Loneliness Awareness Week 2023

This week (12-18 June) is Loneliness Awareness Week, and this year's theme is "Connection Matters".

Created by the Marmalade Trust, the UK's leading loneliness charity, the annual campaign raises awareness of loneliness across the UK and beyond, and gets people talking about it.

Loneliness Awareness Week is about creating supportive communities by having conversations with family, friends or colleagues about loneliness.

Loneliness

Loneliness is a natural human emotion as we are hardwired to need social connections. It can affect all ages and by talking about it, we can support ourselves and others.

Stigma and stereotypes still remain around loneliness, and most will often imagine an older person living alone, but by identifying and acknowledging when we have personally experienced loneliness, we can start to change our viewpoint, accept it and understand how to take action to manage the feeling in the future.

Chronic long-term loneliness can have a negative impact on our health, including:

• unhealthy lifestyle habits like:
  • poor diet,
  • lack of regular exercise,
  • excessive alcohol, cigarette or drug intake;
• cognitive decline which can affect memory loss and develop into neurological disorders like dementia or Alzheimer's;
• compromising our immune system, leaving us less able to fight off illness and disease.

Connection matters

Whether it is your regular barista, friendly dog on your walk, or the shopkeeper down the road, everyday moments of connection matter, as they allow us to make connections, feel happier and less lonely.

One in five workers feel lonely at work on a typical working day, and as our working life has become more flexible and hybrid, even though this has allowed for more face time with friends, families and housemates outside of work, it can have an impact on connections at work.

Mental Health UK teamed up with YouGov in April 2022 to ask 2,023 people (1,105 of which were workers) about their experiences of loneliness in the workplace, and how it could affect their mental health.

They found that almost a quarter of workers (23%) agreed that feeling lonely at work has affected their mental health. When asked about factors that could prevent them from talking about loneliness at work:

• 53% agreed that "lack of own time or capacity within work hours to discuss this with others"; and
• 50% agreed that "a culture at work which does not actively encourage people to talk about mental health" and "feeling that my line manager or senior leader does not have time to meet with, or won't be able to support me";

were key reasons that would prevent them from opening up about the topic at work.

How to get involved

Five key themes to tackle loneliness at work includes:

• culture and infrastructure - identify what really matters to employees and align corporate values and embed loneliness into other wellbeing and welfare activities;
• management - provide guidance and support to help managers to identify and help the people working for them who are experiencing loneliness, and provide training that managers might need;
• people and networks - use networks to tackle loneliness including whilst working remotely;
• work and workplace design - tackle a dispersed workforce, and the tools and systems which can promote visibility and connections;
• wider role in the community - how to tackle loneliness beyond your immediate workforce.

Ways you can get involved in Loneliness Awareness Week 2023 include:

• add your activity or find something near you on the Connection Map;
• host your own event or activity in your community or workplace;
• fundraise and spread the word;
• learn more about loneliness so you can help yourself and others to manage that feeling.

Mental Health UK have a conversation guide on how to talk to someone about their mental health, and a wellbeing plan that employers can use when discussing mental health with their employees.

For more information on this subject, see:

• Employers and loneliness;
• Reasonable adjustments for mental health;
• First-aid needs assessment - are you an Employer?;
• Mental health conditions, work and the workplace;
• Managing home workers' health and safety;
• Supporting mental health at work;
• Mental Wellbeing - A General Guide for Employers.