{"id":182152,"date":"2024-02-06T16:29:19","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T22:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/researchers-asked-older-adults-about-the-strategies-they-use-for-combatting-loneliness-heres-what-they-said"},"modified":"2024-02-06T16:29:19","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T22:29:19","slug":"researchers-asked-older-adults-about-the-strategies-they-use-for-combatting-loneliness-heres-what-they-said","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/researchers-asked-older-adults-about-the-strategies-they-use-for-combatting-loneliness-heres-what-they-said","title":{"rendered":"Researchers asked older adults about the strategies they use for combatting loneliness. Here\u2019s what they said"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/researchers-asked-older-adults-about-the-strategies-they-use-for-combatting-loneliness-heres-what-they-said2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ageing, as you might expect, had a big impact on participants\u2019 feelings of loneliness. The deaths of partners and loved ones was particularly difficult, while participants also commented on how loss of mobility restricted their social activities. Social skills were also identified as a risk factor: one participant noted that those without strong social skills may be more likely to suffer.<\/p>\n<p>Emotionally, loneliness was (unsurprisingly) connected to feelings of emptiness, sadness and lack of meaning. One participant described herself as feeling \u201clost\u2026 and not having control, and sometimes it can lead you to not be able to make decisions and then it just gets worse\u201d, whilst another described loneliness as \u201cthe feeling of nothing\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But many participants also commented on strategies they used to protect against loneliness. Though ageing was a risk factor, <em>acceptance<\/em> of ageing had more positive outcomes. As one participant put it: \u201cI used to mountain climb\u2026 If I can\u2019t walk anymore, I\u2019ll crawl. You have to learn how to be realistic and not brood about it. I know I\u2019m getting older, but I consider life a transition.\u201d Compassion was also useful: being proactive about helping others, for example, helped some participants prevent being lonely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ageing, as you might expect, had a big impact on participants\u2019 feelings of loneliness. The deaths of partners and loved ones was particularly difficult, while participants also commented on how loss of mobility restricted their social activities. Social skills were also identified as a risk factor: one participant noted that those without strong social skills [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-extension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}