People who hide their emotions, overestimate the scale of problems and look for their culprits, and also refuse to look for the positive aspects of any events, often feel lonely, American psychologists found out in collaboration with Australian colleagues. Such people, among other things, experiencing negative emotions, instead of seeking support, alienate those who are trying to show it, and aggravate their situation. Researchers believe that loners can overcome their problems with the help of psychotherapy. Psychologists have long called loneliness one of the main social problems, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which has divided family and friends, has increased interest in this issue. Feeling lonely is a painful alienation with no one to turn to for emotional and social support. Lonely people often believe that no one understands them and does not share their concerns, that no one really knows them and does not even want to get to know them better.

Loneliness, especially chronic loneliness, increases the risks of many health problems, including mental (anxiety, depression, insomnia) and physical (stroke, heart disease, obesity).

While some people make friends, create families and do not lack communication, others are unable to establish more or less close contacts with others.

The reasons for loneliness, as well as ways to deal with it, are not well understood. Many single people want to make friends but feel they cannot. Common reasons why singles don't make friends with anyone are low trust, lack of time, introversion, selectivity, fear of rejection, and some physiological aspects such as health.

Psychologists from Harvard and Stanford Universities, the University of Western Australia and Curtin University decided to understand the issue in more detail. They presented their findings in an article in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

“Loneliness is a risk factor for mental disorders and a serious and growing public health problem,” the authors write. “But to date, measures to combat loneliness have had limited success. We suggest that looking at emotion regulation can be helpful in understanding the causes of loneliness and in finding new ways to deal with it. ”

Loneliness implies unpleasant emotions due to social isolation and lack of intimate relationships, the researchers explain. You can be lonely even when you're in a crowd. And, conversely, do not suffer from it, being alone with yourself.

Researchers have suggested that the risk of loneliness may be related to the way people regulate their emotions.

The researchers recruited 501 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 88 and asked them to complete a series of questionnaires on emotion regulation. Participants in the study had to rate items such as “I control my emotions without expressing them,” “I think about how I can better cope with the situation,” “I avoid other people,” and others that characterize the ability to suppress emotions, a tendency to self-flagellation or, conversely, blaming others for problems, willingness to support others. Participants also answered questions designed to determine their level of loneliness.

Researchers have found a link between certain expressions of emotion and loneliness.

Those who were inclined to self-blame and blame others, to roll over disturbing thoughts in their heads, to catastrophize problems felt more lonely, and also less often tried to reconsider this or that situation, finding positive aspects in it.

Lonely people tend to hide their feelings and suppress the expression of emotions. They also did not seek support from others and rejected what was offered. This led to a paradox: although lonely participants seemed to want to conquer loneliness, in practice they implemented the same scenario over and over again, suppressing negative emotions and avoiding contact.

“Thus, these habitual ways of regulating emotions can maintain a state of loneliness and social isolation,” the scientists note.

“We have concluded that individual differences in emotion regulation may play an important role in explaining loneliness and therefore may represent a promising target for therapy,” they conclude.

You can understand your relationship with your own emotions using psychotherapeutic techniques. In particular, cognitive behavioral therapy is aimed at identifying errors in one's thinking and behavior and changing existing attitudes to more constructive ones.

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