32· Are You Lonely?
Podcast show notes
Hello and welcome! In this episode, I’m diving into a topic that’s often brushed under the rug—loneliness, especially in the workplace. Despite our busy lives and numerous connections, many of us still feel isolated. I chat about the real, often hidden, impact loneliness can have on our mental and physical health.
We often don’t talk about it because of the stigma, but it’s time we get comfortable with this conversation!
Here are the highlights
(04:14) Loneliness is painful
(07:51) What makes us lonely?
(14:45) Different types of loneliness
Loneliness in the workplace – Sarah Louise Wright
Connect with Ruth
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Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted, the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfil your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity, or your resilience.
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted, thank you very much for being with me today for a conversation around what I think is a really important topic. This is something I've kind of researched in the past. And I've gone into it in a bit more depth for this episode, but it kind of came to the front because someone messaged me who listens to the podcast and said, “I think this would make a great topic”, because she is experiencing loneliness at work in particular, and, you know, has really found that quite challenging, and a sort of real sense of kind of being isolated in her work. And that was obviously having an impact on her more widely. And she'd had a couple of conversations with friends and recognised that actually, this is a broader issue.
So it's definitely worth us talking about it and thinking about it and really sharing about it because sometimes I think there can be a real a real stigma around loneliness, and around us saying that we're lonely, especially when potentially we actually have really busy lives, we have lots of connections with people. You know, we're involved in lots of different things. We're professional and engaged with people at work. And so it can seem like a strangely shameful thing sometimes to say, “I'm lonely”.
And if you think about it, how often do you actually hear someone say those words, “I'm lonely”, “I feel lonely”? It’s not that often. And it can seem like a very strange thing to say, you know, when you've got a lovely family, and you've got friends, and you've got a job, and you've got all of those things is maybe less surprising if you don't have those things, and possibly more expected, but we can all experience loneliness in different times in our life in different parts of our lives. And so it's something probably we need to get a bit more comfortable with talking about so that we can do more about it. Because, you know, we often associate loneliness as something that's more prevalent with elderly people in the population. And, you know, clearly that there's truth in that, that, you know, there's a lot of, sadly lonely people in their older years. And we see a lot of that on the TV. And, you know, there are obviously lots of charities doing amazing work out there to sort of help support people in those positions. And there's also lots of research. And again, we've seen documentaries about this, where it correlates loneliness with increased disease or increased likelihood of disease and mortality. And what's really interesting is that there's been a bit of a shift. So well, in the past, you would have seen that loneliness was more prevalent in the elderly people. Actually, recent research has shown that there's been a bit of a shift, and the people who are more likely to describe themselves as lonely, are no age 16 to 24. So actually, in the younger end of our society was young adults are experiencing significant amounts of loneliness.
As I said, loneliness is something that we can all feel at different times and in different circumstances. And when we experience that loneliness for prolonged periods, it can really affect our kind of our well-being and our mental and physical health, it can, some can have more dramatic cases it can, it can lead to addiction, or certainly over reliance on unhealthy support functions, you know, whether that's staying in unhealthy relationships, whether it's overeating, drinking a bit too much a bit too often. And these are all behaviours, you know, we do these things as human beings, because we're trying to numb emotional pain. And, you know, we need to make no mistake about it, you know, loneliness is painful. It's obviously also potentially, therefore, why it's something that can feel so shaming to us, as well. And you know, we don't often want to admit to it. But, you know, there's been some neuroscience, scientists have observed and researched and they found that that shame and the pain that we experience is associated with loneliness actually activates the same pathways in our brain as for fixed physical pain. So you know, that, that what we experience when we experience loneliness, does have that same intensity, and our bodies and our brains experience it in a very similar way to physical pain. So it's really it's really, really important we recognise that actually, when we experience loneliness, it does have a real physical and mental effect on us.
We've talked about the stigma that can be attached to loneliness and the fact that we don't often talk about it. So I want to talk a little bit about how people might talk about it, if they're experiencing them with us, but they don't actually want to use that word. And they might not, bearing in mind, you know, I'm talking about me here as well, we might not even recognise in ourselves that we're lonely in certain areas of our lives. So you know, when people talk about feeling lonely, they often talk about rather than using the word lonely, they might talk about, feeling a bit invisible, I don't feel appreciated, feel quite isolated at work, you know, don't really feel part of the team or part of the group feel ignored. Or sometimes they might even describe themselves as being overwhelmed. Overwhelm can be a result of a lot of things, not just loneliness, but it can play a part in that.
So it's worth kind of bearing in mind that what's lying underneath people talking about feeling invisible, or left out, or that sort of thing. It can often actually be a loneliness that they've experiencing, even if they don't use want to use that word.
So what's the impact of all of this at work? Well, in a very recent, this year actually, it was published, a meta analysis of basically loads and loads of research that's out there around loneliness, there's not that much about loneliness at work. Interestingly, there's lots about loneliness and mental health, loneliness and physical health. But there's very little about loneliness specifically in the workplace. So these researchers tackle that they went through tonnes of other research and went back to the original data. And they found that there were really clear associations between loneliness with low job performance, loneliness, with reduced job satisfaction, loneliness, with worse relationships between people at work, and specifically with their managers, and also between loneliness and elevated burnout. So you know, that kind of seems to have been established.
Now, there's obviously a difference between being alone and being lonely. We can obviously we, you know, there's lots of songs have been written about, you know, being in a being in a room, and you're surrounded by people and still feeling alone. And that's clearly very much the case, our experience of loneliness is really on the inside. It's an internal kind of process and how we feel about ourselves and about ourselves in relation to other people.
So what makes us lonely? Well, often, and I think there's a really big correlation with this around diversity, equity and inclusion as well. Because often feeling lonely can be related to feeling like we don't belong, either in a particular environment at work or particular team, particular people, particular category of people. Or more generally, you know, sometimes we just go through life, feeling like we don't fit. And again, you people sort of talk about impostor syndrome and things. And I do wonder, I haven't found anything around this. But I do wonder if there is also a correlation between feeling like an imposter in particular scenarios, and loneliness.
There's also sort of that it being excluded from the group. And we all experience that in different ways at different points. But, you know, sometimes you can just feel like you're sitting on the outside, you're not really a part of things, nobody's consulting you, they don't pull you into things. You are in some way excluded from, you know, it might be a team, it might be a community group, it could be anything, it can be your family. But sometimes you can feel like there is a group who corral around something. And they don't really involve you, you don't feel involved. Nobody's trying to pull you in. Nobody's consulting you. Nobody's seeking your opinion.
We can also sometimes experience loneliness as a lack of recognition. And again, in the workplace, I think this can come up quite a bit. And it's why celebrating success and noticing when somebody's done something well is so important, because if you've just worked your backside off for something, and nobody's really noticed it, and you've done a really great job. That's something you know, when it especially if you see other people being recognised, you know, it obviously causes resentment, but it also contributes to that, that sense of not belonging, that sense of being excluded, and it can really lead people to withdraw. And again, you can see how it would happen that, you know, there's low job performance, you know, the result of that, that there's reduced job satisfaction, because if you've nobody's seeing what you're doing, and you're feeling a bit invasive. Trouble is that word again, then you know, you're not going to be putting your all in all the time. There's those three reasons.
And there's also that sometimes when we're experiencing lots of things going on in our lives, we can proactively withdraw from other people. And I've talked about this in previous episodes, and I've certainly done it myself, when I've been going through lots of personal stuff, I can feel myself withdrawing from my social circle a bit, withdrawing from engaging unless I have to, you know, not showing up for networking events, that sort of thing. Because it takes a certain level of energy to do that. And in some way, I'm kind of protecting that energy because I just don't have it to give. Now that doesn't stop us doesn't start off as me feeling lonely, I don't feel lonely and then necessarily withdraw. But that withdrawal over a prolonged period of time can certainly lead to experiencing loneliness, and a certain sense of isolation.
Now, I've spoken to a few people in the run up to recording this episode, sort of, and they've been very generous in sharing their stories and some of the struggles that they've had around loneliness. I've certainly experienced it myself at different points. Sometimes around work sometimes can have personally, you know, when things have been going on, and I'm not feeling connected to my friends and things in the way that have been in the past. But there was one lady story that I'd like to share called Kate who spent a bit time chatting to me about her experience. And she's struggled with loneliness for quite a long time, and it has taken a toll on her mental health, certainly, and to degree her physical health too. She's worked overseas for years, and returned to the UK and worked remotely. For she thinks totally including while working remotely while she was overseas, she thinks in total, she's worked remotely for around 20 years, which is a that's a long time to work remotely from a team. And she really struggled with that feeling isolated, you know, missing kind of the in-person events, not being part of the chat, not being part of the chat in a room or in the team you in comparison to people who were physically in the same location. You know, and her family came along and, you know, although by then she could have returned to the office because you she was back in the UK, and you could have gone back to the office. And that might have switched some of the loneliness. By then she had her kids, and then she would have had to sacrifice the flexibility that she had around her family. And she actually actively chose that loneliness at work. Because in comparison to being with her family knew she felt that was more important. So often, you know, we can have we, we look at flexibility, and we look at remote working and things that has real positives, for keeping women in the workforce and allowing us to find some balance with our families and things as well. But there can be a cost to that. And that cost can be feeling a bit, feeling a bit lonely.
And, you know, the type of I mean, Kate said that the type of work that she does now has sort of, she's basically at this point in her life. She's a middle aged woman, working primarily with young men. And she'd said that, you know, income, as well as this remote working aspect of that, as a middle aged woman in that environment. She felt invisible, just not seen at all. And that's really hard. But it's also interesting, because she also said that, actually through her life and growing up, she's never really felt like she belonged anywhere. She's always felt to a degree in some way, lonely. And you know, the only sort of exception to that has been with her partner and her children. And I thought that was really fascinating, because you can see how through it one person's very shortened story I should add, there are lots of different instances and ways in which she has felt lonely, and that has had quite a big impact on her and what she's done is really take a focus on her resilience and her well being. And what she has done is look for to boost her connection with other people in different ways that suit her. And to look after her well being in different ways as well in order to kind of give her the resilience that she needs to sort of continue.
Now, there are different you can see from that that there are different types of loneliness. It is possible entirely possible to be lonely in one area of our life, but not in others. And others have research in the literature around this highlights kind of three key types of loneliness. It describes loneliness as a sort of longing, a longing for different types of connection. And the first of these is that intimate connection that you have with either your partner in life or you know, your best friend, or people who you are really close to who you share pretty much everything with you, you'll maybe only have one or two of those people in your life at a time. And that's one type of longing that we have for connection.
The other type of longing is kind of categorised as that sort of relational and social connection, your friends, support networks, you know, that could be at work, or it could be kind of in our personal lives, but those relationships that hold us up, that keeps us going, that make us feel valued, and you that we have fun with. And you know, when the hard times, it's the people that pick you back up again, again, whether that's at work, or whether it's in your personal life, it's those sorts of support networks that are a little bit wider.
And they also describe the third one is collective loneliness. And that's a longing for like a real network or community who you share your sense of purpose, share your interests in life, that again could be about work, it could be if you're really purpose driven in your work, and not your real focus. It could be about having that that wider kind of network in your sector, or even you know, with the organisation that you're working with, or the business that you're working with, that really speaks to your interests in that type of work. Or it could be about kind of some sort of social or community group or, but it's that wider network where you're focused on your particular mission in life, or, or just the specific interests that you have your, whether it's sport, or music, or whatever your thing is, and then we want to kind of connect with people in all of these different ways.
Now, again, what's really interesting around this is that unless we feel connected in all three of those different ways in our lives, we will be experiencing some sort of loneliness that will deplete us. So you might have the best marriaage or partnership in the world, and be really tight and together. But if you don't also have some kind of community around you, and some sort of friendship group at work or at home, that can give you that other support, there will be something lacking. And that, you know, you're still going to experience that negative impact in some way, it might not be massive for you, everybody's different. And you know, the size of those networks will differ depending on who you are and what you need. But these are the things that the research is showing that we absolutely need in those three areas that can have one special relationship, whether that's like, again, your partner, or really strong friendship, but we need that one special kind of relationship. That is something we shared everything with, we need that kind of relational and social kind of sense of friendship around us both at work and at home. And we need that wider community sort of feel and connection in order to be truly well.
So if you take a moment now, and just thinking about yourself for now, if you think about those three different categorizations, of longing and loneliness. Is there anything there for you that where you feel like you're maybe lacking, where you might need to sort of think more consciously about building some connection, building more than just picking up the phone to your friends a bit more often, you know, to fulfil that need in you? You know, or if you just don't see any way to kind of build your community or you develop other relationships. What other habits can you build around your resilience and your well being that will support you with this? So that you know you're kind of bolstering and kind of augmenting other areas of your life to support you, even if there's some gaps there that you can't fill.
Thinking about this from an organisational perspective, you know, whether you're thinking about it in terms of your team or your business or your company, how much do you actually know and understand about the prevalence of loneliness within your company? Given what we've said about you the impact that it has on your relationships at work, on job performance, on everything else?
How aware are you of loneliness within your organisation. You know, is there anything in your employee engagement surveys that gives you some data that you can use? Is it you know, however you engage in measures that satisfaction or engagement, you know? Is there anything that you can capture there that will give you some kind of indication? If you don't have it already? Is it something that's talked about, at all in any way, shape or form, you know, if not, maybe just surfacing it a little bit and seeing, seeing what comes back would be useful. Because there is, you know, there is a strong correlation with performance, with well being, with relationships within the organisation, and definitely with burnout. So really understanding this can kind of help you sort of lift the hood and kind of start understanding what's really going on for people. Loneliness is complex. And it's probably more prevalent than we realised because of that shame and stigma that there is around talking about it.
If you have any experiences that you'd like to share, or any questions or anything after listening to this episode, please do get in touch. I'll put some of the reading and the research in the show notes. If you want to kind of follow up there's a couple of good books and there's some articles as well. And I'd also recommend having listened to Episode Nine of Frustrated and Exhausted where I explore connection. And it's important for us, and the link to resilience, again, can offer some some ways in which you can can build your connections with other people. I hope that's been really helpful. Please join me again next week. Thank you very much for listening. It's always great to be with you. Take care
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted! Hit the Follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram at resonate leadership and LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood. I would absolutely love to hear from you. Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique. I'm your host, Ruth Wood. Take care and speak to you soon.
