Test Your Knowledge About Loneliness! Trivia Quiz

Loneliness is a subjective feeling, meaning that what creates feelings of loneliness is different from person to person. Generally, a person feels lonely when he/she has not had their social needs met. So, even in a crowd, if one's social needs are not met, he/she will still feel lonely.

Although when we think of lonely people, we may think of the stereotypical shy, withdrawn, individual, it is also possible that outgoing, extroverted individuals also experience a high degree of loneliness as well. While these outgoing people may be good at establishing initial relationships, they often have trouble deepening their relationships with others.

Loneliness has been linked to physical illnesses such as high blood pressure and decreased immune functioning.

Loneliness is in fact a growing phenomenon in developed and developing societies. It is estimated in the United States alone, at least 33% of the population report feeling lonely. Increasing societal trends towards individualism may be contributing to the increasing numbers. So if you are feeling lonely, chances are, right around you, there are a lot of other people who feel lonely as well.

Having early childhood trauma often teaches people that the world is not a safe place and people cannot be trusted. As such, they tend to shut others out and at the same time, creating chronic feelings of loneliness.

While self-help books and websites can be good ways of gaining insight into one's feelings of chronic loneliness, curing loneliness often requires the help of others, either in a supportive group and/or with a therapist.

Sorry folks, this one is false. We often ascribe to the myth that all of our intimacy needs can be fulfilled by one other person. For 99.9% of people, this is not the case. We also need friends and family to help fulfill our intimacy needs also. One person cannot do it all. In fact, there are a lot of married people that are still lonely. Placing that kind of demand on one other person is unfair and a recipe for disappointment.

The two positive coping strategies are active solitude (such as listening to music exercising or working on a hobby) and social contact (talking to someone). These strategies are positive because they effectively reduce feelings of loneliness after the activity. However, the best coping strategy is to social contact because it addresses one's social needs and helps one deal with the emotion of loneliness.

Several pieces of research have found that young adults and seniors tend to be the loneliest age groups.

Joining a club or group may work well for individuals who only experience temporary periods of loneliness. However, for individuals who have experienced loneliness for a long period of time, just being surrounded by others or even interacting with them is not enough. Very often lonely people have trouble taking friendships to a deeper level that would help address the underlying feelings of loneliness. Without some internal, mental changes, joining social groups will not be effective.

Loneliness and depression are two distinct mental health issues. While it is common that lonely people are depressed, or depressed people are lonely, the causes and treatments for loneliness and depression are different. It is also possible that one can be lonely and not depressed (perhaps isolating oneself for a couple of days to study for a big exam) or depressed and not lonely (having lots of friends but still feeling depressed).

All of these are examples of the kinds of negative, automatic thoughts that chronically lonely people have. They often assume that they will be rejected in social situations, or that people cannot be trusted. Ironically they may then act in certain ways that cause them to be rejected in these social situations. The constant reinforcement can make them weary or anxious about social situations.