How To Handle Loneliness As You Get Older

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Loneliness isn't just being on your own or being in an empty room. Loneliness could be when your head is buzzing and you have got stuff going on and you can't get it out of your head and when your body won't cooperate with you and do the things that you used to be able to do. It could be a shift in your family or your friend dynamic that finds you falling out or moving away from people. It could be that the world is moving on far too fast for you and you feel as though you're scrabbling about just trying to keep your head above water. I've been going over the comments in recent videos and a few things have stuck out to me that seem to be fairly common with a lot of people. And so what I want to do in this video is kind of talk about them and give you some of my thoughts and some of my ideas on ways that you can perhaps alleviate a situation just a little bit. But before I get into that, I want to preface it with this.

[00:01:04]I am not a medical professional.

[00:01:08]I am not a psychologist. I don't understand everything medically. What I am is someone just like you. I'm just an average person who's lived a bit of a life and has suffered a few of the problems and find ways that have helped me to overcome them. So let me talk firstly about a cause that's close to my heart at the moment. Health limitations as a barrier to stopping you doing what you want to do. It can make you feel very alone. If you're going through a sudden house crisis or if you've got a long-term medical challenge going on, then it can shake your world. For me, I've had 18 months of this now where I feel tired pretty much all of the time and I can't do the things that I used to be because I'm physically not strong enough. It's not that I'm in pain because I'm not. I'm just tired. What I'm doing is finding the best ways to overcome it that I can. That means I'm doing this video early in the morning before many people are about because as the day goes on, I'll get more tired. It may be that you're struggling because you do for other people all the time and now you're not able to. That can make you depressed. It can make you feel down. It can make you feel inadequate.

[00:02:32]I understand this. Or you could be the partner of someone like my wife Debs who is carrying on. She's still going out to work, but she's on top of that. She's trying to make sure that I'm getting sorted, which leaves her with an extra worry that she wouldn't have if I was up and well. So, how can you handle it?

[00:02:53]Well, for me, one thing that I've talked about, I've answered it in a few of the comments, is something about focusing on the little things that make your life worth living. Little things that just give you a smile, something that can just hold you up when you're feeling low. It could be that, like me, you love that first cup of tea in the morning. It could be that you're awake early and you see a sunrise. It could be that we need to take the pleasures as we find them.

[00:03:24]If you're out or the sun's shining, note it down. I keep a list. I've been doing it for about 5 years now. I keep a list of all the things that have made me grateful for that day. It could be I've had a phone call from a relative or a friend to see how I am. It doesn't need to be something massive because the trouble is in this life for everybody.

[00:03:45]You don't have to be ill for this one.

[00:03:48]the big things don't come around too often. So, if you're not feeling well and you're struggling and you're tired, then don't taking a note of those little things that just pick you up can help.

[00:04:01]Especially if you write them down because on the days when things are really bad, you can come and look at them and remind yourself that there are those little moments in time that just makes makes life worth living. I did see in the comments that some people were saying about accepting that your situation is what it is can free you.

[00:04:22]And I understand this because I struggle with that one myself. And I find that not being able to accept it is one of my problems because I want to be out doing things. I want to be doing the things that I want to do. One of the other things you can do to help yourself in this situation is to free yourself from feeling that you have to be doing stuff for others. That will stop you from feeling guilty. You can handle the isolation of your health setback by just changing your thoughts and reframing how you think about it and thinking of them as moments that you can do something for you. Even if that thing that you need to do for you is actually sit or lay down and rest. The second thing that I'm seeing is that people are saying there's a shift in dynamics of family and friends. And what I mean by that is that sometimes your family and your friends can treat you as though you're a one-way street where they'll put on you, where they'll want you to do more for them, where they'll expect you to do more for them. And sometimes you feel lonely because the boot goes on the other foot.

[00:05:32]And when you're wanting your friends and your family to support you like you have in their time of need and you find that that connection isn't reciprocal, that does make you feel lonely. I think one of the things that you can do to help yourself in this situation is one of the things that I have learned as I've got older anyway. It's the power of saying no when you don't want to do something.

[00:05:59]And the reason I say that is because sometimes, you know, saying no makes you feel better because you are not then available at the whim or the beck and call of somebody else. It frees you up.

[00:06:13]Now, I'm not saying to say no to everybody.

[00:06:16]What I'm saying is that you can say no at the times you don't want to. If you've got friends who are there for you all the time and always back you up, then you don't say no because that would be the wrong thing to do. Obviously, what it's about, I suppose, is having quality over quantity, having just a few close friends as opposed to having a big social group. Because what I found is you can find peace and contentment in your own company rather than being surrounded by what my mom used to call fair weather friends. Those are only there when they want to be. And then thirdly, there are a group of people, and I kind of think I'm in there too, who feel out of step with the fastm moving world that we've got, the new social norms that are so different to the ones that we grew up with having. I've touched on this before when I talk about streaming and when I talk about physical media because there are people, you know, who still laugh at me because I've got my records, my books, and my films and all that sort of thing and they look at me and they laugh because I'm not on Netflix or Spotify.

[00:07:29]What it is, I think, is that sometimes people look at you as a lesser person because you haven't got on board with what everyone else is up to. Well, I have a different way of looking at that.

[00:07:41]I lean in to my physical media and stuff. I lean into the things that I love. I talked about it recently about curating my collection, buying things that I absolutely love, not buying the things that I don't. And I make no apologies for it whatsoever. I don't care if people don't want the clutter around them cuz they don't have to. It's mine. It stays with me. I like having these things around me. People who know me know what I'm like because of those things. They can look at them things and they know who I am. It gives me a sense of well-being. It gives me a sense of ownership of who I am. It helps me to maintain my identity. That's just my thinking about it. It may be yours. It may not. But those three things that I've talked about, your health, the shift in dynamics of your family as as things have changed, and the way that you feel out of step with a fast moving digital world, if you like. Those are the three main reasons that I've seen from your comments in different videos that have been the reasons why you're feeling alone in this world. I'm hoping that during this little channel, I've come up with a few little ideas that may help you maintain your equilibrium, if you like, to help yourself not feel so lonely because you're not the same and with everybody else. You don't need to be. Sometimes it's better, you know, to have less people around you, be more comfortable in yourself than it is to keep putting yourself out to try and be part of somebody else's world. Yes, I understand loneliness. I do. But I think there are ways we can cope and I think there are ways we can help ourselves.

[00:09:32]I'm not saying it's easy. Not saying that at all. But I'm saying that it's achievable.

[00:09:39]And over here is a playlist of videos that I've done that I hope will raise your spirits and keep you optimistic about the road ahead.

[00:09:52]I'll see you in the next video.