Coping With Loneliness - Facilitator Reproducible Guided Self-Exploration Activities

Human beings are social by nature and need human interaction and connectedness. When people experience adequate levels of human interaction and connectedness, they feel a sense of satisfaction. On the other hand, when people are experiencing inadequate levels of interaction and connectedness, they feel lonely — something's missing.

In our society filled with people who communicate primarily with a wide variety of technology, face-to-face social interaction has become less common,
feelings of connectedness are rare, and people are lonelier than ever before. Technology can provide a false sense of being connected twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This feeling of virtual connection, however, may be deceiving, and people benefit with social face-to-face connections with other people.

Negative feelings of loneliness can lead to a variety of other health-related concerns and stress-related conditions including heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. In addition, is often related to addiction, various forms of anti-social behavior, disrupted sleep patterns and various mental-health conditions. People experiencing long-term (chronic) form of loneliness are more susceptible to experiencing these wider effects of loneliness. If your participants are experiencing any of these effects, suggest they see a medical professional.

In order to deal successfully with all of the types of loneliness, people must find creative ways of coping. The Coping with Loneliness Workbook
provides assessments and self-guided activities to help participants learn useful skills for coping creatively with the various types of loneliness. Many choices of self-exploration activities are provided for participants to determine which best suit their unique needs.

The four chapters include:

•Level of Loneliness

•Personal Characteristics

•Coping with Loneliness

• Alone Time