How do lonely people deal with their loneliness?

What is it about?

Our ability to manage our emotional experiences, known as emotion regulation (ER), has been systematically shown to be an important factor in maintaining our mental health. At the same time, poor or rigid ER efforts are involved in a wide array of mental health problems, with loneliness being a representative example. Different studies found loneliness, especially the prolonged, chronic kind, to be associated with difficulties in effectively dealing with negative emotions. The main objective of this meta-analytic review was to summarize and unify the results of the existing studies on the relationship between loneliness and ER. We found that, across 61 studies, loneliness seems to be associated with more generally ineffective ER strategies (like rumination or emotional suppression) and less generally effective strategies (like reappraisal of the situation). At the same time, loneliness appears to be characterized by stronger difficulties in ER and poorer ER abilities.

Featured Image

Photo by Amir Sani on Unsplash

Photo by Amir Sani on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Loneliness has been declared a public health concern, as it can have serious implications for both physical and mental health. Understanding the underlying factors that contribute to the maintenance of loneliness is essential for finding ways to help people who deal with feelings of isolation. Our work shows that loneliness has been systematically found to be associated with indicators of poor emotion regulation efforts (e.g. more ineffective strategies, less effective strategies, general emotion regulation difficulties etc.). Future prevention and intervention programs might benefit from targeting emotion regulation and helping lonely people deal with their emotions in a more effective way.

Perspectives