Mental Health Awareness Week 2022: Combating loneliness
This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is loneliness. The lockdowns may have ended but many are reporting there is still a strong feeling of loneliness.
‘There is one in 20 people in the UK who say they often or always feel lonely,’ says Catherine Seymour, head of research at the Mental Health Foundation, which is behind Mental Health Awareness Week. ‘For them, their lives feel like they’re always locked down’.
‘For them, their lives feel like they’re always locked down’.
In an article for the Metro, they say chronic loneliness has a damaging effect on our mental health – but also mental illness can cause loneliness, describing it as ‘a worrying cycle.’
‘Severe loneliness and mental health are interlinked and make each other worse,’ Catherine explains. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to know which came first – did the loneliness lead to poor mental health or did poor mental health lead to loneliness?
‘People who say that they often or always lonely have a higher risk of developing certain mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, and being lonely is also associated with increased thoughts about suicide.
‘So it’s certainly something that we need to take very seriously.’
Mental Health Awareness Week starts tomorrow! Join the movement. Get involved. Together we can tackle loneliness: #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek #IveBeenThere https://t.co/QbhrJXdLWW
— Mental Health Foundation (@mentalhealth) May 8, 2022
Mental Health Awareness Week is focused on loneliness this year and is aiming to raise awareness of the reality of the issue, and getting us talking about how we can make people feel less alone.
Catherine discusses this, the impact of loneliness and tips on how we can tackle it in the latest episode of the Metro’s mental health podcast – Mentally Yours.
‘Absolutely anybody can experience loneliness,’ she tells us. ‘The definition we use is that loneliness is the mismatch between the relationships that we have, and the relationships that we want to have.
‘You can feel lonely even if you’re married, you have children, you have a wide network of friends.
‘If there’s a disconnect for you, between what you have and what you want, whether that’s in quantity or quality, then loneliness is possible.
‘Loneliness can come from being surrounded by people, if you feel those people don’t understand or accept you.’
You can listen to Mentally Yours on Spotify, Audioboom, and Apple Podcasts.
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