Loneliness: why it matters for health and what helps
Loneliness is the painful feeling that your relationships do not give you the connection you want or need. It differs from social isolation, which means having few relationships or little contact — you can be lonely in a crowded joint-family home, or alone and content. The World Health Organization estimates that about one in six people worldwide is lonely and links it to roughly 871,000 deaths a year and to higher risks of stroke, heart disease and depression. Older people, the widowed, young people and parents whose children live abroad are especially affected. Regular small contact and challenging lonely thinking both help.
Health writers · Aslam Clinic
Loneliness is the distress of feeling that your relationships do not give you the closeness, understanding or company you need. It is a feeling, not a head count. A person can be lonely in a house full of relatives, in a marriage, or in a busy hostel, and another can live alone and feel well connected. What matters is the gap between the connection you have and the connection you want.
Loneliness is not a mental illness, and feeling lonely at times is part of being human. But when it lasts, it affects both body and mind, and the World Health Organization now treats it as a public health problem alongside physical and mental health.
Loneliness and social isolation are not the same
| Loneliness | Social isolation | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A painful feeling that your relationships do not match what you want or need | Having very few relationships, or not seeing people often |
| How it is measured | By asking how you feel | By counting contacts, visits and shared activities |
| Example | A daughter-in-law surrounded by family all day but with no one she can talk to openly | A widower living alone whose children are abroad and who rarely leaves the house |
| Can they overlap? | Yes — often | Yes — but some isolated people are not lonely |
Why loneliness is a health problem
In June 2025, the WHO Commission on Social Connection published its first global report. It estimates that about one in six people worldwide experiences loneliness, and links loneliness to around 871,000 deaths every year — roughly 100 every hour. The report connects loneliness and isolation with higher risks of stroke, heart disease, diabetes, cognitive decline and early death. People who are lonely are twice as likely to develop , and face higher risks of and self-harm.
Earlier research pointed the same way. A 2010 meta-analysis by Julianne Holt-Lunstad and colleagues pooled 148 studies with more than 300,000 people and found that those with stronger social relationships had about a 50% greater likelihood of survival over the study periods. The authors concluded that the influence of relationships on survival is comparable with well-established risk factors such as smoking and alcohol. These are observational studies, so they show a strong association rather than proving cause, but the consistency across many countries is striking.
Who is most at risk
The WHO report found loneliness highest among young people — 17–21% of those aged 13 to 29 report it, with teenagers highest of all — and more common in low-income countries (about 24%) than high-income ones (about 11%). Social isolation affects up to one in three older adults. Poor health, low income, limited education, living alone, weak community facilities and heavy use of digital technology all contribute.
Some groups are particularly exposed in this part of Punjab:
- Parents whose children live abroad. Gujrat district and its neighbours have sent sons and daughters to the Gulf, Europe and beyond for generations. Remittances may keep the household comfortable while the house itself falls quiet — an elderly mother or father with money for everything except company.
- The widowed, particularly widows whose social life ran through their husband, and older people whose friends have died.
- New brides who have moved to an in-laws' home in another town, away from their own family and friends, and who may not be free to go out alone.
- Young people — students in hostels, young men working abroad in shared rooms, and teenagers whose social life has moved mostly onto screens.
- People with long-term illness, disability or hearing loss, and full-time carers, whose world can shrink to the house.
Loneliness, depression and the lonely mind
Long loneliness changes how people think. The mind starts to expect rejection, reads a neutral reply as coldness, and holds back from contact to avoid being hurt — which deepens the isolation. Going over past slights, or , adds to it. None of this is a character flaw; it is how a brain under social threat behaves. But it means that simply being around people does not always cure loneliness.
Loneliness and depression overlap and feed each other. If loneliness comes with low mood most days for two weeks or more, loss of interest in things (), changes in sleep or appetite, or hopelessness, it is time to see a doctor.
What helps
A 2011 meta-analysis by Christopher Masi and colleagues compared four kinds of intervention: improving social skills, increasing social support, creating more opportunities for contact, and addressing unhelpful social thinking. In the most rigorous, randomised studies, the approaches that tackled lonely thinking patterns — much as does — worked best. More contact on its own helps less if the fear of rejection remains.
For families with parents living alone
- Set a regular, predictable call rather than calling ‘when there is time’. Something to look forward to matters.
- Teach and set up video calling on a simple phone, and check it still works on each visit.
- Ask a trusted relative or neighbour to visit regularly, and thank them properly.
- Encourage routines that involve other people — prayers at the mosque, a daily walk to the market, time with grandchildren of relatives nearby.
- Watch for warning signs: weight loss, an unkept house, missed medicines, confusion, or saying ‘what is the point’. These need a doctor, not just a phone call.
How to reach out
Reaching out is harder when you are lonely, because the fear of being a burden is loudest then. It can help to keep it simple and specific: ‘I've been feeling a bit cut off lately — could we have chai this week?’ If you are the one noticing someone else withdrawing, do not wait for them to call. Ask an open question, listen without rushing to advice, and follow up.
When to get help
See a doctor if loneliness comes with persistent low mood, loss of interest, poor sleep or appetite, heavy drinking or reliance on sleeping tablets; if an older person living alone is not eating, not taking medicines or not coping at home; or if grief after a death is still overwhelming many months later (). Talking therapies can help with both the loneliness and the thinking that keeps it going.
What you can do today
- Message or call one person you have not spoken to in a while.
- Put one shared activity in your week — and go even if you do not feel like it.
- If a parent or grandparent lives alone, set a fixed daily call time with them.
- Notice one ‘nobody cares’ thought and write down the evidence for and against it.
Common questions
Still not sure what to do?
Reading about a symptom only goes so far. A doctor who can ask you questions and examine you will get further in ten minutes than any article can.
