10 Ways to Feel Less Lonely

We’ve all experienced feelings of loneliness at one time or another, whether it be from boredom, moving to a new school and not knowing anyone or due to a variety of other changes within your life. Unfortunately, those of us dealing with depression feel alone on a regular basis. We could be in a room surrounded by all of our closest friends, laughing and having a good time or we could be having a quiet evening at home with our family, but despite being surrounded by people we love and people who love us, inside we feel empty, like we’re the only one in the room.

Despite these feelings, it is important to try and not let your loneliness define you, to not let it take over your life or keep you from having a good time. Instead of wallowing in your loneliness, allow yourself to appreciate your alone time. This is a good time to discover who you truly are, to find new passions, to work on a project that you keep putting off. Alone time doesn’t have to be lonely if you look at it in a positive way. Below are 10 tips of things you can do when you feel alone to help you centre yourself and calm your mind so you can appreciate the time you have to yourself.

1. Go for a walk in the woods. This allows you to escape the busyness and stress of daily life and to experience the world as it was truly meant to be before us humans destroyed most of its beauty. The fresh air and the sounds of nature are peaceful and refreshing. Reconnecting with the earth can ground you and make you feel a part of something special.

2. Spend some time in the sun. Sunlight is a natural treatment for depression. It lifts our spirits and helps us enjoy our day

3. Meditate. Meditation has been proven to relieve stress and help with depression. Set aside some time each day to sit in a comfortable spot, erase the thoughts from your mind, enjoy the pure silence and concentrate on your breathing. It takes some practice to do this successfully, but with time you will be calm, you will feel all your anxieties drift away and you will feel connected to yourself in a way that you have never experienced before.

4. Practice Yoga. Like meditation, yoga helps you to calm your mind, to be in control of your body and allows good energy to flow through your body while flushing out all the negative thoughts that are weighing you down. Exercise keeps you healthy, triggers your feel good hormones, and if you take yoga at a public class, you can meet lots of like minded people and hopefully develop some new friendships.

5. Write a journal. This is my go-to when I’m feeling lonely. I find that getting all my thoughts and emotions out of my head and onto paper really reduces my anxiety and allows me to process how I’m feeling in a more logical way.

6. Play with your pet. Being around animals has been proven to reduce stress and make us happier. Playing with a furry companion who will love you unconditionally will really give you a purpose and make you feel less lonely. If you don’t have a pet of your own, check out your local animal shelter and if you can, consider adopting one of the animals (they need our love and companionship just as much as we need theirs).

7. Watch TED Talks. There are literally hundreds of talks all filled with inspiration and creativity. There is truly something for everyone and I promise you you’ll feel more in touch with yourself and the rest of humanity after watching. Sometimes watching TED Talks is just what I need to inspire me to be the best me I can be and to give me the motivation to get off the couch and enjoy my day.

8. Read a book. If you enjoy reading then you don’t need me to explain how amazing it feels to get lost in a fictional world for a little while. More often than not I get so immersed in a book that I completely forget about the real world. The characters become my friends, the plot becomes my life, and for however long it takes me to finish the book, I’m truly not alone.

9. Pamper yourself. Appreciate your alone time and indulge in an at home spa day. Light a candle. Put on some relaxing music. Enjoy a soothing bath. Give yourself a hair treatment. Exfoliate your skin. Give yourself a facial. Paint your nails. Just love yourself.

10. Call your friends or family. Sometimes we just need to hear the voice of someone we love to calm us down and reminds us that we’re not alone in this world, that even though we may feel lonely, there’s people out there who truly care about us. Instead of picking up the phone, why not use Skype or Face Time? Seeing the person you’re talking to will give you a boost of happiness because instead of feeling like you’re just talking to a distant voice, you’ll feel like that person is really with you. 

RIP Robin Williams

"You look at the world and see how scary it can be sometimes and still try to deal with the fear. Comedy can deal with the fear and still not paralyze you or tell you that it's going away. You say, okay, you got certain choices here, you can laugh at them and then once you've laughed at them and you have expunged the demon, now you can deal with them. That's what I do when I do my act."

Since this is a blog on depression and mental health, I see it fit to post a tribute to a man that many of us grew up with; an amazingly talented actor and comedian, a highly energetic and good humored man, someone who we could all count on to make us laugh - Robin Williams. 

On August 11, 2014 Robin Williams passed away due to apparent suicide following his struggle with severe depression. 

Williams has been open about his mental health issues, however his battle with depression came as a shock to many - how could someone whose purpose in life was to make others laugh, feel so sad inside? This just goes to show that we should respect each other and try to bring a little bit of happiness to other people's lives each day because we're all dealing with our own demons. Everyone has struggles that no one else knows about and we should be mindful of that in our interactions with others. 

I've read some criticisms online saying that Robin Williams was "too successful" to be depressed. This angers me. Depression is an illness and it can happen to anyone. Of course some people may be faced with a greater number of risk factors for depression depending on the quality of the life they live, but depression doesn't single out these people. Depression does not care about class, wealth, race, talent, etc. Nobody is immune from depression. One article I read mentioned a very good comparison - "Smoking may be a major cause of lung cancer, but non-smokers can end up with it." Likewise, poverty, homelessness, abuse, drug dependency, etc. may be a factor in depression, but people who are not faced with these issues can end up with it as well. Take myself for instance, I'm not a wealthy, successful celebrity, but I'm also not living on the side of the road scouring the garbage cans for food. I'm just your average, every day girl, and yet I have depression. Depression just is. Some people get it, some people don't and there's no way around it. As the same article pointed out - "a person’s lifestyle doesn’t automatically reduce their suffering. Depression doesn’t work like that. And even if it did, where’s the cut-off point? Who would we consider “too successful” to be ill?"

We should all remember Robin for the joy he brought to our lives, for his ability to make us laugh, for his talent in Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Will Hunting, Jumanji, What Dreams May Come, Hook and many more films, but hopefully his death will also help send a message; hopefully it'll help change people's attitudes towards depression and mental health, make people more aware of the power of this illness, and ultimately, help end the stigma that surrounds the world of mental health. 

FROZEN

When I first started seeing my acupuncturist he suggested I watch the Disney movie Frozen. I had heard of the movie, but originally just wrote it off as a silly children's movie. But my acupuncturist convinced me that the movie was a good portrayal of a young girl dealing with depression and how she overcame it, so I decided to give it a watch. 

Be strong and brave like Elsa. Be positive like Anna. And be happy and kind-hearted like Olaf. 

Here are a few tips that I took from the movie and my discussion with my acupuncturist.

// Being cold all the time can lead to depression. When your body is a regular temperature, you feel better and happier and you're more likely to do things and have an easier time doing them because your body is alert and energetic. However, when you're cold for long periods of time your body starts to shut down and and all your energy is focused on trying to keep you warm instead of helping you be productive. When we're cold, we tend to have worse posture as we shrug our shoulders and fold our bodies up to try and keep the heat in. The problem is that when we're bent over like that, we have bad circulation so our blood does not flow through our body properly, thus reinforcing the feeling of coldness. Staying warm and, as a result, having better posture will improve your circulation and help you maintain a normal body temperature. This will give you more energy and will also help you breathe better since your airways aren't constricted from being bent over which will help you feel more relaxed. 

>>> Side Note: For those of you who know me, you know that I am constantly freezing cold. It's been a problem for years. It can be the middle of the summer and you'll still see me wearing sweaters and wrapped in blankets. This could be a potential cause of my depression because my body has simply depleted all it's energy resources by trying to warm me up and the lack of energy may be a contributor to my feelings of pure exhaustion. 

// Isolating yourself is a recipe for depression. Human's are hardwired to crave companionship, friendship and love. We need these social bonds in our life to form deep connections, to give us a sense of purpose and to make us happy and experience positive emotions. People may prefer different levels of interactions with others, but we all need positive relationships in our lives to help us grow. I know for some people it's harder than for others, but letting people in and forming some strong bonds will really help to alleviate your depression by having people you can count on and who you can talk to and who will help you get off the couch or out of bed and go outside and start doing things again. 

// Opening up and being truthful both with yourself and with those around you is a big step to overcoming your depression. It's not easy by any means. But allowing yourself to accept the situation you're in and talking to others about what you're going through is really a huge weight off your chest. This was so hard for me to do, but once I started opening up to others I realized how much support I had and people understood me better so it strengthened my relationship with friends, family, employers and co-workers. The hardest thing to do is to ask for help, but I promise you it's also the best decision you can make for yourself. 

If you haven't seen this movie, I suggest you check it out. I was skeptical at first, but now I'm in love! It's an adorable story and as this post confirms, there's lost of lessons to be learned from it. 

RAW Emotion

The following is an exert from a journal entry I wrote on Friday May 16, 2014. As you can tell from the entry, I was in a dark spot at the time and was really struggling to understand my life.

** Update: Since I wrote this journal entry I have stopped going to work completely as I found it too hard to focus on myself and getting better while also trying to force myself to work a 9-5 job where other people depended on me. How could I be there for others when I couldn't even depend on myself? I decided I needed some time to just figure out me. I also feel like my medication is starting to work a little better. It's taken a long time to truly start altering my brain chemistry, but I can say that within the past month or so I have noticed a bit of a difference. Remember, I started my medication in March and it wasn't until July that I really felt a significant change. That's five months! So medication isn't a quick fix option, this process takes time. I'm still by no means feeling fixed or better, but it is very encouraging to recognize some progress, no matter how small. 

RAW Emotion

"I really don't feel very much like myself anymore. I look like me, but that's really the only thing about myself that I recognize. Some days are better than others. Some days I know that the real me is hiding just beneath the surface, other days I feel like I'll never see her again. It's hard to look at myself in the mirror every day and to not really know who the person is staring back at me. It's upsetting. I act different than I used to, my mind thinks in a way that feels so foreign to me, everything I used to identify myself with, my education, my career choice, are gone; vanished, replaced by what, I do not know. Everything I used to enjoy feels distant; out of reach.

It's hard to tell whether I'm getting better. I suppose I am. I don't cry or break down as much as I used to, I can spend a night alone without panicking, I've been able to force myself out of bed in the morning and go to work more often than not - those are all good signs. But I'm not really sure that the medication is working. It certainly didn't last time Although I'm on a different type of medication this time, it seems to be the same story. I feel like it worked a bit at the beginning, my brain got a nice spike of serotonin and then it stabilized me a little, just enough that I was no longer going crazy, and then it plateaued, leaving me here, in limbo, stuck. 

Stuck. Not getting worse but also not getting any better, just staying the same. This 'sameness' is starting to agitate me, it's hard to push myself each day when I don't notice any improvements. I will never give up on myself, if there's one thing I am, it's determined. But the longer I stay in this one place, without seeing a meaningful change, the harder it is to conjure up the motivation I need to push myself forward. Why keep working so hard and get nothing in return? But I will, because I know otherwise I'll be swallowed up in a vicious circle - every time I miss work, every time I don't do something I had my heart set on, it'll make me feel worse and just continue to bring me down. 

Going to work seems to be the thing that stresses me out the most. I don't know why. I honestly enjoy my job, it's the type of work I've always dreamed of doing - working in an office, researching, writing reports - the old me would think I hit the jackpot, that I was given the opportunity of a life-time, and yet the new me isn't quite content. Again, I feel stuck in limbo, confused between the life I always wanted, which is the life I have now, and the life I now keep dreaming of. I'm not sure which path to take, which life I want more, I'm at a crossroads and I think that's really contributing to my depression. I always wanted the office lifestyle - the 9-5, the suits and briefcases, the desk, the business meetings, that was so appealing to me. Now, after living in England and travelling around Europe (especially Portugal) I'm confused. I want a more laid back lifestyle, more relaxing, I want to be in control. 

Matt asked me why Portugal was so special and as I told him, it's just because the people there live such a carefree way of life. It was a turning point for me, it was there that I realized that I needed to take life less seriously. It was there that I realized that there is so much more to life than all these daily hassles and work and stress. Life is an adventure, it is my adventure, mine to create, mine to live the way I want. Just because I have grown up in an uptight, serious society does not mean I have to continue to live my life that way. North American society has created these rules, these boundaries that we are to live within, these expectations that we are to live by. Everything is focused around who gets the best grades, who has the best career, who makes the most money. That's how I used to identify myself as well. But life doesn't have to be that serious, it can be so much simpler. I don't want to live within these confines that someone else created for me, that someone else decided was the way that we should all live. I want to be in control of my own life, to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, without having to answer to anybody. Other societies have adopted this more relaxed version of life and the people just seem so less stressed, so much happier. I want to live a life that makes me happy. 

This life I'm living now seems lonely, hallow. I feel like I'm living the same thing from day to day. In fact, I don't really feel like I'm 'living' at all. It is all so mundane, I'm just doing what I need to get by. I feel alone. I have no one to share this life with. I have my family, I have Matt, but they can't be my everything. I love my independence until I realize how constricting it is, how much I'm missing out on since that's really all I have. It's hard though, for me to carry on friendships. The friends I did have treated me so badly in the past. I was bullied, I was walked all over, I was used. How can I trust that that won't happen again? I lost touch with so many people because I focused 100% of my time on school work, I had no personal life. Or I felt too depressed to do anything so I never saw my friends and they eventually just faded away. Then there's the few friends I thought I could trust with my secret, that I have depression, only to find out that some of them didn't want to be friends with someone who was 'broken'. I had to watch them walk away, ignorant to what I was really going through. I had to watch, helpless, as this illness defined the limits of my life..."