about you, it just means you haven't found your tribe yet.
Keep showing up. Put "creating connection" on your calendar and then faithfully follow through.
Most importantly, trust yourself. When a potential connection seems promising, explore ways to nurture it. If a new connection feels uncomfortable or makes you uneasy, permit yourself to release it, even if part of you is willing to tolerate almost anyone to avoid feeling lonely. If you're in doubt as to why you should be discerning in your goal to create connection, go back to Tip #1.
Let Your Alone Time Be Your Happy Place
Introverts need alone time to recharge and restore, but be on the lookout for a shift in how you think about or experience that time.
It's important to notice when your restorative solitude is slipping into something more sinister.
If you start noticing feelings of disconnection, isolation (even when you're in a crowd), exhaustion, or a decreased sense of self, consider whether loneliness is at play. Watch out for the subtler signs, too. They can include fatigue, irritability, lack of motivation, and increased social media use, among others.
The sooner you notice yourself wobbling on the mountain ridge, teetering toward loneliness, the sooner you can course-correct. Pick one connection tip from the list above (I recommend starting with Connection Tip #1) and get started.
If you need support, reach out here.
Charity is a physician burnout coach helping introverts in healthcare escape feelings of apathy, irritability, and resentment brought on by the increasing demands and decreasing rewards of medicine.
She uses her 20 years of experience in clinical medicine combined with coaching to help introverts discover ways to be diligent, thoughtful clinicians while prioritizing their needs and protecting their energy. She wants you to know you don’t have to feel guilty for wanting a thriving life inside and outside of medicine.