This year I've been really rethinking my relationship with alcohol and so I decided to commit to dry January to really kickstart 2025 and just test myself.
Heineken 00 is the perfect companion for dry January because you feel like you're still participating when you're out for dinner with friends, out for drinks whilst you're still meeting your lifestyle goals.
I'm a big beer fan so I also love the taste of Heineken 00 plus being alcohol free you can enjoy whenever refreshment calls.
Heineken 00 is available at your local Heineken retailer or for delivery at heineken .com.
You must be 21 plus to purchase.
Enjoy Heineken responsibly and good luck with dry January.
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Hello and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to another episode new listeners, old listeners.
It's so great to have you here.
So great to have you back for our first ever holiday special.
I know it's a little bit late, I'm sorry, but I hope that we can perhaps all still have a moment of reflection and maybe it's able to help some of us who are feeling particularly lonely during this period, during the holiday period.
First of all, before we jump into this discussion around loneliness, I just want to say happy holidays, happy new year to all who are celebrating.
Before we jump into the psychology, I just want to thank everyone for their support this year.
It's been absolutely crazy, like I have no way of even describing how overwhelmed and grateful I am.
It's just insane to me how much this show has grown in 12 months.
I remember this time last year I felt so little motivation to continue making episodes.
I just felt really burnt out.
I felt like, you know, no one really cared, but I'm so glad I continued to do it.
I'm so glad that I pushed through because now I just feel, yeah, so grateful.
And I just thank you, thank you a million times over.
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for supporting the show.
I just cannot say it enough times.
It's really been the absolute highlight of this year.
Okay, now we're going to do a bit of a segue.
It's not going to be a smooth segue.
We're just going to jump right into what I want to talk about.
And what I really want to talk about today is loneliness.
I know a bit of a crash, bit of a plummet from all the gratitude and love, but I honestly think it's such an important topic to discuss at all times of the year, but particularly loneliness around the holidays and that unique kind of disconnection and isolation we tend to feel around the holiday season.
And the reason I wanted to do this was because A, I can imagine this is a really common experience for many of us.
And B, from a personal experience, I've been hanging out with my family.
I'm back at my family home for the holidays.
And there is always this really strange feeling I get, especially between Christmas and New Year's when I feel like overwhelmingly this sense of isolation and solitude for no apparent reason.
You know, I'm surrounded by my family, as I'm sure many of us and many of us are, yet there is this weird empty space that feels so prominent and hard to ignore.
Honestly, this time of the year, I feel more alone than ever.
I'm suddenly thinking back on every relationship I've ever had and feeling this urge to reach out to all my friends, to ward off this really inexplicable loneliness.
And I swear this happens to me every year around the holidays, like clockwork.
And I have a suspicion I'm not alone.
And even if I am, well, I kind of needed to understand the reason behind this just for myself because it's been puzzling me for literally years.
You know, the happiest time of the year, and I've never felt more alone.
So I wanted to break down some of the explanations and psychology behind why the holiday season can feel so lonely at times, especially for those of us who may be spending this season away from family.
If you've had a particularly hard year, maybe you're grieving a loved one or missing someone in particular, been through a breakup, or you could just be feeling lonely for no reason at all.
And that is just as valid and it's something we'll discuss more.
I think it's important as always to normalize not feeling normal and happy all the time.
And that's especially pertinent for this time of the year when there is a huge expectation, I think, to feel joyous and extroverted and happy and grateful.
And sometimes it's really hard to feel that way, even during a normal period or a normal month, where the expectations aren't as high and the point of comparison is less prominent than it is at Christmas and it is during the holidays.
So let's dissect the loneliness we often feel during the holiday season and provide some explanation for why you might be feeling this way.
So buckle in for our holiday episode for the year.
I can imagine that many of us are feeling quite lonely, maybe a bit off, a bit strange at this time of the year.
Maybe not, maybe it's just me, but I'm fairly sure this is a pretty common experience just from speaking to friends and to other people around me.
And I read this article whilst I was kind of researching this episode that the holiday season and holiday loneliness is a lot more common than we think.
And not just for those who find themselves physically alone as well.
Feeling a bit down this time of the year is actually incredibly normal and should probably be spoken about more and it happens for many reasons that we're going to discuss in a moment.
But before then, let's do a quick refresher on the anatomy, some of the background information and the things that ought to know about loneliness.
Loneliness I think is an incredibly personal concept and an incredibly personal idea.
Each person's idea of what loneliness is, the reactions that it creates, the triggers, the reasons behind why we feel lonely is going to be completely different.
And of course there are some pretty typical ones, you know, social isolation, maybe you've moved to cities, maybe you're separated from your loved ones that are quite common.
But once again, loneliness is so subjective and what might make one person feel really lonely and really alone is not the same as what it might be for someone else.
I think there's also a key distinction between being alone physically and socially and the actual idea of loneliness.
They're completely different concepts.
I think someone can be physically alone and you can feel completely content.
You don't feel any sadness, no pangs of loneliness, no need to reach out.
And then there's someone who is physically alone who might feel incredibly lonely, but it's also entirely possible to be experiencing loneliness whilst being surrounded by friends and family.
I think typically how we see loneliness is the absence of other people around us, but that's not always the case.
There is this massive distinction that loneliness is very much a mental and a cognitive function that isn't always tied to what's in our lives.
You can feel lonely in a massive crowded room.
You can feel lonely when you are surrounded by the people that you love the most because it is a cognitive thought, a cognitive reaction to something more internal than external.
I think it's also important to state our thresholds, our individual thresholds for loneliness are also very much subjective and based on our own personal needs for connection and with that social interaction as well.
I know people in my life who don't need a lot of social interaction at all.
They can see someone like once a week and that's all they need to feel happy and content and healthy and then there's others such as myself who, you know, I constantly need to be in contact with friends or family all the time and even then I still feel alone sometimes even when I've seen people you
know earlier that day or even now when I'm home with my family.
It's this weird inexplicable sensation of having people around you and yet not feeling as connected as you hoped and loneliness can happen whenever, whatever, whatever's happening, whatever's happening around you and even if you aren't feeling particularly socially isolated and it does also have a pretty
powerful mental impact on our health.
I think I did a whole episode about this and it's so common in our 20s right.
We're trying to find our feet, we're trying to you know discover what our relationships mean to us and the people around us and we're shifting jobs, we're shifting from school and to work and moving out of home and losing friends and breaking up with our partners for the first time.
It is I think a defining mechanism, a defining experience of this decade of our 20s.
It's interesting though because a lot of the research that you will find on loneliness if you go digging for it, if you go looking for it, it centers a lot on older adults, on people who are elderly or living in nursing homes despite the fact that I think you can feel lonely at any age and our 20s are also a pretty
defining decade I'd say for this for this feeling and for this experience.
When you feel socially isolated studies have shown that loneliness and the loneliness that you feel can be as painful and as impactful as if you were in physical pain or experiencing some form of physical trauma.
I'm pretty sure we've all experienced this you know that tightness in our chest that kind of coldish sting of feeling alone and that feeling that activates the same neurological pathways the same parts of our brain that respond to physical pain and of course it has an evolutionary explanation right?
We are tribal social creatures where pack animals and our survival in the past was dependent on being surrounded by others you know we could not go out the wilderness go out life by ourselves we needed safety insecurity in numbers so that people could help build shelters whilst others helped collect
food and water and raise the children and provide security and protection from whatever was out there so instinctually and naturally nowadays those parts of our brains of course still exist and they're still going to react in the same way when we feel that we aren't surrounded by the people that we
would like to be or when we feel alone we're going to have that same instinctual reaction of like oh my god my survival is at risk I need to find people to be around I need to make my way back into the pack and back into the tribe in order to feel that safety and security that's an explanation for why
loneliness can hurt so much research has also shown that people who enjoy and have and cultivate strong social ties they actually tend to live longer on average it was four years longer and they also protect like our social relationships also protect against cognitive decline and mental deterioration because those
parts of our brains that are activated when we socialize when we interact when we connect with someone else when we can offer them empathy and share a really nice conversation those parts of our brain are really important for our functioning in other areas of life it's also interesting they did this study
on more than I think like 3000 participants and it showed that people who were lonely especially when they were older had a higher rate of dementia as well which just proves that being properly socially connected whatever that means for you is so valuable I will also say that certain studies and research
they do suggest that loneliness every now and again may be a beneficial thing when it's in small doses a bit of solitude is actually quite beneficial because it can allow us to prioritize and focus on the relationships that do matter to us by recognizing I guess whose absence is most profound and hopefully
giving that relationship more attention a healthy dose of being alone as well I think is really beneficial for being able to focus inward without distractions without people around us without their opinions and in those moments where we aren't you know being called one way or another by the people around
us when we don't feel the need to constantly be talking to people or keeping up our social relationships we can really uncover some of the issues that we've potentially been ignoring or even suppressing and the time we end up spending alone with ourselves I believe is some of the most valuable because we
can honestly reflect look inward be frustrated with ourselves be annoyed but also be incredibly candid about what we want and who we would like to be that being said there is a time and a place for these experiences and the deep contemplation that's often brought forth by loneliness and the holidays
it's not always a pleasant experience right and it's not always the best time of the year when we are surrounded by joy and there is expectation of seeing our families feeling lonely that period of solitude it's perhaps not the greatest time to be having that feeling back to kind of that that loneliness
during the holidays conundrum that real focus of what we're talking about today there are so many factors that can contribute to this feeling during this time of the year I honestly I was trying to list some I was thinking them through all day today trying to put my finger on it and I don't actually
think we can even start to cover them all in this episode but the primary ones I think are important to discuss are of course firstly our family relationships good or bad even the most perfect family dynamics the most perfect family can be overwhelming after a while especially if you're not used to
having this kind of exposure or you're used to having an element of independence and you know you might live elsewhere and you're coming back for the holidays and Christmas is this like rapid and intense exposure to family and the family dynamics the history the chaos sometimes even the drama and that can be
not only quite exhausting but also kind of like frustrating and yeah really intense when you're used to the support of a family from a distance and that exposure that closeness doesn't always have the desired effect and it can actually make us feel even more disconnected because we're sitting amongst
our family members we're exposed to them in this like really heightened intense environment and we can just feel incredibly exhausted and like we really just want to shut down we're not actually quite we're not actually used to this it can be so overwhelming then of course there are those of us who may have a strained
or even non -existent relationship with our family and this period can be especially difficult and almost beckon in a lot of loneliness and sadness for very obvious reasons so i think if that is you and you relate to that i'm sending you so much love there really is no explanation i think that i can provide
for this experience and i hate when people say things like oh it makes you stronger or things happen for a reason just know that there are people who love you and i'm sending you strength for what i'm sure can be a really tough time i think even if we do have a relationship with our family for the holidays
and we are able to go and see them during this time sometimes that can also be really strained or we feel like there are elements of ourselves that we can't be completely honest about or elements of ourselves which aren't going to receive the full respect that we really deserve especially when it comes
to our families christmas the holidays whatever you celebrate if it means exposure to family it can sometimes mean concealing those elements and characteristics and as a result feeling a lot less like ourselves and therefore more disconnected and i think a final element that comes into this is if we're
grieving someone if this is your first christmas without someone really important to you i know this time can be challenging especially with that narrative and that emphasis on family and being surrounded by your loved ones this time of the year is particularly hard we feel this pressure to bring our
loved ones close and to spend time with family and not being able to do that for whatever reason whether it's because of a separation or a death or because of a strained relationship with family i think that of course is especially painful and it's no wonder that if you are going through this situation you
might be feeling particularly lonely and particularly disconnected i read this really interesting article when i was researching this that the holidays they're actually often the hardest for those who don't have that reliable support system or who don't have access to family in the way that many of us
do this includes i guess all those things we just talked about people who've lost loved ones maybe have a strained relationship a non -existent relationship maybe you've had to put up a boundary like we talked about last week and that wasn't respected by your family members and cutting off contact not being
in their life for the holiday season was the only way to move forward additionally the holidays they're often full of these you know scenes everywhere we look on social media on the television of people spending really happy and joyous times with their family and friends leading a lot of us i think
or some of us to feel like you're maybe the only one without someone in their life during this time of course i know that's not the case you know that's not the case but it's all wrapped up in this idea of comparison the thing we all do we all compare and it's a huge contributor to loneliness in the holiday
season i want to talk a little bit more about comparison because i think it's really important when we talk about loneliness during the holiday season this time is a time for oversharing we see people in love people traveling people with their families and beautiful partners they get to spend the holidays
with we see them in front of their christmas tree with all their gifts and you know this big extended group of people i think i've said it before um but i think it's important to stress again in those instances comparison is a real thief of joy here it's one of the phrases i live by um after hearing
it i think a few years ago and now i and i know personally i say it to myself so much you know comparison is a thief of joy but i know personally it can be such a challenge not to compare you know i just did a whole episode on this a few weeks ago but especially at times like this it's just so easy
it's everywhere you look it's across billboards it's literally everywhere it's on our phones it's in the conversations we have with colleagues it's in the group chats that we're in but comparison it can exacerbate so much loneliness and so many insecurities we might already have and with our lives often
on display around the holiday season with people you know sharing their home cooked meals and their trees and their gifts and their family it can be especially hard to avoid this and it of course can make us feel even more disconnected and can really heighten what might always already be a sense of judgment
around what we don't have and a sense of our lives lacking so of course all of these factors our family our friends our social environment are very pertinent are very important to consider but there are other elements of our environment i think also contribute to loneliness around this time especially
if you're living somewhere where it's really dark and cold during the holidays seasonal affective disorder seasonal depression it does not play around and on top of many of these other factors and experiences think you know that separation from family there's financial things to think about there's
the stress from the busyness of this year our environment is obviously going to play a huge part and as we know our environment is a massive determinant to our state of mind and our well -being and often our mental state can mimic our external surroundings so if you are already in a vulnerable state
because you know that this year you don't get to go home maybe you're working because you have that strained relationship with your family and then suddenly it's freezing cold and it's super dark and it just feels gross outside i can imagine all of those factors really play on top of each other they
play into each other and create that feeling of loneliness that has been you know the point of this discussion another one that's really interesting for me that someone i know actually brought up was that when we go home for the holidays or when we travel or we're going to see family there is this loss
of consistency in the habits and the lifestyle that we normally keep and a kind of a disruption to the peace and normalcy of everyday life i find this when i come home right like i'm used to waking up at a certain time getting to choose what i want to do when i want to do it being able to see my friends
you know none of my friends live you know only a couple of them actually live where my parents live so it's like an immediate you know seven day period of time where the only social connection i have in person is my family and that is so disruptive and i always think like oh what's going on without
me like i get this almost fomo and then i feel guilt i'm like oh i haven't seen my family in so long i want to be spending time with them i love them i enjoy their company but i'm also used to having the life that i have that is separate from them and when the holidays come around it's this kind of big
disruption to that and i have to recalibrate so much of my life to adapt to this weird period in which everything gets put on pause i think also there can many times during this period be these unrealistic expectations and memories this nostalgia and i think nostalgia is one of the most beautiful parts
about being human like it's incredible that we can reflect on beautiful times in our lives and feel those same feelings and those same those same sensations like that's just wonderful but it also comes with its downsides for sure particularly when we think about memories of past holidays or past christmas
or whatever where you did get to celebrate with loved ones and everything went perfectly and you know you got to see everyone that you loved and spend time with your friends and your family and maybe this year that wasn't the case things came up you weren't able to be close with them you weren't able
to make it back maybe you don't have that relationship with your family anymore you can't afford to make that trip and thinking back on those times when the situation was perfect when when you were able to make those memories can be even more difficult i think often when we're unable to get together
with friends and family it can make us even more nostalgic and we remember these old times when everything was different and it can make us feel pretty down and pretty unhappy especially when we imagine that this loneliness that we might be feeling will persist which we know it won't it's not going
to last forever but it's very easy to say that it's very easy for me to say that and it's a very different thing to believe that and finally loneliness during the holidays why does it happen often because it's a time to reflect during the holiday period we often get leave from university and work it's
a period of rest everything's on pause and with that comes a lack of things to keep us occupied when we think about our everyday lives there is so much to busy our minds with you know you've got work you've got to go to uni you've got to keep up with your friends you've got to keep up with the gym or keep
up with your hobbies and there's so many things so many things that are on our mind but when those things do go on pause such as during this this period and they disappear we no longer have that distraction and we recognize that that's may have may be actually what they are a distraction from what some
of our deeper and truer feelings may be and in this period around the holidays those very feelings that we've suppressed they come back in full force and that results in some of that discomfort and loneliness that's a key point that I was thinking about when I was writing today's episode of course we
cannot talk about this experience of loneliness this sensation without talking about expectations and the external expectations placed on us throughout this time the hype to be happy and to be grateful you know it's everywhere the most wonderful time of the year a time of joy and gratitude and love
and family and implicit within that expectation is that if you cannot feel that way if you are struggling if you are really just not feeling it if you're away from your family and friends if you're feeling alone or maybe you just wish you had somebody you're a bit of a grinch I see this it's everywhere it's
everywhere it's in movies it's in the narrative told around us the holiday should be revealed like no other time of the year and that is going to put that place is so much pressure on us so even if you are struggling even if you are just really not having a great time it's going to make you feel so much
guilt and shame and it's going to make it feel like you are the problem because this narrative is being pushed across every platform to be happy and to be grateful honestly someone needs to write a christmas album for those who are spending the holidays alone like we need to change the narrative or like
maybe a sad rom -com or just a normal rom -com where you are just a happy single person who can't make it home for the holidays and I don't know you buy yourself like a family -sized potato bake and a bottle of wine like it's just another day like hallmark the rights are available you need to buy this movie
I honestly think it would sell because that is the case for so many of us for so many people like this is just not a special time like everyone is telling us that it should be for all of those reasons that we've discussed for so many reasons like there's already this sense of of I think depression and this lack
of things to distract us and these expectations that this needs to be amazing and then you combine that with like the environmental factors or the fact that you may be not close to your family you know the family being the pillar of this season and it all just kind of gets wrapped up in this feeling
of disconnection for many of us and maybe it even results in you dreading the holiday season that external and even internal expectation making it so much worse so what can we do if you are feeling this way right now if you're coming out of christmas and just feeling really down about yourself and just
feeling a little bit lost a little bit lonely I think the first thing to do is just to find that you know whatever it is the small joys that give you meaning and the things you can enjoy about this time whether it is the holiday time if you are someone who is on leave at the moment or it's the cookies
and the food and the crappy movies and you know the opportunity to buy yourself a really expensive ridiculous gift because it's christmas and because it's the holidays whatever you need you can take advantage of whatever best serves you if it means that you're going to feel better about this season and if it's
going to curb some of your loneliness I think it's also important to think and plan ahead about what there is to look forward to when everything kind of comes back to normal maybe it's about planning a trip or planning something important for you maybe a concert something that you can look forward to
so that you don't get I think stuck in the sadness of this period of the loneliness and coming into both of those points like treat yourself honestly do it there is nothing that a little dopamine hit from some retail therapy or some like yummy food or whatever a little gift isn't going to help with it's
honestly a real thing you've got to sometimes be the one to reward yourself especially if you're spending the holidays alone this is a great time to be able to parent yourself and treat yourself the way that you would want to be be treated as if you were a child like treat yourself to the experiences
that you would want to have at this time because you really are the person who's in control of your happiness for most of the most of the part you know not all of it there are obviously other factors but our happiness is very much in our control when we get to decide our environment and what we give
to ourselves of course I also think it's important to text call reach out to the people that do make you feel seen and connected reach out to them I'm sure they would love to hear from you and it's a way of allowing yourself to acknowledge that there are people who care about you you're not alone even
if so many aspects of this season try and convince us that we are and that they are there for you and there are people that love you I think it's also just a great way just to get some of that social connection and social interaction that can often curb our loneliness get off social media this is like
the biggest tip when it's the holiday time I honestly cannot be on social media I get so much FOMO I'm constantly comparing myself I literally it's so overwhelming I cannot deal with it everyone's on their vacations and having the best time and getting the best Christmas gifts and have this beautiful
relationship or this beautiful family and I know that for me comparison like I said is the thief of joy so I make a conscious decision to stay away for as much as I can allow myself to and just put an end to that before it even begins and I use this time instead to rest and relax rest and relax when you
can we are so much better able to navigate these feelings of isolation of loneliness of feeling a little bit crap when we have the mental resources we need at our disposal including a well rested mind it's so much better for our cognitive state when we feel well rested when we have the energy to ward
off some of these negative feelings distract yourself if you have to as well like just go outside do some shopping see a friend if you're able to watch Emily in Paris I don't know I just saw that that came out I may have binge watched it it's very fun anything that will allow you to find those small
moments and those small things to be grateful for and those small distractions and if you are someone who spent the holidays alone and you're listening to this and relating to this I just want to say I think you're doing an amazing job I'm I don't want to say I'm sorry I feel like pity is such a terrible
feeling to have lobbied at you but I just think that you deserve a lot of credit I know it can be really really difficult to go through this period by yourself even for those of us who are surrounded by family you know some of those things we talked about are so real there is this disruption to our
daily habits we don't get to see our friends we're kind of in this state where we don't have those distractions that we normally have or maybe you're just looking around and everyone seems to have a perfect relationship they have someone to spend the holidays with or they have this perfect family and you
don't and comparison is really your enemy in those moments it's so much easier said than done but whatever you can do to try and interrupt or disrupt that nasty little comparative beast I think we're all better for it that's all I have for you today I just want to say thank you so much for listening
to the Christmas special thank you so much for supporting the show this year oh my god it's been insane next week we are kicking off the start of my new year's series so the next three episodes are all going to be around creating the best version of yourself for 2023 and how some of the psychology can explain things
like new year's resolutions how to have a mental glow up how to choose the love that you deserve how to let go of the things that do not serve you so I am so excited I've been doing so much planning and so much research and it's just incredible and if you do feel called to do so if you did enjoy this episode
please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple podcasts Spotify podcast wherever you are listening and make sure to follow us at that psychology podcast thank you again and I am I will see you later this week I'll see you next week for a new episode this year I've been really rethinking my relationship
with alcohol and so I decided to commit to dry January to really kickstart 2025 and just test myself Heineken 00 is the perfect companion for dry January because you feel like you're still participating when you're out for dinner with friends out for drinks whilst you're still meeting your lifestyle
goals I'm a big beer fan so I also love the taste of Heineken 00 plus being alcohol free you can enjoy whenever refreshment calls Heineken 00 is available at your local Heineken retailer or for delivery at Heineken .com you must be 21 plus to purchase enjoy Heineken responsibly and good luck with dry
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Do you want to see into the future?
Do you want to understand an invisible force that's shaping your life?
Do you want to experience the frontiers of what makes us human?
On tech stuff we travel from the minds of Congo to the surface of Mars from conversations with Nobel Prize winners to the depths of TikTok to ask burning questions about technology from high tech to low culture and everywhere in between join us listen to tech stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts
