Unbleep Your Life Show #15 7-28-24

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial are complicated and can be downright messy,
bringing out the best and worst inall of us. Here's an opportunity
for you to learn effective, concretestrategies to help you build healthy relationships from
the inside out. It's Unbleep YourLife and Relationships with host Anita Aslant,

(00:22):
psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey guys, welcome to another episode of
Unbleep Your Life and Relationships. I'myour host, Anita Astley, license psychotherapist
of twenty five years and published abook recently came out called Unbleep Your Life
and Relationships. You can get thaton Simon and Schuster, Amazon, Walmart,

(00:44):
Target, all kinds of places,bookstores, websites. Anyway, you
guys, if this is the firsttime you're joining me, I just want
to let you know that on thisshow we talk about all things relationship related
and mental health. I'm in studiotoday with Andrew greg Is away. Welcome
Andrew, and thanks for joining meand start studiving. He puts it all
together, he makes it all happen. We as social creatures, need interaction

(01:11):
with other people in doing therapy.For the last twenty five years with individuals,
couples, and families. The commontheme I'm thinking about the threat threat
all these years that I've learned aboutis that there is a grave sense of
loneliness. And I do believe thatloneliness leads to depression. You can't talk

(01:33):
about loneliness without talking about depression.You can't talk about depression without hearing about
loneliness and a sense of isolation.Now, of course, there are biological
facts related to people feeling depressed andall that kind of stuff, and we're
not going to get into that today. But I want to talk about a
sense of loneliness. What does itmean to be lonely? What does it
mean to feel lonely? And it'svery different to what people might think.

(01:59):
You know, when you think ofabout somebody feeling lonely or being alone,
they think of somebody who's isolated,who spends a lot of time by themselves.
Yeah, that can be one ofThat is one of the characteristics.
But what is it really about.What might surprise you is the extent to
which loneliness afflicts those who are notisolated in the traditional sense of the word,

(02:19):
including people who are married or haverelatively large networks of friends and family.
Does that surprise you, Andrew,No, I find loneliness at certain
points throughout pretty much every day.Yeah, so no, that does not
surprise me. Yeah, because peopleoften think loneliness is you're alone. Loneliness

(02:39):
is not simply being alone. Wellwhat is it? Then? It is
a subjective feeling of being alone orisolated, and that which has nothing to
do with the number of people aroundyou. Although many of us value are
alone time, which can be restorativefor me. I like my alone time
helps me to kind of get mystuff together, reset myself and emotionally when

(03:01):
we desire it. But as socialcreatures, we crave and desire deep connections
with others for our emotional and physicalwell being. So yes, you can
be married and have a lot offriends and still suffer from loneliness. You
can feel lonely in a room fullof people. It's not about, again,
the quantity of people in your life, but the quality of the relationships

(03:23):
that we have. And I talkabout this extensively in my book and I've
done a show on this too.What does it mean in terms of our
relationship? What does this do tous physically? And what does it do
to our mentally, our mental healthhinges on the quality of our relationships.
It is not the quantity of people, it is the quality. And loneliness

(03:44):
is really a function of not havingthose deep connections with people. Again,
room full of people, but wesuffer from loneliness and feeling lonely, by
the way, is universal human experiencethat deeply affects not only our mental health,
like I was saying, our physicalhealth. And we all have points
in our life of course that wesuffer from loneliness. So it can be

(04:05):
fleeting, it can be acute,or it can be chronic. Right,
it's a problem when it's chronic.A cute loneliness. I felt that.
You know, I've relocated multiple timesin my life, and to start over
in a community missing your friends,missing your old jobs, missing your family
if you lived by them, that'sa cute loneliness which you can work through
over, you know, becoming moreactive in your community. I was blessed

(04:28):
when I moved away. I've moved. I have moved to Arizona twice in
my life when I worked in collegesports prior to me working in media.
Yeah, and I was blessed tohave family there and that I felt obvious
loneliness leaving the people here. Yeah, but I was blessed to have family
there that made that transitional user,It made it easier for you. So
it's a cute loneliness. And that'snormal when we relocate or change a job

(04:50):
to have a feeling of loneliness becauseyou are alone. That is a function
of your new situation. But wecan feel that again, as I said,
even when we have a lot ofpeople around us. Now, I
use the term suffer from loneliness intentionallyand with purpose because it is physical.
When we think about suffering, whatdo you think about? I generally think

(05:12):
about pain. Something painful is happeningto our body, and feeling lonely is
a painful experience, and that Ijust want to point out. It exceeds
the emotional to the physical our body. We are intrinsically, as I said
before, deeply wired for deep connections, and that being rejected or socially excluded
hurts. It hurts like a cut. And do you remember the commercial,

(05:35):
I don't know, you're much youngerthan I am. Your brain on drugs.
Yeah, they're like cracking an egg. Yeah they're cracking an egg.
But we can look at our brainon loneliness. It really impacts our physical
health. When we are lonely,we generally are not feeling, we are
not experiencing human touch like a hug, a pat on the back, and

(05:56):
COVID. You know, we learnthrough COVID. You know, I don't
know you, but even though youknow, even myself, I remember feeling
a sense of loneliness when I duringthe pandemic at times. But I was
lucky that I was quarantining with myfamily and I was with my kids and
we hugged each other. Now weforget that often those physical touches, just

(06:17):
like a hug or a pat onthe back, what they do to our
brain. Our brain chemistry changes.When we are hogged, oxytocin is released,
we get a hit of dopamine free, free free, But we forget
about all those people that don't getthat, that didn't get that during the
pandemic. So there's a lot ofresearch on that also with regards to loneliness,
the quality of the quality of ourrelationships, and also the physical touch

(06:41):
that if we don't get that,that adds to our loneliness in a very
negative manner. How are you duringCOVID. Were you alone or were you
with quarantining with family? That wasa long period of time. Yah,
I mean at first, yeah,it was lonely. I was living in
Arizona whenever broke Yeah, so Iwas as far away from family as I

(07:02):
could have been at that point.Yeah. Yeah. So what many people
experience this loneliness and isolation. Andwe have a lot of longitudinal research on
this. And now, of coursewe're going to talk about social media and
how that impact. Does it helploneliness? Does it help us feel more
connected with people? Going to talkmore about that in detail. So I

(07:24):
just want to say that that experiencehighlighted how we suffer when we are not
able to touch or to be touchedby another person. Those who live with
people experience those who didn't live withpeople, excuse me, experience increased levels
of depression, again supporting the datathat we need to be touched as human

(07:44):
beings, and that suffering from lonelinessexceeds the mental and bleeds into our physical
state. Again, as I alwayssay, we cannot separate the two.
Our physical group is related to ourmental and has consequences. We need to
be physically touched and we need tobe emotionally touched by another person. Again,
we all have mental health. Now, whether that health is well or

(08:05):
not is an issue because we oftenon our we focus often in our physical
health, but we forget the mentalhealth. And loneliness impacts people gravely.
As I said earlier, despite beingsurrounded by people, one might feel lonely
due to a lack of meaningful connections. Although we are the most connected globally,
we are the least connected emotionally globally, meaning you know, social media,

(08:30):
always on the phone, feeling likewe're connected, but we're really not
connected. And in some ways ithelps, but it also hinders our ability
to connect with other people. Wewill talk about that in a few minutes.
Now, let me share some physicalhealth effects of loneliness. How does
it affect our physical health? I'mnot sure if you'd actually think about this
cardiovascular health. Would you ever associatefeeling lonely with having poor cardiovascular health?

(08:54):
Maybe not that specifically, but Icould see it definitely being a detriment to
physical health at ATIS. Yeah,they've all done a lot of research on
this. Loneliness is associated with anincreased risk of cardiovascular diseases, chronic loneliness.
You know, we talked a littlebit about acute and chronic. What's
the difference. Acute is you know, it happens and then you know,
we do something and it's gone.It's acute, it's short lived. Chronic

(09:16):
is long lasting. Chronic loneliness canelevate lead to elevated blood pressure, higher
cholesterol levels, and an increase heartrate, all of which contribute to heart
disease and stroke. We often don'tthink again, I'm repeating myself, but
it's so important how loneliness can impactus physically. A study published in Heart

(09:37):
Journal found that loneliness and socialized stateisolation are linked to twenty an increase in
twenty nine percent of coronary artery diseaseand a thirty two percent increased risk of
stroke. And if you guys,yeah, it's high right. We always
think about everything that we eat ordrink or whatever. Our history, medically
speaking, adds to our issues withour heart. But loneliness can also break

(10:03):
our heart. Not to be tacky, but it can. You weren't tacky.
Not to be tacky, but itcan. So. The other issue
we can have physically is our immunesystem. Now, when we think of
our immune system. We want itto be strong, we want it to
be healthy, but loneliness can weakenthe immune system, making individuals more susceptible
to infections and illnesses. Now,I am a research buff and I hate,

(10:28):
you know, always quoting stats andall this stuff, but research is
important. It helps us to understand, helps us to guide what we're going
to do moving forward. If we'retrying to take care of some issues.
We are going to talk about thismore in detail coming up after these messages.
Everyone strives for healthier relationships. Here'smore of Unleep Your Life and Relationships

(10:50):
on news Talk eleven th wis.Hey, guys, welcome back to Unbleep
Your Life and Relationships. Your hostAnita Astley, psychotherapist of twenty five years
and published author of Unbleep Your Lifeand Relationships, available on Simon and Schuster
and Amazon. If you're joining mefor the first time, we talk about

(11:13):
all things relationship and mental health issues. We were just talking. We are
talking about loneliness today and how itnot only impacts our psychological wellbeing but also
our physical wellbeing. I was justtalking about some of the cardiovascular issues that
we can experience when we have chronicloneliness, and I was being tacking and

(11:35):
saying a broken heart, but alsoa cardiovascula, said any tacking. The
other one I was just talking aboutbefore we went to break was the weakening
of the immune system. Now,I am a research boff, and I
don't want to bore you with allthis research. But research, as I
said before, guides as, isreally important to understanding what's going on with

(11:56):
us physically and also mentally, sowe can do better when we know better.
I do believe we try to dobetter. Now. Research has shown
that lonely individuals have higher levels ofinflammation and impaired immune responses, which can
contribute to chronic disease such as diabetes, cancer, and other autoimmune disorders.

(12:18):
Now this one number three, sleepdisturbances. I know that a lot of
us from working with people in myoffice, there's a lot of issues with
falling asleep and then staying asleep.Andrew's yawning today, So I'm like,
Andrew, did you get any sleep? And I don't know if it's because
of loneliness or because he was onthe phone. I got some sleep,

(12:39):
yes, but was it the requiredamount for necessary rem time and everything?
Probably not, but loneliness is oftenlinked with poor sleep quality. Individuals who
feel lonely tend to experience sleep disturbances, including, like I said previously,
difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep,and having non restorre sort of deep sleep,

(13:01):
which I think Andrew is affecting Angielack of Yeah, Andrew, are
you lonely? Is this the reasonor what's going on with you that your
sleep is disturbed? I'm putting youon the spot as a sometimes stick.
Been doing the six am show onWISM the last you know, ten or
twelve days of business days. Sothe sleep schedule of the fourum is just
it's not my normal routine. Yeah, So yours is not a function of

(13:22):
being lonely. I mean, toa certain degree it could be, but
I think more or less it's it'sthe idea of going to bed when I'm
when it's still light out, whenyou're trying to at least, Yeah,
it's your circadian rhythm is completely thatsome. Yeah, So poor sleep quantity
can exasperate health problems and contribute toa cycle of worstening physical and mental health.

(13:43):
And that's what I'm trying to pointout today to you. By going
over this physical aspect, because wealways think about when people are suffering again
from loneliness, that it's only emotionaland that it's only mental. No,
like I said previously, when ourmind hurts, our body hurts. When
our body hurts, our mind hurts. The two are linked. Another one
is chronic pain. Loneliness can exasperatethe perception of pain and contribute to the

(14:07):
development of chronic pain conditions. Studiessuggest that social isolation and loneliness can increase
experience of pain and reduce the effectnesseffectiveness sorry of pain management strategies. Okay,
guys, I hope by now youguys listening out there are understanding and

(14:28):
accepting because acceptance is a hard partof this, that the two are related.
So if you're suffering from loneliness andyou're having some physical symptoms, because
I often work with people that comeinto my office and they'll talk about their
physical and their mental suffering but seeno connection to it, and they think

(14:48):
something else is going on. Andwe're not talking about psychosomatic illness today because
that's a whole other episode. Butit is linked. There are people who
start to exhibit physical symptoms like I'vejust talked about due to their emotional and
psychological issues that they are struggling with. And when I point this out in
session to them, they're quite surprisedbecause they think, well, I'm okay.
But then I listen to some ofthe stuff that they're going through and

(15:11):
I think realize that, wait aminute, they're really suffering from being alone
and depression, and of course thisis contributing to some of the problems that
they're having physically. It makes senseto me, but I don't know,
maybe because I've just got doing this. Maybe I've just been doing this for
too long, and what makes senseto me doesn't always make sense to other
people. Now, lifestyle factors,Andrew, I think this is we're going

(15:35):
to talk to you, don't Iapply to me? Yeah, Loneliness can
lead to unhealthy behaviors such as poordiet, lack of exercise, smoking,
and excessive alcohol consumption. Especially formen. These behaviors can increase the risk
of again, all these wonderful thingsthat we don't want to think about,
the obesity, diabetes, and otherillnesses. Guys, it is so important

(15:56):
to take both care of our bodyand our mind, and the two again
are intertwined. Now, when wemove into the mental health aspect of it,
of course people think, yeah,of course I'm gonna have mental health
issues if I'm lonely, but weoften don't know how they are manifested,
how they are expressed. Loneliness oftenleads to feelings of sadness that's pretty obvious,

(16:18):
right, hopelessness and helplessness, likewe can't do anything to help ourselves.
We are caught up in a viciouscycle. And people will often say
to me, well, Anita,I don't know what to do about feeling
this way. It's not so easy. There's no button that you can press
in me, and I know Iwish there was. That you can just
go out there and be social.But it's not just being social that's going
to take care of your loneliness.Like we talked about before, you can

(16:41):
suffer from loneliness in a crowd ofpeople, amongst family, amongst friends because
you don't have that deep connection.And you're going to say, Okay,
how do I build these deep connections? That's the loaded question. But one
of the things that you have todo, and I talk about this in
my book Unbleep Your Life and Relationshipsin detail is we have to start spending
real time with people in trying tobuild a connection with somebody. It's not

(17:06):
just gonna happen overnight. You know. You can't buy what a connection on
Amazon. You can try, butit's usually not successful. As people try
to do on social media, whichwe're going to talk about later, as
I give you some tips at theend of this show, which I usually
like to do if I can squeezeit all in and I don't, you
know, talk too much and justsometimes tells me it's time to wrap it
up. But here I am talkingtoo much. Okay, getting back on

(17:27):
topic. It's all related, guys. Whatever I talk about is usually related
to what we're talking about anxiety anddepression. We are not surprised by that,
right if you guys are listening outthere and you're saying, okay,
of course, it makes sense thatif we're feeling lonely, we're gonna have
some anxiety and some depression. Chronicloneliness is closely linked with anxiety and depression,

(17:48):
and the lack of social interaction andlack of support can exasperate these conditions,
leading to a downward spiral. Thereis a point of intervention in this
downward spiral. But sometimes people areso stuck and so alone that they don't
know how to get out of it. Depression characterized by persistent sadness and loss

(18:08):
of interest, and anxiety marked byexcessive worry and fear, can be both
causes and effects of loneliness. Andyou know, as I've said before,
men and women exhibit these symptoms differently. For women to express sadness, we're
all used to that, that's kindof the stereotypical norm that when women are

(18:29):
suffering, we express sadness. Andin men, I am going to do
a show on male depression. Menexhibit and manifest symptoms of depression in a
very different way, and they're oftenmisdiagnosed. The mark is missed. You
know, people will come in couplesinto session and you know, the woman
will say, well, oh mygod, he's so irritable. He's acting
like a jerk, he's drinking toomuch and engaging in high risk behavior.

(18:53):
And you know, over time,in talking with him in individual couple sessions,
I come to discover that he's justnot being a jerk. He's actually
suffering from depression. But they manifestsymptoms in a very different way through being
aggressive, irritable, engaging in highrisk behavior as a high risk behavior.

(19:17):
If you well, I had donelike going out and drinking or something like
that. I had this guy whobought a motorcycle, and I know that's
an extreme went out and bought amotorcycle, and all of a sudden,
his wife's like, I don't know, he's got all these things going on.
Now he goes out and buys amotorcycle and we didn't even talk about
it. By the way, Alot of other issues related to that,
but one of them wasn't he's nowdoing all these crazy things to put his

(19:38):
life at risk because he is notable to say that he's feeling vulnerable,
that he's feeling depressed. And thatstems from a sense of loneliness. Even
when you're married, you can belonely. It is not unusual that I
hear that in my office when I'mworking with couples. Another one is cognitive
decline. What does that really mean? Loneliness has and associated with cognitive decline,

(20:02):
meaning how you're articulating your thoughts inan increased risk of dimension. Older
adults, social interactions stimulate cognitive functioningand their absence can lead to deterioration and
memory and thinking skills, you know. And I saw that with COVID,
and I saw that with my ownkids. They're like, oh, I
don't know how to think and actanymore. I'm like, yes, you
do. We just need to rehearse. We will talk more about the emotional

(20:25):
issues related to loneliness when we comeback from these messages. Anita Ashley has
more advice on how to on Bleepyour Life and Relationships on News Talk eleven
thirty WYSA. Hey, guys,welcome back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships.
I'm your host, Anita Asley.Today we're talking about loneliness, the

(20:48):
physical impact of loneliness and also themental health aspects of being alone. Substance
abuse is an attempt to cope withloneliness. People abuse. We were just
talking about high risk behavior, Andrewasked me, one of them is substance
and alcohol abuse. To deal withour feelings of loneliness, some people may
turn to drugs that they've never usedbefore, and of course, over time

(21:11):
it becomes abused and it's an addiction, further isolating the individual and damaging their
mental health and of course their physicalhealth. The other thing, the extreme
one, is suicidal thoughts and behaviors. You know, severe loneliness can lead
to suicidal ideation and behavior. Isthe feeling of being disconnected from others and
the perceived lack of support can makelife seem unbearable for some and hopeless.

(21:34):
You know, this is a placewhere if you're starting to feel that way
and you or if you're not feelingthat way, you see that in another
person that's close to you, it'stime to get some help. And of
course, when we're stuck in thatposition, it's hard to see that within
ourselves and sometimes hard to see thatin the ones that we love because we
are blinded by it. But guys, is that is something that is a

(21:57):
function of chronic loneliness. Now,what do we do when we are having
these issues? The number one thingwe have to do. And before I
get into that, I want tosay there's a lot of shame and people
admitting that they're lonely because they endup feeling like I'm a loser. I
don't actually want to say it.And if you're listening to this and you're

(22:17):
feeling this way, I'll tell yousomething. You are not a loser.
If you're feeling lonely or suffering.Like I said before, that word is
with intention, You're not. Manyof us today feel very lonely and it
further isolates us. And then ofcourse we're caught up in this very negative
spiral of loneliness and that turns intodepression and anxiety, and we start to
have all kinds of other issues.So the first thing, what do we

(22:40):
do? Because I was on thisshow, Okay, now that I've told
you what the issue is, whatare we going to do about It's the
number one thing we need to dois to move into action once we know
that this is what we're suffering from. So the first thing acknowledge it.
There's no shame in saying I amsuffering from loneliness chapter one of my books,

(23:00):
self Awareness. We have to beaware of what is going on within
ourselves. And number two, talkto somebody, talk even to a stranger.
Like there are people who I've workedwith who isolate. They don't go
out, they don't talk to anybody. You know, that five second,
five minute conversation with somebody at thegrocery store can make all the difference in
the world. And I got totell if you're out there and you're serving

(23:22):
people, you're working in the serviceindustry, for sure, you need to
think about that. Maybe that personwho sounds very annoying because they're just talking
to you, maybe that's the onlyinteraction that they're having all day with a
human and they need that. Sobe kind and be nice, even if
you think, oh my god,why is he talking to me so much?
I've bartended in the past, Yeah, and I feel like I should

(23:45):
have a degree on the wall theamount of yeah times I've had to have
conversations with people. But you're right, there are a lot of people that
seek that. And if I wasthe outlet for them, Yeah, they
were comfortable coming and talking to me, why not and they tip me at
the end. Yeah. No,But we always say don't talk to strangers,
right because talk to strangers that arein the grocery store. If you
got the bar, you know,you know all about this. There's a

(24:07):
lot of lonely people at the barand the bartender you know, Well,
I have clients who are bartenders like, well, I'm kind of a therapist
without the license. Because there's somany people who are lonely and they're seeking
a conversation. Just remember that ifyou're in the service industry and somebody is
talking to you, you might bethat hope for them. You might be
that one person that brightens up theirsense of loneliness. Okay, be very

(24:30):
mindful and sensitive to that other thing. Build social connections easier said than done,
but it's one of the most effectiveways to combat loneliness. Loneliness,
sorry, is to build and maintainsocial connections. This can be done through
various things like join a group,join a club, Engage in activities that
you're interested in, even if it'ssomething that you've never tried before. Like

(24:51):
pickleball is a huge thing. Ieven tried it because I'm like, wait
a minute, I'm in my placetoo much. You're talking. You're talking
to the senior class champion of pickleballhere, are you? Yes? Okay,
well, no one needs lessons.I think I might need some help
from you. But this can helpyou meet like minded individuals or unlike minded
individuals. But it'll get you outof your house, out of your apartment

(25:12):
and in the world. Again.We're going to talk about social media,
the pros and cons of that.We have to get into that reconnect with
old friends. Reach out to oldfriends or acquaintances I can revive. Just
reaching out to them can bring thatrelationship to life. But I'll hear from
people, well they don't call me, why should I call them? And
we got to get out of that. Why should we do that? If

(25:32):
you want to reconnect with an oldfriend, give it a shot. If
you're feeling lonely, give it ashot. What do you have to lose.
If they don't respond alike, thenyou know you've learned something. But
give it a shot to reconnect withpeople or even family that you haven't talked
to in a while. The difficultpart of it is when you're in that
lonely place, it's hard to takethe first step. But again, if

(25:56):
you acknowledge that, then take thenext step, which is trying to connect
to somebody that you can build arelationship with. And I recognize that you
know not all of these relationships aregoing to work out and make you feel
less lonely, but it is thefirst step that you have to take.
Otherwise you're just going to be stuckin your loneliness. And nobody wants to
be lonely. No, And Iagree, there's a certain amount of space

(26:19):
and time you want for yourself.As I said before, to reset to
rejuvenate. But again, we haveto take the first step. And I
am people who've worked with me knowthis, if you've listened to my other
podcasts and so forth. I amvery action oriented therapist. We can explore
to try to get some understanding ofwhat's going on, why you're doing what
you're doing. But the end ofthe day, we have to take steps.

(26:41):
We have to take action to combatwhatever it is that we're struggling with
today. It's loneliness. Get outinto the world now. Another thing we
can do is utilize technology. Welearned that from covid. It helped us
with our loneliness because we were ableto connect with other people. A powerful
tool to connect with other people throughsocial media, and I know there's pros

(27:03):
and cons, so platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter can help maintain long
distance relationships, but just help youconnect with the world. And I do
think that the primary way we needto connect with the world is face to
face. Human interaction is really important, but it is a step forward.
If you're not doing that, maybethat's the first thing that you need to

(27:25):
do. You know, or doa FaceTime call somebody and switch it to
FaceTime so you see that other person. That's really very important. Sure.
Another thing that we can do andwe don't need to be ashamed of,
is hello, call a professional likemyself. It is nothing wrong with going
for therapy. Professional health can becrucial for those people struggling with chronic illness.

(27:45):
And part of the reason I dothis show and my other podcast is
to help remove the negative connotations ofpsychotherapy. We all struggle in life,
and we all struggle in life attimes with loneliness. I remember because I've
relocated so many times in my life, and along with relocation comes a certain

(28:06):
amount of loneliness. And so andI did. I went to you know,
I called up my therapist. Youguys know, if you've read my
book or going to read my booksoon, which is available on Amazon,
I share vignettes of my life withand with doctor Frank. Doctor Frank was
my psychotherapist and he helped me througha lot of my issues with loneliness.
When I relocated, I was like, what am I doing here? Why

(28:29):
did I do this? I missedmy friends, I missed my family,
but I was able to again withsome a little bit of a push get
back into the world and connect again. Another one is self help strategies.
There are several ways you can helpyourself if you're not going to call somebody
for therapy. Mindfulness and meditation.Do some meditation, sit and people.
So I don't know how to meditate, you know what, Google go on

(28:52):
YouTube five ten minutes of just meditatingcan help you deal with the anxiety that
you might feeling about going out intothe world and working on your loneliness.
Because people will say, I'm tooanxious now, I'm kind of stuck in
my you know, I've been aloneand with my feelings of loneliness for so
long. I don't know how todo this afterwards, And I remember after

(29:14):
COVID that was one of my biggestchallenges, was helping people to reintegrate back
into society. And I remember eventalking about this with my own children,
my son in particular, who thought, Okay, I've been locked in for
so long, I don't know howto get back out there. And then
students who are my patients also likethat I don't know how to get back
I'm uncomfortable, but I'm also comfortablein my loneliness. So I said,

(29:37):
Okay, we're gonna, you know, connect on social media. Then tell
the person you want to get togetherface to face. You know, people,
you have to get back out there. We have to take actions,
we have to take steps forwards.Hobbies and interest you talk about pick a
ball, it was a former hobby. I could pick up a panel.
I feel like I'd be all right. Yeah. Engaging in hobbies and interests

(29:59):
can provide a great time of purposeand satisfaction, making solitude more bearable when
you want to be alone. Right, it's okay. We need to yeah,
I mean, discover something about yourself. You must have a hobby.
You must have something that you like. And people who say I don't,
well, you need to dig deeperbecause we all have something that brings this
joy. Community involvement is one ofthem. Participate in a community. We're

(30:21):
going to talk about when we comeback after these messages about social media.
Good thing or a bad thing forloneliness. Back to Unbleep Your Life and
Relationships on news Talk eleven thirty wysHey, guys, welcome back to Unbleep
your Life and Relationships. I'm yourhost, Anita Astley, psychotherapist, of

(30:42):
twenty five years and published author ofUnbleep Your Life and Relationships. Today we're
talking about loneliness, the impact ofloneliness and our mental health and our physical
health. We're just talking about someeasy things that you can do if you're
suffering from loneliness. And again Iwant to normalize that we all, at
some point in our life suffer fromloneliness. And there's a difference between acute

(31:03):
loneliness meaning short lived, and ofcourse chronic loneliness, which can interfere of
course with your overall mental and physicalhealth. We're just talking about the mental
impact. And some of the thingsyou can do is reach out and touch
someone. Okay, be careful,don't quote me. Reach out and touch
someone that's safe and that you wantto touch. Hugging, holding hands,

(31:26):
or even getting a pat on theback. Physical touch can lower our psychological
and physico logical response to stress.And you know, as I was talking
about before, when we are touched, our brain releases oxytocin dopamine that helps
us to feel good. There feelgood hormones. Now, we can't talk
about loneliness without talking about the roleof social media. Is it helpful or

(31:51):
is it not that depends on thetime of day, in my opinion,
depends on the time of time ofday, context, everything. So the
intersection of loneliness and social media usageis a subject of increasing research and interest.
How can it not be we arethe most connected, but at the
same time we are the least connected. I talk about that whole chapter in

(32:12):
my book dedicated to that, inthe communication section. Think about that,
we're the most connected, but we'rethe least connected. Yeah, we can
connect with people through social media,Facebook, Twitter, all of that kind
of stuff, But are they real, genuine connections? What do you think?
No, because we've talked about howmuch human interaction is vital to this,

(32:37):
to loneliness and everything to a certaindegree, like you mentioned earlier.
Earlier though with FaceTime, that's agood stepping stone to hopefully curb the loneliness.
But I get what I track andeverything you're saying, though. Yeah,
Well, there's pros and cons tousing social media. From my experience

(32:59):
of being in my office, there'sa lot of negative stuff that goes on
there that's not healthy for people.And when people try to use social media
as a way of connecting and buildinggenuine relationships, it doesn't always work,
especially with people that they don't know, and when they start to replace real
life connections with people that they've nevermet. You know, there's this whole

(33:21):
thing about collecting friends on Facebook.They have like one thousand friends, but
how many of those are really yourfriends? And it becomes all about collecting
very superficial relationships. They're not deeplyemotional relationships, will some of them attempt
to be, and that doesn't alwayswork out. Sometimes they work out,

(33:42):
works out, but not always.I'm just reminded of a client I was
working with last week. She wasactually talking about her mother and her mother,
you know, elderly people chronic loneliness, suffering from chronic loneliness, and
they go to social media. They'reon Facebook all day. And literally,
she said, I think my motherthis on Facebook all day because I'm look
I'm examining her her messages and herposts, and she has posted like probably

(34:07):
fifteen times today or every day.This seems to be her social media pattern,
and that only tells me. Andshe asked me, what do you
think about this? And I'm thinking, Okay, if she's posting so much
and she can see her activity level, then she's not really living her life
outside of outside of Facebook, youknow, in terms of building healthy relationships

(34:30):
in real life, in real person. And after talking to she so,
I encourage her to talk to hermom about it. No, mom,
are you feeling a sense of loneliness? First it was a lot of shame,
like, no, I'm not.I'm doing well, I'm doing good.
But after a lengthy conversation with her, she realized that her mother indeed
was suffering from chronic loneliness and theonly way she could really deal with that

(34:51):
was going on Facebook and connecting withpeople on Facebook and writing. And part
of her issue is she goes sointo the you know, the whole debate
thing that happened that's going on rightnow in this country, and so immersed
in it that she overidentified with it, and she didn't realize that this was
actually fueling and enabling her to becomemore and more isolated because she was living

(35:15):
in the virtual world rather than thereal world. But at some point that
had to be turned off. Sherealized that it wasn't healthy. But anytime
she wanted some kind of interaction,she went to social media platform rather than
calling somebody, rather than arranging adate with somebody anything for lunch or reaching
out to her family. So althoughit's positive in that sense, it is

(35:37):
negative in that it keeps us stuckin where we are because we don't need
to go anywhere, right, wecan just be in our pajamas, we
can just get up and get onthe computer, and we lose all sense
of routine. Like when I'm speakingof this person, she didn't have to
go out to work. She's aretired person, and I think the elderly
can be more susceptible to that.Social media has transformed how people connect,

(36:00):
communicate, and share information, providingboth opportunities and challenges for social interaction,
enabling loneliness or helping with loneliness.Now the impact of social media on loneliness,
There are positive aspects of social media. Number one connectivity. Social media
enables users to stay connected with friendsand family regardless of geographical barriers. Right,

(36:22):
This can help reduce feelings of loneliness, especially from those who live far
from each other, like my family'sall over the place. So I love
social media and connecting through social media. Through them, I have a lot
of great friends that and like Imentioned earlier, I moved away. Yeah,
and We've always done a great job. But whether it's snapchat or I
messages or group messages on social media, of staying connected. Now, when

(36:45):
we get together, like you mentionedearlier, those endorphins of just the joy
of being back together is so fulfilling, Yeah, which is very different to
seeing them on a screen, right, very much now. Also in social
media, and not many people somepeople know this. I just learned of
this because I'm older. There aresupport networks. Online communities and support groups

(37:06):
like a book club can provide asense of more in depth connection with somebody
rather than just a generic post orsomething like that. For example, people
dealing with chronic illnesses or mental healthissues can find solace and advice from others
in similar situations in these groups thatare on Facebook. You know, I'm
just reading about that kind of stuff. And there's also opportunities for new friendships.

(37:28):
Now, social media can facilitate theformation of new friendships and relationships,
but I still question you know thatit depends on again the quality and the
depth of those relationships. They canoften be superficial, which is one of
the negative aspects of social media.Negative aspects of social media superficial interactions like

(37:49):
I was just saying sorry, asI was just saying. While social media
can facilitate communication, these interactions areoften superficial and lack the depth of face
to face conversations. This can exasperatefeelings of loneliness by highlighting the lack of
meaningful connections. This I can relateto completely because when COVID was there,

(38:13):
we had no choice. I hadno choice but to continue services with people
via technology. But I could notwait to get back to face to face
therapy. It is not the same. There is so much that is missed
in that digital communication of therapy thatit's just so different to be in the
office with somebody versus three dimensional Ican totally understand and being in the same

(38:37):
room and just there's got to bebody language that you pick up in person
as opposed to just staring at ascreen. Yeah, you miss so much
of what's going on when you're justdoing things virtually. This now, this
is a big one. Comparison andenvy. I talk about this in my
book Comparison and Envy Evil of socialMedia. Social media often presents an idealized
version of other people's lives. Lookat that per so, oh my god,

(39:00):
they have this amazing life, andI'm so sad and I'm so lonely,
leading to negative feelings about ourselves becausewe think everything, everybody and everyone
is having a wonderful life except forus. Seeing curated images of our friends
their achievements and happiness makes us feelmore isolated and more inadequate. And I
would say to my kids, look, it's a snapshot of their life.

(39:22):
It is not their life, andit's only the highlights. It's only the
highlights. And do we want tosee the negative stuff? Not no,
we don't want to see that either. But again we have to be mindful
what we are seeing is not theirday to day life. The other one
is cyberbullying and harassment. We knowabout this, we read about it all
the time. Negative interactions such ascyberbullying and online harassment can lead to increased

(39:45):
feelings of loneliness and especially depression.Victims of online abuse may withdraw from social
interactions, which they do both onlineand offline. You know, when I
was a kid and I was bullied, or even a young adult, I
could, you know, just gohome and be done with it. So
now it's twenty four to seven,it continues. It continues, So,
guys, I just want to leaveyou with a few things. If you

(40:07):
are suffering again. I use theword suffering with intention because loneliness causes physical
harm and it causes mental harm,and the two are related. But I
want to say to you, it'sokay. You're not alone and you're suffering.
Most of us experience some level ofloneliness in our lives, and there's
acute loneliness, and there's chronic loneliness. Acute toss. Sometimes you feel it,

(40:29):
but then it's gone. Chronic iswhen it starts to interfere with your
overhelmfunctioning and you need to get somehelp. It's okay to call a therapist
and get some help to unbleep loneliness. Join me next time as we continue
to talk about mental health and relationships.