Image – CC0 Licence
We can feel that we’ve never been more connected to others. But it seems that so many of us have never been so lonely. There’s a lot to be said about the positivity of social media but depression and anxiety are on the rise, as well as a feeling of being isolated. There are so many reasons why we can feel like this. Sometimes it can be a very obvious issue, like having just gone through a break-up, but sometimes we have to dig deep to find the real reasons why. When we feel isolated, it impacts our life in such a negative way that if we continue to embrace this feeling of isolation it will be so much harder to get out of. How can you minimize that feeling of isolation in life, especially as you get older?
Is There An Underlying Health Concern?
As we get older we fall foul of various health problems. When we look at people in old age who are most likely to suffer from feelings of isolation, concerns about their health can be one of the main reasons. Look at your life and if there is a concern with your own health. It doesn’t necessarily have to be anything obvious. For example, you could start to have problems with your hearing way before the typical age. It’s important to make sure that your general health is in peak condition by visiting an audiologist or checking in with a doctor. If you have any concerns about an underlying health condition it can result in you feeling the need to barricade yourself away from the world.
Why Are You Shutting Yourself Away?
There could be a health condition or it could be something to do with your own personal issues. As we get older, we can tend to isolate ourselves because we don’t want to challenge ourselves. We have a comfort zone and we would like to stay in it. If we don’t think we are isolating ourselves it’s usually someone close to us that tries to get up and about. And we can argue until we are blue in the face that we’re not shutting ourselves away. But if someone points this out, and then another person does, it’s worth at least paying lip service to the idea. Try to look at it from another perspective. If you start to look at how much time you spent indoors over the course of a week you may very well come to the conclusion that it’s not healthy. And this is the perfect place to start making positive changes. When we have any sort of mental issue, part of it is about admitting to ourselves that there is something afoot.
Slowly Expanding Your Comfort Zone
We are happy in our bubble. We may be happy feeling sad but as we get older we must remember that we put up a wall between us and the world if we don’t want to deal with something. Our comfort zone is something we don’t necessarily want to step outside of when we’re feeling a sense of isolation. People may be all around you but you still feel that need to preserve yourself. So many of us can feel isolated in a crowd and what we need to do is to figure out a sense of purpose to life, and this can go alongside expanding our comfort zone. Sometimes we need to do something that scares us, but on other occasions, we must remember that if we can slowly expand our abilities to socialize or to do something a little different from the norm, this will start to give us a purpose and improve our confidence. Sometimes it could be about ditching a habit that we realize isn’t good for us. Maybe social media increases your FOMO so you have to detox from social media and get out into the real world. Or it could be about looking at your life from a different perspective and seeing if there are certain external influences that force you to isolate yourself. Perhaps you don’t like your job or you feel unfulfilled in one area. As soon as you start to realize that you’ve built up the wall around yourself you have the power to slowly expand your comfort zone.
As we get older we can begin to feel more isolated either because we don’t have that same emotional connection with others but we have to note that being isolated isn’t good for us. We have the opportunity to connect with so many people now, but if we operate at arm’s-length we may never get a meaning to life.
Speak Your Mind