Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, and welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here. Back for another episode, and this week we're tackling a rather big, scary topic in our twenties, one that I imagine many of us have struggled with at some point in our lives, especially during this decade. We're going to take a dive into the psychology behind the loneliness, both the good and the bad, and kind of reach some conclusions not only about the origins of loneliness during this decade, what it means for our wellbeing, how to quote unquote cure this feeling, but also how to feel comfortable with being alone and embrace loneliness as an important part of our growth. I think we are really kind of sold this contrived narrative that our twenties are this golden decade and we should be surrounded by friends, we should be dating, we should be going out and socializing and have a large social network. It's where we meet our forever friends. And this has been sold to us across multiple platforms, from social media to shows like Friends and New Girl, where there are these really romanticized depictions of really close friendship groups. So when we don't feel that way, when we don't meet that expectation, we can really feel like failures and like something is wrong with us. One thing I want to say before we begin is that, contrary to what popular culture has to say about this decade, it is really normal to feel lonely in your twenties, even if you are someone who is surrounded by people. Something that I've noticed is that we often don't want to admit when we are feeling this way, not even to those who are closest to us. There is this strange stigma almost around loneliness that prevents us from talking about it and prevents us from normalizing it. You know, this strange sense that if we come out and outright say I feel lonely, I am lonely, that people will think there is something wrong with us, or that we don't have friends, or that we are unenjoyable to be around. And ninety nine percent of the time that is not true. The loneliness is at its core a biological and emotional reaction, more so than an environmental one. It has less to do with the quantity of our friendships or social relationships, and more to do with our internal experiences and perception of the world, the quality of our connections, and at its core, our relationship with ourselves. Of course, there are many times when we naturally are inclined to feel lonely because of our environment. Maybe you've just moved to a new city or you've gone through a breakup. But I think we as a generation do need to become more comfortable with being alone, with solitude, with our own emotions, and with sometimes feeling uncomfortable. That may seem really hard. Loneliness is a really hard feeling, but my goal is to really share how we can embrace it and really treat it as an important and neighborler for our growth rather than feel threatened. There is a lot to talk on today, and I really want to do this topic justice, especially because I know it's probably something on a lot of our minds. There is not a person I know who hasn't at times felt this way, who hasn't at times felt lonely. So we are going to dive into exactly why our twenties can produce such intense feelings of isolation, the neurological and internal basis for these feelings, some of the dangers and downsides, but ultimately how we can embrace solitude, embrace loneliness, and harness its benefits rather than being consumed by the negativity and the fear. Ultimately, the title of this episode truly does say it all. Loneliness is not our enemy. So let's get right into it and uncover all of this science and psychology that confirms this loneliness is incredibly hard. I feel like that is not something that I need to repeat very often throughout this episode, because we all know it, and I do want to start this episode on a personal note. You know, I think I have a very complicated relationship with feeling lonely, even though I know it's natural, I know it's common, I know all of the reasons why it happens, but there is just this thing where, since I was young, the idea of feeling lonely or not being surrounded by people has been really, really terrifying. I was trying to explain this to a friend the other day. But ever since I was a child, I've had this weird experience, you know, these like three month cycles where I will go through periods of feeling super happy, super supported, super content, and then, like clockwork, I just get this entirely irrational, sinking feeling that I am lonely and I cannot shake it. And the interesting thing is that each time this happens, nothing has really changed about my environment. It's entirely mental, and it's something that has really been part of my life for a long time. I feel like I often think of myself as a lonely person, even though I'm surrounded by such wonderful people. And I was talking to my therapist about it, and this is basically what really inspired me to make this episode, because I'm sure that I'm not in this boat on my own. I'm sure it's not just me, and as my twenties have gone by, I've found that the feeling has gotten worse. What she explained to me is that this habit of anticipating a future loneliness or feeling an impending sense of loneliness is a few response very similar to catastrophizing or future prepping, whereby I and I'm sure many others try and unconsciously avoid feelings of loneliness by artificially mimicking the feeling to prepare ourselves for when this situation may occur. If this sounds really strange or really complicated, I totally understand. I was kind of confused when she first told me this, but when we dive further into the biology and the evolutionary underpinnings, it makes a lot more sense why sometimes we feel lonely without any apparent cause or shift. Repeated and consistent human interaction is vital for our mental well being and our mental health. I think we all know that. We all know that social health is part of the broader holistic health that we bring through our lives. But on a deeper level, we don't like feeling alone or isolated because evolutionarily, our survival rested on feeling connected with others. This is an explanation I've given before on the podcast, but I still find it really valuable to share our prehistoric ancestors. They relied on the existence of tribal networks and groups to ensure their survival. Membership to a group provided us with security, more access to food. It provided us with shelter, mating partners, and protection. Without it, if we were cast out, if we were socially isolated, if we lost our group, our chances of survival were very slim. And that part of our mind that has adapted to that former reality is still very much alive. According to countless studies I couldn't even name them all, our minds have essentially evolved to promote our survival through social connection, and feelings of loneliness are a neural mechanism of drawing us back into the protection of a group, because whilst loneliness may be painful, it's a much better alternative to being out on our own and therefore being killed by a hungry beast or dying from exposure, as was likely the case back in the day, if we rejected our social group or they rejected us. It is essentially our instinct to seek out social comfort and connection. There is this amazing article that was written by Discover magazine a very good subscription if you are thinking of getting into it, and it was written by doctor Stephanie Cacopo. She's a professor of behavioral neuroscience in the UK, and she described it perfectly. Basically, what she concluded is that loneliness is very similar to those kind of biological hunger or thirst cues that we get, because it reminds us to reconnect with those around us to ensure survival, the same way that hunger and thirst protect our physical well being and tell us to seek out important nutrients and resources for our physical survival. It's all very much tied into our basic instincts and our basic urges. Loneliness gets a bad rap, and there used to be an argument in psychology that loneliness was actually an emotional fault or a defect in our DNA that actually shouldn't exist because it was super negative. It made people feel really bad about themselves. But also there was this argument that other species did not experience loneliness and they were still surviving, so essentially this feeling wasn't entirely necessary. Not only do we now know that that is wrong. Many species like elephants and great apes, even big cats, they experience loneliness as well. But also if the outcomes of feeling lonely were entirely negative, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, it would no longer be part of our DNA because members of our species who did contain this proclivity wouldn't have survived if it was entirely harmful. That's kind of a wrap around, roundabout logic to explain evolution, right. You know, if something is not important for our survival, it does not survive in our DNA due to breeding and the survival of offspring that have that quality. But we know that loneliness is still very much part of the human instinct and the human experience because it does have a value. It is important. It serves as a self protection and preservation mechanism. It basically acts as this little feeling in our brain telling us to reach out, telling us to reconnect. Okay, we spent a lot of time in the science. I'm realizing that now and that was not my intention. But I really want to dive into some of the more environmental and situational variables that can be a catalyst for loneliness, especially in this decade. Regardless of why we experience loneliness, whether it's biological, whether it's social, it still feels really terrible. And our twenties are actually one of the times where we can feel at our lowest when it comes to this feeling. A study done by the Office for National Statistics out in the UK and actually found that young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty nine were actually three times more likely to feel lonely compared to older age groups. This is really interesting to me because I think our typical picture of loneliness is very much you know, an elderly person locked in their home, you know, who has lost all of their family members and friends. But that's not the case. It's actually this generation, this age group, my age group, your age group that is suffering the most. Some reasons why I think it is more common in our twenties comes down to the number of significant life transitions and changes that we are all going to experience in this decade. We graduate high school, we leave the security of a convenient, inbuilt community that is our schooling system, and we go out into the world on our own. And for most of us, that also involves saying goodbye to friendships and connections and mentors that you naturally outgrow. For most of us, our twenties are also a time when we move out of the family home and we leave the orbit of our close family, specifically our parents. At first, this might feel incredibly liberating to be free of parental supervision and have our independence, but it's also very comforting to have that stable family unit. When we fly the nest, we can often find ourselves a little bit nostalgic once the excitement has worn off, and a little bit lonely because we no longer have that stable structure that we can go back to every night and be comforted by. Whilst loneliness is in part evolutionary and biological, it's also in part of reaction to community. When we feel without community or a strong present support network, that's often when that dark feeling can come on strongest, and family really does play a crucial role in that. As someone who is also moving into the mid stage of my twenties, I would say there's another thing that I've noticed, particularly in the last year, which I have I don't think I've really seen many people talk about this. It's rarely spoken about in relation to our twenties, and that is how many of our friends begin to enter new chapters or have different timelines than our own, often leading to what I would call disconnection and growing apart from the people that we used to feel closest with. Let me explain that a little bit more. It's not even fully formed in my brain, but I do just think it's worth sharing. I think the first eighteen years of our lives are very much cut and paste for most of us. You know, we go to school, we go to high school, we do sports, we do music, we do all of the things. And then suddenly you're twenty three. One of your friends is about to get married. Some of your friends are still at UNI, half of your working full time. Another one is off in Peru exploring the world. You're all scattered across the country and friendship is no longer convenient. It's something I have personally experienced recently. I moved to Sydney last year, and most of my close girlfriends remained in Canberra, which is where I went to university, and I was catching up with one of them recently and in the past year, even in the past month, one of them has decided to move to this tiny island off of Australia. One of them is moving to London, and the other is in the midst of doing her honors. And I just realized that everything was changing and we only had a few more opportunities to really truly be together as a group, and for some reason, I just felt so lonely. Not because these people were no longer in my life life, not because we had had a falling out one of them was literally sitting across from me, but because everything was changing and everything was new, and I didn't really know where I was going to land. And I was kind of comforted by knowing that my reaction was not only normal but really supported by theory. Psychologists have this idea that there are three major conditions for making and keeping good friends. These are proximity, repeated interactions, and settings that encourage authenticity. Those three conditions, the healthy long term friendships become a lot harder as things in our life change. The older we get, people move away. You no longer have repeated interactions that were often brought on by the closeness of university or school or college. You don't live in the same place anymore. And it's not to say that you can't successively maintain long distance friendships. It's just that the dynamic and the nature of the relationship changes, and with that there's an adjustment period that loneliness tends to crop up in these simultaneous transitions. I would say contribute to a sense of isolation and in part confusion about what happens next, which is a massive trigger for loneliness. There are some other typical events and experience that I think contribute to social isolation the feather we get into our twenties as we enter the workforce. In particular, the amount of time that we have to build and maintain healthy connections is minimized by paid obligations. It's minimized by work. Socializing is now reserved for the hours before nine am and after five pm, and that is a small window compared to what we're used to. We just simply have less time. That's the truth about getting older and having responsibilities. Our priorities change not just with work and our careers, but also with the entry of long term romantic partners. I'm sure we've all had an experience whereby a friend gets into a relationship and suddenly is very inaccessible. Maybe you have been that person yourself. I could keep listing reasons here, you know. We could talk about breakups, we could talk about simply outgrowing people, we could talk about kids. Even there are so many reasons. I think it's all just a really confusing time whereby the moment we begin to feel steady and feel secure, things suddenly change, and the easier kind of social interactions that we often rely for stimulation and for fulfillment, and that we often took for granted become a lot harder, as does a sense of community, which I think is a really vital protective mechanism against loneliness. There's also more personal factors. I think I've talked a lot about situational and environmental variables, but we also change as people. This period in our life is so formative. The person I was at twenty one, let alone eighteen is so so different to the version of me now, and so my ability to connect and feel seen also changes. Especially as we step into a new identity. Everything is so confusing, and if we don't really know ourselves quite yet, if we're still in that growth phase, it's really hard to feel that others know us deeply, and therefore we don't feel connected. I think that's also really common amongst this decade. It's not so much that there aren't people around us, that's a big thing. It's not so much that you don't have friends, it's that those friendships become harder there are other factors that begin to play a role, different priorities, and at the same time, something we forget is that we're still trying to figure out exactly who we are and how we can best connect with other people. All of that is just to say loneliness is a quintessential experience of our twenties, and although it is unpleasant, I think that we can actually change our relationship to this feeling to be one that is productive rather than fearful. Loneliness has a lot of beneficial functions, which we're going to talk about in just a second. I think most crucial, though, is that if we don't learn how to be alone, if we are so fearful of the six sperience that we rush into any new relationship or friendship that walks through the door, we can actually do a lot more harm than good. Sometimes it is good to embrace solitude to get a better understanding of who you are and what you want and what you deserve in relationships. So I kind of want to move past some of that dwelling we've done on the downsides and the origins and focus more on how we can embrace this feeling. All of that in more in just a second, if you are feeling lonely right now, and that's why you're listening today, I want to firstly, before we get into the rest of the episode, give you three bits of truth or I guess many affirmations that have always comforted me. The first one, which I honestly stand by, is that you have not yet met all the people who will love you in this life. It's very easy in our twenties to see things without a great deal of perspective because this is all that we've experienced right like we're baby adults. This is like the first time that we're experiencing a lot of this stuff, the first time we're experiencing, you know, moving to a new place and losing friends and adjustments. So it's important to sometimes have the hindsight that people give us from older generations or older wiser people, that there is so much yet to come that is even better than what has already transpired. The second one is that we are never truly alone. I think our brain convinces ourselves that we are, especially with what we were talking about before about anticipatory anxiety and catastrophizing to kind of protect ours and ensure our survival and finally, nothing stays the same for long. This feeling will pass as all good and bad things in life. Do we've acknowledged that loneliness can be unpleasant? We all know that, I think on a personal and anecdotal level. But I do also think there is something really sacred in solitude, and sometimes that can produce loneliness as a side effect, and that's something that we just have to come to terms with as part of the terrain. Here's the truth. At some point, you are going to feel lonely, regardless of all of your efforts, and maybe that is you right now. Obviously we can understand that loneliness is painful, but there is this idea that when we fear something, we let it control us, and if we fear being alone, we allow it to control our enjoyment of a life and the decisions we make for God, guarding the quality of our relationships and who we choose to spend our time with. If we are lonely, and if we are scared of being lonely, often, like I said, we just jump at the first thing that walks through the door without properly thinking about where that relationship or that friendship is going to sit in our life. I really want to change the narrative around loneliness for those reasons, because I think it's beneficial to sometimes feel alone, and I do want to think of it as an attitude of gratitude and stoicism rather than one of fear and anticipation. I think we need to have a greater appreciation for what solitude can bring us so that we can, all you know, perhaps feel a little bit better and comforted in some of the benefits of this emotion. Spending time alone is actually incredibly beneficial, especially in our twenties, because it allows us to develop a better understanding of ourselves. It allows us to do the thing things that we want to do, and become more independent. It can sometimes be a blessing rather than a curse. Studies have shown that the more you know and understand yourself through concentrated efforts to spend time alone, the stronger your value set is, and the more likely you are to do things that you love or with people that you love, to learn things that interest you, and spend time with people that make you feel good rather than people that drain your energy. There's also some other surprising benefits that I think we could all probably speak to just on an anecdotal and personal experience, but solitude really does increase productivity. It's just the fact that you don't have the distraction, So there's one upside. It also sparks creativity because we have more time with our thoughts and we can let them wander and explos new corridors of our brain. And it can build mental strength because we have to learn how to rely on ourselves and trust our own ability to manage daily stress and adversity. I will say that this is not always optimal. You know, we do overcome things easier and sooner with the help of a support network. But I really want to demonstrate that it's not all doom and gloom, and that if you are going through a period of loneliness, it's not all bad, right, Like, there are some upsides. I know it sounds really like tokenistic to say that, but I think with everything, when you have a better mindset, you get through something quicker, and all of these kind of benefits really do help develop that positive attitude towards your experiences. I think loneliness is also sometimes really valuable because it allows us to reassess the value of our close relation relationships. Often loneliness is situational, but sometimes it can be caused by just feeling like you don't belong. Relationships are meant to cultivate the best feelings about yourself. They are meant to make you feel happy and fulfilled. So if you feel lonely amongst certain people, even when they're around you, it really is an indicator, a mental indicator that we need to take a closer look at whether these relationships are really what we want in our lives. I think sometimes loneliness indicates to us that we want to be close with people, we want to stay in touch, but we also want to prioritize quality time. You know, It's something that we haven't really talked on yet, but I do honestly believe it's better to feel lonely with yourself than alone with others. It's just something that I think of sometimes when I'm going through periods like this, and I said, this doesn't have to be your enemy. When we a recognize that it's normal and that it will pass, I promise it will pass, and b we embrace some of the opportunities it provides rather than distracting ourselves. There are a few ways that we can really live this philosophy. And I know it's hard. I don't want to discredit that, but if you want to embrace solitude, you have to start before you begin to feel lonely. I have been frequently doing this since I was like maybe nineteen, where I go away for either one or two days at a time just by myself. I go camping or hiking, and it allows me to escape my reality because I want to show myself that I can do things alone and activate some of those benefits to feel creative, to feel independent, to feel productive, to be honest. I began this habit or these little activities or trips when I was going through a really rough time at university. I was really depressed, I was really distanced from people, my grades weren't great, and it was almost this self inflicted challenge to see if I could do it. I'd become really codependent on someone I was dating, but also really anxious about my friendships, and it was like the first time that I really had a big group of friends, and it was really scary to me that these people could leave or go away, and I wanted to force myself to confront that fear of being alone just for a few days to prove myself that everything could fall apart. I could be entirely by myself and I would still be okay. If that sounds confusing, let me explain it a little bit more. I think being able to tolerate loneliness and adapt to it is a skill, and you don't really want to be using any skill for the first time when things are really dire. So by doing these solitary trips or even activities it could be as simple as going for a day trip by yourself or to the movies, we slowly adjust our minds to accept loneliness and acknowledge that being alone will sometimes be our reality, but we will get through it. So when we do feel this way, we see fewer of the emotional negative emotional effects really, and we know how to handle it. We're able to activate the benefits. These solitude trips have taught me so much about myself it's ridiculous. It has made me enjoy my own company so much more. It has made me show myself more self love, It has made me think deeper about my feelings and what I want, and it just made me realize that our lives are so busy, and especially if you're a people pleaser, we give up so much of our time to pleasing others. And also because we don't want to feel lonely, right We just our days are always so full with interactions and obligations, and when you force yourself to take a step back and embrace solitude, it is such a sacred and beautiful time, and I highly recommend it to anyone who either has a complicated relationship with feeling lonely or just wants to grow a little bit further in themselves and their own soul. I think another way to embrace loneliness is to acknowledge that it is a natural response to something that you need and that your needs are not being met. It's not something that's wrong with you, and it doesn't always have to be a need that has a social origin. Sometimes loneliness emerges from not feeling connected with ourselves. Really sit in and think about that for a second. Is it because you are genuinely alone that you feel this way, or because deep down you don't really feel like you know yourself well enough to ask for what you need or to ever feel satisfied in any relationship. The natural instinct is to minimize this feeling by filling up our days and socializing, but at the end of the night or at the end of the week, we will find ourselves back in the same position of not knowing and not knowing ourselves well enough, and the toxic cycle kind of continues. Like I said, spend a day each week if you can filling up your own cup so that you can firstly feel connected with yourself and secondly you can show up better in your interactions to make them more meaningful. It kind of heals two parts of you at once. It heals the connection in the relationship you have with yourself, and it makes your friendships and your relationships of a much higher quality. I think it's also important to practice forms of self care that are dependent on you rather than stimulation from others. That really helps us grow our independence and feel less fearful of being alone and schedule activities with friends that you actually enjoy. It's important to remember that different people are going to need different levels of social interaction and connection. I'm speaking about extroverts versus introverts. You don't need to go the entirely different way and completely cut yourself off from everyone to embrace feeling lonely. That's not what I'm suggesting. Hopefully no one thought that, but that's going to do a lot more harm than good. It's about finding balance between being able to spend time alone, feeling okay with feeling lonely every time now and again because it's natural and it's normal, but then also knowing that the support of others, having a great support network is really vital for our well being, and it will come if you don't have it. Now, there have been times when I didn't have it. Life surprises you and it gives you what you need, and sometimes just the most remarkable people show up when you least expect them, and you really do feel seen and you feel heard and connected. I hope what you've taken away from all of this is that loneliness is not only normal, it's also nothing to flee from. It is intuition and it is natural, and we don't need to feel panicked or feel the need to grasp on to social connections that really aren't fulfilling us just to avoid feeling lonely. Being lonely is not always a curse, you know. As much as society and television and people try and make us feel like we need to have this massive group of friends or always be fulfilled by the people we're around. That's not the case. It's not a curse. It's not that there's something wrong with you. I think we just need to reframe our relationship with solitude and being alone and recognize that sometimes it's necessary to go through these periods in order to grow and in order to reprioritize our relationships and our knowledge of ourselves. There's also a lot of psychological benefits. Like I said, everything in a healthy dose. But if you are going through this now, I am sending you so much strength but also a lot of credit. It's really hard, it's really hard to feel that way, and I promise that this won't last forever. You are a wonderful person who people love, and if you feel disconnected right now, I promise it gets better. Like I said, you haven't yet met all the people who are going to love you in this life. Friends, partners, family members. There are so many people out there who really do care. So embrace this time for what it's teaching you, and above all else, I think, show yourself some grace and take care of yourself. Thank you so much. For listening to today's episode, it did feel like a bit of a rant at times. It's just something I've been mulling over and talking about so much recently. The loneliness is so stigmatized, it is not talked about enough. So I just wanted to share a bit of my own experience. And I'm going to come out and say, I've been feeling lonely. It's not because I don't have great friends or a beautiful family. I know. It's because that I've just been feeling really disconnected from myself. I haven't been prioritizing friendships that are worthwhile and interactions that are worth wow. And I know sometimes it's just biology. It's just my brain trying to warn me or do something funny to ensure my survival in a world that no longer exists. So it's all very interesting and very nuanced. But at the end of the day, I'm going to say it again, loneliness is not your enemy. It gets such a bad rap, but it is an important feeling. It's just part of feeling human. So I really hope you learned something. I hope you enjoyed. If there is a friend of yours who needs to hear this episode, please send them a link, share the love, pass it forward, and if you do feel cold to do so, please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening right now. It really does help the show to grow reach new people who you think may like it, and it just really makes my day. So I want to thank you all for all the support recently. It's been a man how much you have been loving the recent episodes. I love the recent episodes, so maybe that's it. I'm just like, I'm really in it at the moment. There's so much I want to talk about with you, so thank you for following along. And if you have an episode suggestion, I love when people send me ideas, so please feel free to follow me at that Psychology podcast on Instagram and shoot me a DM if there's something you think that I should cover in our twenties around psychology or just anything really and have a lovely day. We will be back later this week for another episode.

Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, and welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here. Back for another episode, and this week we're tackling a rather big, scary topic in our twenties, one that I imagine many of us have struggled with at some point in our lives, especially during this decade. We're going to take a dive into the psychology behind the loneliness, both the good and the bad, and kind of reach some conclusions not only about the origins of loneliness during this decade, what it means for our wellbeing, how to quote unquote cure this feeling, but also how to feel comfortable with being alone and embrace loneliness as an important part of our growth. I think we are really kind of sold this contrived narrative that our twenties are this golden decade and we should be surrounded by friends, we should be dating, we should be going out and socializing and have a large social network. It's where we meet our forever friends. And this has been sold to us across multiple platforms, from social media to shows like Friends and New Girl, where there are these really romanticized depictions of really close friendship groups. So when we don't feel that way, when we don't meet that expectation, we can really feel like failures and like something is wrong with us. One thing I want to say before we begin is that, contrary to what popular culture has to say about this decade, it is really normal to feel lonely in your twenties, even if you are someone who is surrounded by people. Something that I've noticed is that we often don't want to admit when we are feeling this way, not even to those who are closest to us. There is this strange stigma almost around loneliness that prevents us from talking about it and prevents us from normalizing it. You know, this strange sense that if we come out and outright say I feel lonely, I am lonely, that people will think there is something wrong with us, or that we don't have friends, or that we are unenjoyable to be around. And ninety nine percent of the time that is not true. The loneliness is at its core a biological and emotional reaction, more so than an environmental one. It has less to do with the quantity of our friendships or social relationships, and more to do with our internal experiences and perception of the world, the quality of our connections, and at its core, our relationship with ourselves. Of course, there are many times when we naturally are inclined to feel lonely because of our environment. Maybe you've just moved to a new city or you've gone through a breakup. But I think we as a generation do need to become more comfortable with being alone, with solitude, with our own emotions, and with sometimes feeling uncomfortable. That may seem really hard. Loneliness is a really hard feeling, but my goal is to really share how we can embrace it and really treat it as an important and neighborler for our growth rather than feel threatened. There is a lot to talk on today, and I really want to do this topic justice, especially because I know it's probably something on a lot of our minds. There is not a person I know who hasn't at times felt this way, who hasn't at times felt lonely. So we are going to dive into exactly why our twenties can produce such intense feelings of isolation, the neurological and internal basis for these feelings, some of the dangers and downsides, but ultimately how we can embrace solitude, embrace loneliness, and harness its benefits rather than being consumed by the negativity and the fear. Ultimately, the title of this episode truly does say it all. Loneliness is not our enemy. So let's get right into it and uncover all of this science and psychology that confirms this loneliness is incredibly hard. I feel like that is not something that I need to repeat very often throughout this episode, because we all know it, and I do want to start this episode on a personal note. You know, I think I have a very complicated relationship with feeling lonely, even though I know it's natural, I know it's common, I know all of the reasons why it happens, but there is just this thing where, since I was young, the idea of feeling lonely or not being surrounded by people has been really, really terrifying. I was trying to explain this to a friend the other day. But ever since I was a child, I've had this weird experience, you know, these like three month cycles where I will go through periods of feeling super happy, super supported, super content, and then, like clockwork, I just get this entirely irrational, sinking feeling that I am lonely and I cannot shake it. And the interesting thing is that each time this happens, nothing has really changed about my environment. It's entirely mental, and it's something that has really been part of my life for a long time. I feel like I often think of myself as a lonely person, even though I'm surrounded by such wonderful people. And I was talking to my therapist about it, and this is basically what really inspired me to make this episode, because I'm sure that I'm not in this boat on my own. I'm sure it's not just me, and as my twenties have gone by, I've found that the feeling has gotten worse. What she explained to me is that this habit of anticipating a future loneliness or feeling an impending sense of loneliness is a few response very similar to catastrophizing or future prepping, whereby I and I'm sure many others try and unconsciously avoid feelings of loneliness by artificially mimicking the feeling to prepare ourselves for when this situation may occur. If this sounds really strange or really complicated, I totally understand. I was kind of confused when she first told me this, but when we dive further into the biology and the evolutionary underpinnings, it makes a lot more sense why sometimes we feel lonely without any apparent cause or shift. Repeated and consistent human interaction is vital for our mental well being and our mental health. I think we all know that. We all know that social health is part of the broader holistic health that we bring through our lives. But on a deeper level, we don't like feeling alone or isolated because evolutionarily, our survival rested on feeling connected with others. This is an explanation I've given before on the podcast, but I still find it really valuable to share our prehistoric ancestors. They relied on the existence of tribal networks and groups to ensure their survival. Membership to a group provided us with security, more access to food. It provided us with shelter, mating partners, and protection. Without it, if we were cast out, if we were socially isolated, if we lost our group, our chances of survival were very slim. And that part of our mind that has adapted to that former reality is still very much alive. According to countless studies I couldn't even name them all, our minds have essentially evolved to promote our survival through social connection, and feelings of loneliness are a neural mechanism of drawing us back into the protection of a group, because whilst loneliness may be painful, it's a much better alternative to being out on our own and therefore being killed by a hungry beast or dying from exposure, as was likely the case back in the day, if we rejected our social group or they rejected us. It is essentially our instinct to seek out social comfort and connection. There is this amazing article that was written by Discover magazine a very good subscription if you are thinking of getting into it, and it was written by doctor Stephanie Cacopo. She's a professor of behavioral neuroscience in the UK, and she described it perfectly. Basically, what she concluded is that loneliness is very similar to those kind of biological hunger or thirst cues that we get, because it reminds us to reconnect with those around us to ensure survival, the same way that hunger and thirst protect our physical well being and tell us to seek out important nutrients and resources for our physical survival. It's all very much tied into our basic instincts and our basic urges. Loneliness gets a bad rap, and there used to be an argument in psychology that loneliness was actually an emotional fault or a defect in our DNA that actually shouldn't exist because it was super negative. It made people feel really bad about themselves. But also there was this argument that other species did not experience loneliness and they were still surviving, so essentially this feeling wasn't entirely necessary. Not only do we now know that that is wrong. Many species like elephants and great apes, even big cats, they experience loneliness as well. But also if the outcomes of feeling lonely were entirely negative, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, it would no longer be part of our DNA because members of our species who did contain this proclivity wouldn't have survived if it was entirely harmful. That's kind of a wrap around, roundabout logic to explain evolution, right. You know, if something is not important for our survival, it does not survive in our DNA due to breeding and the survival of offspring that have that quality. But we know that loneliness is still very much part of the human instinct and the human experience because it does have a value. It is important. It serves as a self protection and preservation mechanism. It basically acts as this little feeling in our brain telling us to reach out, telling us to reconnect. Okay, we spent a lot of time in the science. I'm realizing that now and that was not my intention. But I really want to dive into some of the more environmental and situational variables that can be a catalyst for loneliness, especially in this decade. Regardless of why we experience loneliness, whether it's biological, whether it's social, it still feels really terrible. And our twenties are actually one of the times where we can feel at our lowest when it comes to this feeling. A study done by the Office for National Statistics out in the UK and actually found that young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty nine were actually three times more likely to feel lonely compared to older age groups. This is really interesting to me because I think our typical picture of loneliness is very much you know, an elderly person locked in their home, you know, who has lost all of their family members and friends. But that's not the case. It's actually this generation, this age group, my age group, your age group that is suffering the most. Some reasons why I think it is more common in our twenties comes down to the number of significant life transitions and changes that we are all going to experience in this decade. We graduate high school, we leave the security of a convenient, inbuilt community that is our schooling system, and we go out into the world on our own. And for most of us, that also involves saying goodbye to friendships and connections and mentors that you naturally outgrow. For most of us, our twenties are also a time when we move out of the family home and we leave the orbit of our close family, specifically our parents. At first, this might feel incredibly liberating to be free of parental supervision and have our independence, but it's also very comforting to have that stable family unit. When we fly the nest, we can often find ourselves a little bit nostalgic once the excitement has worn off, and a little bit lonely because we no longer have that stable structure that we can go back to every night and be comforted by. Whilst loneliness is in part evolutionary and biological, it's also in part of reaction to community. When we feel without community or a strong present support network, that's often when that dark feeling can come on strongest, and family really does play a crucial role in that. As someone who is also moving into the mid stage of my twenties, I would say there's another thing that I've noticed, particularly in the last year, which I have I don't think I've really seen many people talk about this. It's rarely spoken about in relation to our twenties, and that is how many of our friends begin to enter new chapters or have different timelines than our own, often leading to what I would call disconnection and growing apart from the people that we used to feel closest with. Let me explain that a little bit more. It's not even fully formed in my brain, but I do just think it's worth sharing. I think the first eighteen years of our lives are very much cut and paste for most of us. You know, we go to school, we go to high school, we do sports, we do music, we do all of the things. And then suddenly you're twenty three. One of your friends is about to get married. Some of your friends are still at UNI, half of your working full time. Another one is off in Peru exploring the world. You're all scattered across the country and friendship is no longer convenient. It's something I have personally experienced recently. I moved to Sydney last year, and most of my close girlfriends remained in Canberra, which is where I went to university, and I was catching up with one of them recently and in the past year, even in the past month, one of them has decided to move to this tiny island off of Australia. One of them is moving to London, and the other is in the midst of doing her honors. And I just realized that everything was changing and we only had a few more opportunities to really truly be together as a group, and for some reason, I just felt so lonely. Not because these people were no longer in my life life, not because we had had a falling out one of them was literally sitting across from me, but because everything was changing and everything was new, and I didn't really know where I was going to land. And I was kind of comforted by knowing that my reaction was not only normal but really supported by theory. Psychologists have this idea that there are three major conditions for making and keeping good friends. These are proximity, repeated interactions, and settings that encourage authenticity. Those three conditions, the healthy long term friendships become a lot harder as things in our life change. The older we get, people move away. You no longer have repeated interactions that were often brought on by the closeness of university or school or college. You don't live in the same place anymore. And it's not to say that you can't successively maintain long distance friendships. It's just that the dynamic and the nature of the relationship changes, and with that there's an adjustment period that loneliness tends to crop up in these simultaneous transitions. I would say contribute to a sense of isolation and in part confusion about what happens next, which is a massive trigger for loneliness. There are some other typical events and experience that I think contribute to social isolation the feather we get into our twenties as we enter the workforce. In particular, the amount of time that we have to build and maintain healthy connections is minimized by paid obligations. It's minimized by work. Socializing is now reserved for the hours before nine am and after five pm, and that is a small window compared to what we're used to. We just simply have less time. That's the truth about getting older and having responsibilities. Our priorities change not just with work and our careers, but also with the entry of long term romantic partners. I'm sure we've all had an experience whereby a friend gets into a relationship and suddenly is very inaccessible. Maybe you have been that person yourself. I could keep listing reasons here, you know. We could talk about breakups, we could talk about simply outgrowing people, we could talk about kids. Even there are so many reasons. I think it's all just a really confusing time whereby the moment we begin to feel steady and feel secure, things suddenly change, and the easier kind of social interactions that we often rely for stimulation and for fulfillment, and that we often took for granted become a lot harder, as does a sense of community, which I think is a really vital protective mechanism against loneliness. There's also more personal factors. I think I've talked a lot about situational and environmental variables, but we also change as people. This period in our life is so formative. The person I was at twenty one, let alone eighteen is so so different to the version of me now, and so my ability to connect and feel seen also changes. Especially as we step into a new identity. Everything is so confusing, and if we don't really know ourselves quite yet, if we're still in that growth phase, it's really hard to feel that others know us deeply, and therefore we don't feel connected. I think that's also really common amongst this decade. It's not so much that there aren't people around us, that's a big thing. It's not so much that you don't have friends, it's that those friendships become harder there are other factors that begin to play a role, different priorities, and at the same time, something we forget is that we're still trying to figure out exactly who we are and how we can best connect with other people. All of that is just to say loneliness is a quintessential experience of our twenties, and although it is unpleasant, I think that we can actually change our relationship to this feeling to be one that is productive rather than fearful. Loneliness has a lot of beneficial functions, which we're going to talk about in just a second. I think most crucial, though, is that if we don't learn how to be alone, if we are so fearful of the six sperience that we rush into any new relationship or friendship that walks through the door, we can actually do a lot more harm than good. Sometimes it is good to embrace solitude to get a better understanding of who you are and what you want and what you deserve in relationships. So I kind of want to move past some of that dwelling we've done on the downsides and the origins and focus more on how we can embrace this feeling. All of that in more in just a second, if you are feeling lonely right now, and that's why you're listening today, I want to firstly, before we get into the rest of the episode, give you three bits of truth or I guess many affirmations that have always comforted me. The first one, which I honestly stand by, is that you have not yet met all the people who will love you in this life. It's very easy in our twenties to see things without a great deal of perspective because this is all that we've experienced right like we're baby adults. This is like the first time that we're experiencing a lot of this stuff, the first time we're experiencing, you know, moving to a new place and losing friends and adjustments. So it's important to sometimes have the hindsight that people give us from older generations or older wiser people, that there is so much yet to come that is even better than what has already transpired. The second one is that we are never truly alone. I think our brain convinces ourselves that we are, especially with what we were talking about before about anticipatory anxiety and catastrophizing to kind of protect ours and ensure our survival and finally, nothing stays the same for long. This feeling will pass as all good and bad things in life. Do we've acknowledged that loneliness can be unpleasant? We all know that, I think on a personal and anecdotal level. But I do also think there is something really sacred in solitude, and sometimes that can produce loneliness as a side effect, and that's something that we just have to come to terms with as part of the terrain. Here's the truth. At some point, you are going to feel lonely, regardless of all of your efforts, and maybe that is you right now. Obviously we can understand that loneliness is painful, but there is this idea that when we fear something, we let it control us, and if we fear being alone, we allow it to control our enjoyment of a life and the decisions we make for God, guarding the quality of our relationships and who we choose to spend our time with. If we are lonely, and if we are scared of being lonely, often, like I said, we just jump at the first thing that walks through the door without properly thinking about where that relationship or that friendship is going to sit in our life. I really want to change the narrative around loneliness for those reasons, because I think it's beneficial to sometimes feel alone, and I do want to think of it as an attitude of gratitude and stoicism rather than one of fear and anticipation. I think we need to have a greater appreciation for what solitude can bring us so that we can, all you know, perhaps feel a little bit better and comforted in some of the benefits of this emotion. Spending time alone is actually incredibly beneficial, especially in our twenties, because it allows us to develop a better understanding of ourselves. It allows us to do the thing things that we want to do, and become more independent. It can sometimes be a blessing rather than a curse. Studies have shown that the more you know and understand yourself through concentrated efforts to spend time alone, the stronger your value set is, and the more likely you are to do things that you love or with people that you love, to learn things that interest you, and spend time with people that make you feel good rather than people that drain your energy. There's also some other surprising benefits that I think we could all probably speak to just on an anecdotal and personal experience, but solitude really does increase productivity. It's just the fact that you don't have the distraction, So there's one upside. It also sparks creativity because we have more time with our thoughts and we can let them wander and explos new corridors of our brain. And it can build mental strength because we have to learn how to rely on ourselves and trust our own ability to manage daily stress and adversity. I will say that this is not always optimal. You know, we do overcome things easier and sooner with the help of a support network. But I really want to demonstrate that it's not all doom and gloom, and that if you are going through a period of loneliness, it's not all bad, right, Like, there are some upsides. I know it sounds really like tokenistic to say that, but I think with everything, when you have a better mindset, you get through something quicker, and all of these kind of benefits really do help develop that positive attitude towards your experiences. I think loneliness is also sometimes really valuable because it allows us to reassess the value of our close relation relationships. Often loneliness is situational, but sometimes it can be caused by just feeling like you don't belong. Relationships are meant to cultivate the best feelings about yourself. They are meant to make you feel happy and fulfilled. So if you feel lonely amongst certain people, even when they're around you, it really is an indicator, a mental indicator that we need to take a closer look at whether these relationships are really what we want in our lives. I think sometimes loneliness indicates to us that we want to be close with people, we want to stay in touch, but we also want to prioritize quality time. You know, It's something that we haven't really talked on yet, but I do honestly believe it's better to feel lonely with yourself than alone with others. It's just something that I think of sometimes when I'm going through periods like this, and I said, this doesn't have to be your enemy. When we a recognize that it's normal and that it will pass, I promise it will pass, and b we embrace some of the opportunities it provides rather than distracting ourselves. There are a few ways that we can really live this philosophy. And I know it's hard. I don't want to discredit that, but if you want to embrace solitude, you have to start before you begin to feel lonely. I have been frequently doing this since I was like maybe nineteen, where I go away for either one or two days at a time just by myself. I go camping or hiking, and it allows me to escape my reality because I want to show myself that I can do things alone and activate some of those benefits to feel creative, to feel independent, to feel productive, to be honest. I began this habit or these little activities or trips when I was going through a really rough time at university. I was really depressed, I was really distanced from people, my grades weren't great, and it was almost this self inflicted challenge to see if I could do it. I'd become really codependent on someone I was dating, but also really anxious about my friendships, and it was like the first time that I really had a big group of friends, and it was really scary to me that these people could leave or go away, and I wanted to force myself to confront that fear of being alone just for a few days to prove myself that everything could fall apart. I could be entirely by myself and I would still be okay. If that sounds confusing, let me explain it a little bit more. I think being able to tolerate loneliness and adapt to it is a skill, and you don't really want to be using any skill for the first time when things are really dire. So by doing these solitary trips or even activities it could be as simple as going for a day trip by yourself or to the movies, we slowly adjust our minds to accept loneliness and acknowledge that being alone will sometimes be our reality, but we will get through it. So when we do feel this way, we see fewer of the emotional negative emotional effects really, and we know how to handle it. We're able to activate the benefits. These solitude trips have taught me so much about myself it's ridiculous. It has made me enjoy my own company so much more. It has made me show myself more self love, It has made me think deeper about my feelings and what I want, and it just made me realize that our lives are so busy, and especially if you're a people pleaser, we give up so much of our time to pleasing others. And also because we don't want to feel lonely, right We just our days are always so full with interactions and obligations, and when you force yourself to take a step back and embrace solitude, it is such a sacred and beautiful time, and I highly recommend it to anyone who either has a complicated relationship with feeling lonely or just wants to grow a little bit further in themselves and their own soul. I think another way to embrace loneliness is to acknowledge that it is a natural response to something that you need and that your needs are not being met. It's not something that's wrong with you, and it doesn't always have to be a need that has a social origin. Sometimes loneliness emerges from not feeling connected with ourselves. Really sit in and think about that for a second. Is it because you are genuinely alone that you feel this way, or because deep down you don't really feel like you know yourself well enough to ask for what you need or to ever feel satisfied in any relationship. The natural instinct is to minimize this feeling by filling up our days and socializing, but at the end of the night or at the end of the week, we will find ourselves back in the same position of not knowing and not knowing ourselves well enough, and the toxic cycle kind of continues. Like I said, spend a day each week if you can filling up your own cup so that you can firstly feel connected with yourself and secondly you can show up better in your interactions to make them more meaningful. It kind of heals two parts of you at once. It heals the connection in the relationship you have with yourself, and it makes your friendships and your relationships of a much higher quality. I think it's also important to practice forms of self care that are dependent on you rather than stimulation from others. That really helps us grow our independence and feel less fearful of being alone and schedule activities with friends that you actually enjoy. It's important to remember that different people are going to need different levels of social interaction and connection. I'm speaking about extroverts versus introverts. You don't need to go the entirely different way and completely cut yourself off from everyone to embrace feeling lonely. That's not what I'm suggesting. Hopefully no one thought that, but that's going to do a lot more harm than good. It's about finding balance between being able to spend time alone, feeling okay with feeling lonely every time now and again because it's natural and it's normal, but then also knowing that the support of others, having a great support network is really vital for our well being, and it will come if you don't have it. Now, there have been times when I didn't have it. Life surprises you and it gives you what you need, and sometimes just the most remarkable people show up when you least expect them, and you really do feel seen and you feel heard and connected. I hope what you've taken away from all of this is that loneliness is not only normal, it's also nothing to flee from. It is intuition and it is natural, and we don't need to feel panicked or feel the need to grasp on to social connections that really aren't fulfilling us just to avoid feeling lonely. Being lonely is not always a curse, you know. As much as society and television and people try and make us feel like we need to have this massive group of friends or always be fulfilled by the people we're around. That's not the case. It's not a curse. It's not that there's something wrong with you. I think we just need to reframe our relationship with solitude and being alone and recognize that sometimes it's necessary to go through these periods in order to grow and in order to reprioritize our relationships and our knowledge of ourselves. There's also a lot of psychological benefits. Like I said, everything in a healthy dose. But if you are going through this now, I am sending you so much strength but also a lot of credit. It's really hard, it's really hard to feel that way, and I promise that this won't last forever. You are a wonderful person who people love, and if you feel disconnected right now, I promise it gets better. Like I said, you haven't yet met all the people who are going to love you in this life. Friends, partners, family members. There are so many people out there who really do care. So embrace this time for what it's teaching you, and above all else, I think, show yourself some grace and take care of yourself. Thank you so much. For listening to today's episode, it did feel like a bit of a rant at times. It's just something I've been mulling over and talking about so much recently. The loneliness is so stigmatized, it is not talked about enough. So I just wanted to share a bit of my own experience. And I'm going to come out and say, I've been feeling lonely. It's not because I don't have great friends or a beautiful family. I know. It's because that I've just been feeling really disconnected from myself. I haven't been prioritizing friendships that are worthwhile and interactions that are worth wow. And I know sometimes it's just biology. It's just my brain trying to warn me or do something funny to ensure my survival in a world that no longer exists. So it's all very interesting and very nuanced. But at the end of the day, I'm going to say it again, loneliness is not your enemy. It gets such a bad rap, but it is an important feeling. It's just part of feeling human. So I really hope you learned something. I hope you enjoyed. If there is a friend of yours who needs to hear this episode, please send them a link, share the love, pass it forward, and if you do feel cold to do so, please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening right now. It really does help the show to grow reach new people who you think may like it, and it just really makes my day. So I want to thank you all for all the support recently. It's been a man how much you have been loving the recent episodes. I love the recent episodes, so maybe that's it. I'm just like, I'm really in it at the moment. There's so much I want to talk about with you, so thank you for following along. And if you have an episode suggestion, I love when people send me ideas, so please feel free to follow me at that Psychology podcast on Instagram and shoot me a DM if there's something you think that I should cover in our twenties around psychology or just anything really and have a lovely day. We will be back later this week for another episode.