What is Loneliness Awareness Week?
Hosted by Marmalade Trust, this year’s Loneliness Awareness Week (LAW) campaign takes place from Monday 10th – Sunday 16th June 2024. Marmalade Trust is a charity that raises awareness of loneliness and helps people to make new connections and established LAW in 2017 to raise awareness of feeling lonely and encourage people to speak about it openly. It’s a powerful message that resonates with many and each year LAW receives more and more attention.
Whilst we’re seeing an increase in discussion on the subject, stigma remains and there are some key misconceptions that still need to be challenged. Ask anyone to picture a lonely person and most will imagine an older person living on their own. As such, we often rebuke and dismiss feelings of loneliness because ‘that doesn’t apply to me’.
By identifying and acknowledging all the times that we have personally felt and experienced loneliness, we can start to change our viewpoint, accept it and understand how to take action to manage the feeling (and our social connections) in the future.
Random Acts of Connection
The theme of Loneliness Awareness Week 2024 is Random Acts of Connection which encourages everyone to increase those simple, everyday moments of connection which help us feel happier, less lonely and increase our sense of belonging.
The power of micro connections
Do you feel uplifted when you exchange a smile with a stranger in the street? How about making small talk about the weather with the person behind the till at your local shop because it feels natural and like a nice thing to do.
You might not know these people very well or even know their names, but research shows these moments of connection can significantly affect our happiness and sense of belonging. For Loneliness Awareness Week, we’re encouraging everyone to increase those simple, everyday moments of connection!
Click here to find out more about Micro Connections on the Loneliness Awareness Week website.
What is loneliness?
We all feel lonely at times – it’s a natural human emotion. We’re biologically wired for social contact, and loneliness is our signal that we need more. We need to remove the stigma and shame surrounding loneliness. And the best way to do that? Let’s talk about it! Let’s make this the year we accept that loneliness exists.
If we don’t feel connected with those around us, we can start to feel lonely which can have serious impacts on our mental health and wellbeing over a long period of time. While loneliness isn’t a mental health problem, it can have a negative impact on your mental health and likewise, having a mental health problem can increase your chance of feeling lonely.
Loneliness is a ‘need’ for social contact and it may be felt more over a long period of time. It is also possible to feel lonely, even when surrounded by people. Feelings of loneliness are unique to each of us and are linked to the gap between our desired levels of social contact and the actual level of social contact that we feel we have. Feelings of loneliness are personal, so everyone’s experience will be different.
Tackling loneliness and connecting with others
The Marmalade Trust who co-ordinates LAW, has developed a loneliness guide to help you understand loneliness and get tips to help get connected, click here to access the guide.
Building small actions into your daily life can make you feel good, and feeling good is an important part of being healthy. There are 5 ways to wellbeing that are proven to make a real difference to you. Click here to find out more about the 5 Ways to Wellbeing. Connecting is one of the 5 Ways to Wellbeing so getting in touch with the people around you: with family, friends, colleagues and neighbours, at home, work, and school or in your local community can help you to feel good. Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them. Building these connections can support and enrich you every day.
For more information from Mind on loneliness and tips on managing loneliness, click here.
