Loneliness: Why It Happens and How to Feel Less Alone

Loneliness is the painful feeling that the connection you have with other people doesn't match the connection you want. It isn't the same as being alone: you can live alone and feel content, or sit in a full house, a busy office or a marriage and still feel lonely. It's common, it isn't a weakness, and there are things that help.

If loneliness has brought thoughts of ending your life, talk to someone now. Safe Place Nigeria is on 0800 800 2000, toll-free and answered 24 hours a day. In immediate danger, call 112, or 767 in Lagos.

What loneliness is

The World Health Organization describes loneliness as the distress that comes from a gap between the social connection you want and the connection you actually have. Two related ideas are worth keeping apart:

• Social isolation is about facts: having few relationships or little contact with people. It can be counted.
• Solitude is time alone that you choose, and it can be restful.

So loneliness is about how connected you feel, not how many people are around you. The UK's NHS describes three kinds:

• Emotional loneliness: missing a close bond, such as a best friend or a partner you can really talk to.
• Social loneliness: having no group of friends to go out with or share interests with.
• Existential loneliness: feeling alone in a room full of people you know, as if nobody really sees you.

Some people feel lonely only at certain times, such as Sundays, festive seasons or after a move. Others feel it nearly all the time, which is called chronic loneliness. Our glossary has a short entry on loneliness.

Signs you might be lonely

Loneliness doesn't always announce itself. You might notice:

• feeling left out
• having people around you but nobody you can tell the real things to
• scrolling for hours to fill the quiet, and feeling worse afterwards
• turning down invitations, then feeling hurt that people don't try harder
• expecting rejection, so you hold back before anyone can turn you away
• sleeping badly

Turning down invitations and expecting rejection often go together. Researchers who study loneliness describe it making people more alert to signs of rejection. It's a protective reaction, but it can backfire: you hang back, seem distant, and the loneliness grows. That's the feeling talking, not proof that people don't want you.

How common it is

Very common. WHO's Commission on Social Connection estimated in 2025 that about 1 in 6 people worldwide feel lonely. It's more common in poorer countries: around 24% in low-income countries against about 11% in high-income ones. Young people report it most: about 1 in 5, with teenagers highest. Men and women report it at similar rates.

Two surveys give a picture of Nigeria, and they asked different questions, so the numbers don't match:

• Gallup and Meta's global survey (2022 to 2023, about 1,000 Nigerians aged 15 and over): about 1 in 4 said they felt very or fairly lonely, and another 1 in 4 a little lonely.
• An eight-country phone survey that included Nigeria (2023 to 2024, about 1,000 adults): 46% said they'd felt alone at some point in the past year.

Big families, busy cities and a strong sense of community don't stop loneliness. In African research, people often describe it as the pain of unmet expectations from family and friends, not as being physically alone.

Why loneliness happens

There's rarely one reason. Loneliness tends to follow changes that pull people away from the relationships that held them, and Nigerian life is full of those:

• Moving. A new city for work, a posting for NYSC, or relocating abroad. Friends and family are suddenly far away, and new friendships take time. Our guides cover loneliness at your PPA and loneliness in Lagos and beyond.
• People leaving you. When children or siblings move away, to a city or abroad, the people left behind can lose their daily company. In interviews with 12 older Nigerians, people linked their loneliness to shrinking families and children moving to the cities. A 2024 national survey found about 1 in 9 urban Nigerians aged 60 and over live alone; living alone isn't the same as being lonely, but it can mean less daily company. Our guide to leaving parents behind when you japa looks at this from both sides.
• Loss. Bereavement, a breakup or divorce. In a study of older adults in Ekiti State, women reported more loneliness than men, but the difference disappeared once widowhood was taken into account. Our guide to losing a spouse covers what comes after.
• Work changes. In studies from Western countries, losing a job is linked to more loneliness, and remote work can mean days without a real conversation; see our guide to remote work loneliness.
• Health and stigma. Long-term illness, disability, caring for someone at home, or a condition people judge you for. In a Lagos study of people being treated for drug-resistant TB, more than half reported loneliness, and those who had faced stigma were lonelier.
• New parenthood. Staying home to look after a new baby can be isolating.
• Anxiety and low mood. Both are linked to loneliness. Social anxiety can make contact feel hard, and in a study of older adults in Ibadan, depression predicted becoming lonely.

Marriage lowers the odds of loneliness, but it doesn't rule it out. Across the eight countries in the phone survey, about 3 in 10 married people said they'd felt alone in the past year.

What loneliness does to your health

Loneliness is a feeling, not a mental illness. But when it lasts, it's linked to real harm. WHO links loneliness to about 871,000 deaths a year worldwide. Large reviews link loneliness, or loneliness and isolation together, to:

• a modestly higher risk of dying early
• heart disease and stroke, each roughly 30% more likely
• dementia, about 30% more likely
• poorer, more broken sleep
• anxiety and depression

The links with early death, heart disease, stroke and dementia come from studies that followed people over time, mostly in high-income countries; the sleep findings come mostly from one-off surveys. These studies show links, not proof of cause, because nobody can be assigned to be lonely in an experiment. You may have read that loneliness is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That line comes from setting the risk linked to weak social ties in general, not loneliness alone, beside smoking risks from separate studies. It's a rough comparison, not a measured equivalence. The point behind it stands: lasting loneliness is a health issue, not just a mood.

Loneliness and depression

Research suggests the link runs both ways. In a US study that followed 229 middle-aged and older adults for five years, loneliness predicted rising symptoms of depression later on. In a long-running study of older adults led from the University of Ibadan, it worked the other way too: depression was one of the strongest predictors of becoming lonely, along with being unmarried and having little social contact. WHO says lonely people are about twice as likely to become depressed.

So if loneliness has dragged on and your mood has dropped with it, treat both. Signs that it may be depression include low mood or a loss of interest most of the day, nearly every day, for two weeks or more. Our depression guide explains what helps.

How to feel less alone

Small, regular steps are easier to keep up than one big change. In trials, working on the thoughts loneliness brings helped more than simply adding social contact, which is why the first step starts there. These steps draw on what research and health bodies recommend:

1. Treat lonely thoughts as guesses, not facts. Loneliness says "they don't want me there". In trials, working on thoughts like these helped more than simply adding social activities. Test the thought with one small step: reply in the group chat, or say yes to the next invitation.
2. Aim for the same people, regularly. A weekly fixture makes contact easier to keep up: a choir, a five-a-side game, a market run with a neighbour, a CDS group, a study group. In the Ibadan study, older adults who were socially engaged at the start were more likely to stop feeling lonely.
3. Join something built around an activity. Doing something together takes the pressure off conversation. Faith communities, alumni and old-school networks, sports and hobby groups all count.
4. Help someone else. WHO and the NHS both suggest volunteering. Being useful to others builds connection without needing to "make friends" as a goal.
5. Reach out first. Send the message you've been waiting to receive. WHO suggests reaching out to a friend who may need it, too.
6. Use your phone to talk, not just to scroll. Research finds the overall link between social media and loneliness is weak, and passive scrolling is the kind of use linked to it. The NHS warns that comparing yourself with other people's highlights can make you feel lonelier. Call or voice-note someone instead, and put the phone away when you're with people.
7. Move your body, ideally with others. In a study of older adults in six countries, including Ghana, those who weren't active enough were more likely to be lonely. In Osun State, being active softened the link between loneliness and depression.
8. Protect your sleep. Loneliness and poor sleep go together, and the link may run both ways.

Be patient. New friendships take time and repeated contact, and that's normal, not a sign you're failing.

Helping someone who's lonely

You may notice it in a parent whose children have moved away, a friend who's gone quiet, or a colleague who eats alone. You don't need the right words:

• Keep inviting, even if they say no a few times.
• Make contact regular. A regular call keeps contact going between visits. Our guide to supporting ageing parents has practical ideas.
• Ask how they're really doing, and listen. If it's a male friend, see how to check on your guy friends.
• If they seem low or hopeless, gently encourage them to talk to a professional, and ask directly if you're worried about suicide; asking doesn't put the idea in their head. If they say yes, help them call Safe Place Nigeria on 0800 800 2000, or 112 (767 in Lagos) if they're in immediate danger.

Getting support

If loneliness has lasted for months, or it's tangled up with anxiety, low mood or grief, talking to a therapist can help. Therapy that works on the thoughts loneliness produces, often cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), has the best evidence, and many of the trials ran it in groups.

On Mytherapist.ng you can talk to a therapist one-to-one by video, voice or chat, or join group therapy: a small online circle that meets with the same few people, led by a licensed therapist. Some people find it easier to start with someone who speaks their language, such as Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa or Pidgin.

If loneliness brings thoughts of suicide

Loneliness is one of several things that can raise the risk of suicidal thoughts. If you've started to feel that people would be better off without you, or that you don't want to be here, please tell someone today. Those feelings can change with support.

In immediate danger, call 112, or 767 in Lagos. To talk to someone at any hour, call Safe Place Nigeria on 0800 800 2000, toll-free and answered 24 hours a day, or Lagos Lifeline on 0700 000 6463 (toll-free, 24 hours, open to anyone in Nigeria). More numbers are on our helplines page.