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How to stop feeling lonely (forever)

2024-09-17 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 19:23 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Relationships and personal life (also: Goals, purpose and life design) · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Evidence-based framing, Lesson from a book, Sponsor segment present

Having just turned 30, Ali explains why people feel lonely (time online, working from home, moving away, the loneliness loop) and how badly loneliness affects health, then gives five rules against it: improve your social skills, go first, create recurring rituals, monitor and accept your feelings, and set service goals that help others.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Loneliness quiz from the UCLA Loneliness Scale, a definition, a 28-country survey and why he cares at 30

  • ★★ Ali says the UCLA Loneliness Scale is the most commonly used questionnaire in loneliness research and normally has 20 questions. — 00:00:26
  • ★★ Two researchers in 1981 defined loneliness as the unpleasant experience that occurs when a person's network of social relations is deficient in some important way. — 00:00:26
  • ★★ In a survey across 28 countries, 33% of people on average feel lonely often, always or some of the time: 50% in Brazil, 46% in Turkey, 43% in India, and the least in the Netherlands (15%), Japan (16%) and Poland (23%). — 00:00:56 · Japan
  • ★★ Ali is interested in loneliness because he has just turned 30, and he is on a mission to find what he can do to lower his chances of significant loneliness as he gets older. — 00:01:25
  • ★★ Ali says data he has seen shows that men in particular, as they get older, tend to experience more loneliness than any other group. — 00:01:25

00:02:14 — Why people feel lonely: time online, working from home, moving abroad, the loneliness loop

  • ★★ Ali explains the displacement hypothesis: people are broadly reducing the time they spend with others in real life and replacing it with time spent online. — 00:02:14
  • ★★ Ali thinks nothing beats in-person connection, and that people are replacing it with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. — 00:02:14 · TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter
  • ★★ Ali says people increasingly work from home, and working from home is bad for your social connections. — 00:02:14
  • ★★ Further causes of loneliness Ali names: more people moving abroad, which fragments social connections; ageing populations in which older people cannot get out to see friends; and far fewer public hangouts. — 00:02:44
  • ★★ Ali says he is thinking of leaving the UK and his friends and family behind, because he has the freedom to do what he wants. — 00:02:44 · United Kingdom
  • ★★ Ali describes the loneliness loop: feeling lonely reduces the motivation to connect with others, which lowers psychological safety and creates a negativity bias towards negative social cues such as rejection. — 00:03:13
  • ★★ Ali cites studies showing that loneliness is contagious: spending time with people who feel lonely makes you more likely to feel lonely too. — 00:03:51

00:04:20 — WeWork sponsor read

00:05:48 — Loneliness versus solitude, the widowhood effect, health effects and the vinegar study

  • ★★ Ali separates loneliness from solitude: being able to enjoy time on your own is broadly a good thing, without the negative feeling of lacking social connection. — 00:05:48
  • ★★ A paper Ali reads on the widowhood effect says longitudinal studies put the excess mortality of widowhood among the elderly at 30% to 90% in the first three months and around 15% thereafter. — 00:06:17
  • ★★ Ali says loneliness increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, weakens the immune system, makes people more stressed and reduces sleep quality. — 00:06:46
  • ★★ Ali says loneliness also harms mental health, increasing the risk of depression, anxiety and even dementia. — 00:07:15 · Mental health
  • ★★ In a study Ali describes, students told they would end up alone later in life showed drastically lower self-regulation when asked to drink vinegar than those told of many friends or of accidents ahead. — 00:07:15
  • ★★★ Ali's most important message from the research is that the effects of loneliness are a lot worse than you might think. — 00:08:43
  • ★★ Ali cites data from thousands of people showing that those with strong relationships are up to 50% more likely to survive. — 00:08:43

00:09:22 — The wheel of life exercise

  • ★★ Ali recommends the wheel of life: split life into work, health and relationships (romance, family, friends) and rate how satisfied or aligned you feel in each from 0 to 10 to see where to put in more work. — 00:09:22

00:10:04 — Rule one: the social skills rule

  • ★★ In a small study Ali cites, of around 40 nurses split into two groups, those trained in social skills reported significantly lower feelings of loneliness. — 00:10:04
  • ★★★ Ali's first rule against loneliness, the social skills rule: social skills are skills, and like all skills they can be improved. — 00:10:34
  • ★★ Ali has read dozens of books on social skills, first on dating as a teenager scared to talk to girls, then on charisma and confidence, such as Charisma on Command, The Charisma Myth and How to Win Friends and Influence People; he thinks they are a big part of why he is pretty good at public speaking. — 00:10:34
  • ★★ If you feel lonely, Ali asks how far you have actively tried to improve your social skills, which is easy: search YouTube or Amazon for books on how to improve them. — 00:11:09 · YouTube, Amazon

00:11:29 — Rule two: the go first rule

  • ★★★ Ali's second rule, the go first rule, has made an enormous impact on his life: assume everyone is friendly in a new place, at an event or in class, but be the one to say hello first. — 00:11:29 · go first

00:12:09 — Rule three: the rule of rituals, from basketball to Sunday brunch

  • ★★ In a study Ali cites, students who played basketball three times a week for three months showed a significant drop in loneliness, while the control group stayed flat. — 00:12:09
  • ★★★ Ali's third rule, the rule of rituals: repeated rituals are one of the most reliable ways to increase social contact and reduce feelings of loneliness. — 00:12:09
  • ★★ At university Ali's recurring rituals, with calendar invites, included Game of Thrones nights at his house, a badminton club and Tuesday-evening study sessions with friends in the Emmanuel College library in exam term. — 00:12:39 · Game of Thrones, Emmanuel College
  • ★★★ Ali plans to move to a different country, not yet sure which, and there means to make friends by starting recurring rituals, such as booking a five-a-side football pitch once a week and hosting a Sunday brunch. — 00:13:08
  • ★★★ Ali says you need not wait to be invited: create the event and invite people, because everyone wants to hang out but no one wants to do the organising, and if you do it you will never run out of friends. — 00:13:37

00:14:16 — Rule four: the mindfulness rule, monitor and accept

  • ★★ In a study Ali cites, adults who took a short monitor-and-accept mindfulness course on their phones showed a 22% decrease in loneliness, while monitor-only and general courses brought no change. — 00:14:16
  • ★★★ Ali's fourth rule, the mindfulness rule: when he feels lonely, he monitors what the negative feelings are and accepts them without judging or beating himself up for them. — 00:15:15

00:15:53 — Rule five: selfless help over self-help, service goals and the takeaway

  • ★★ Ali cites a study of toddlers under two who were happy to be given goldfish crackers but even happier to give them away to a toy monkey. — 00:16:35
  • ★★★ Ali says helping other people brings us joy, especially when we can see the effect it has. — 00:16:35
  • ★★★ Ali's fifth rule, selfless help over self-help: adopt a mindset of giving rather than taking by setting more service goals, an idea he took from Simon Sinek's conversation with Steven Bartlett on The Diary of a CEO. — 00:16:35
  • ★★ Simon Sinek (quoted): Simon Sinek says champions often suffer depression after winning: Michael Phelps became the most medalled Olympian and Andre Agassi the most storied tennis player, and both immediately became depressed. — 00:17:05
  • ★★ Simon Sinek (quoted): Simon Sinek says such athletes set themselves from a young age a selfish goal, to be the best at something, and judge every relationship by whether it helps them reach it. — 00:17:30
  • ★★ Ali defines selfish goals as goals you set for yourself and service goals as goals you want to achieve to help other people. — 00:18:04
  • ★★ Ali says volunteering, a service goal, has been shown to reduce loneliness in older people. — 00:18:04
  • ★★ Another service goal Ali suggests is simply calling a friend you know is going through tough times, just to sit, listen and hold space for them. — 00:18:04
  • ★★★ Ali's main takeaway is that loneliness is bad but can be fought by taking ownership and initiative: meeting our need for social connection is our own job, not other people's, and organising events and reaching out proactively should keep us from social isolation as we get older. — 00:18:04

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Mentioned

Central: go first · loneliness · mindfulness · rituals of connection · service goals

Also: People: Andre Agassi · Michael Phelps · Simon Sinek · Steven Bartlett

Works: Game of Thrones · How to Win Friends and Influence People · The Charisma Myth · The Diary of a CEO

Organizations: Amazon · Charisma on Command · Emmanuel College · Instagram · TikTok · Twitter · WeWork · YouTube

Concepts: cardiovascular disease · Dementia · depression · displacement hypothesis · Mental health · negativity bias · wheel of life · widowhood effect

Places: Brazil · India · Japan · Netherlands · Poland · Turkey · United Kingdom

Also centred on mindfulness: 7 Science-Backed Ways to Reduce Stress · How To Slow Down Time - The Holiday Paradox

Also centred on rituals of connection: 7 Daily Habits that Improved My Relationship

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