Loneliness Is a Public Health Emergency. Here's What Helps, According to Experts

• More people are feeling comfortable talking about mental health and the role that loneliness can play in mental health disorders.
• Researchers who study loneliness say that it hasn't always received the kind of attention it deserves as a major threat to health.
• Primary care doctors and therapists don't regularly screen their patients for signs of loneliness.
• Japan followed the U.K. in appointing its first Minister of Loneliness in 2021.
• WHO is considering creating a high-level commission to address social connection, isolation, and loneliness.

• Research has found loneliness can significantly increase the risk of early death.
• In part, that's because it's linked to a striking number of disorders.
• Loneliness has also been linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, and other chronic illnesses.

Reducing loneliness is not just increasing the number of people a person sees, but making more fulfilling social connections.

Seek out relationships with others who are really "your people".

Get busy to distract yourself and enrich your life-like getting out in nature, taking up a creative hobby, or meditating.

Nurture existing relationships, including with people you might overlook. For example, people become less lonely after doing small acts of kindness for their neighbour.