of “profound loneliness” as he released his national strategy highlighting just how many people experience loneliness as well as potential solutions to alleviate it. Murthy emphasised that loneliness has escalated into a public health emergency, affecting one in two Americans, with health impacts as serious as addiction and obesity, and warned it was as dangerous to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
. Through CBT, psychologists help people learn to identify and effectively manage the factors that fuel their anxiety. Skilled psychologists guide their clients through a process of developing strategies to dial down the impact of anxiety on their lives. For Murray this involved paying more attention to and noting down how he was feeling, sensations in his body, the thoughts popping into his mind and what was happening around him.
For any of us who have experienced panic, and we certainly know this from the psychological research, panic thoughts are unlikely to be “rational” and rarely respond to “logic” or dismissal. Rather, giving them some airtime to understand what the thoughts might mean or how they may be possible flags to beliefs that are unhelpful is usually a better approach. Framing emotions as “data” was more helpful for Murray and enabled him to consider them with a more compassionate lens.
Why might that be? Loneliness can arise from not feeling seen, understood, or validated. It can come from spending time with people who don’t share your values or interests. It can also come from too many superficial interactions and not enough deeper connections.