You don’t have to be alone to feel lonely

We can feel lonely even with people all around us. This is also the case in the student community, where cafés, reading rooms, and common areas are often crowded with fellow students.

We can feel lonely even with people all around us. This is also the case in the student community, where cafés, reading rooms, and common areas are often crowded with fellow students.

One might recognize people, and perhaps we greet them from time to time. One may have many friends on Facebook, but there are few of them we dine with. The personal contact is missing. We are lonely, even though we are not alone. Surveys answered by students report that loneliness is one of the greatest mental health issues among students.

Advice against loneliness

Sometimes, the feeling of loneliness is because we aren’t used to being alone. Maybe we just have to become better at being alone, comforting ourselves, and making life cozy for ourselves. You can be alone without being lonely. If we practice handling being alone, we can discover new sides to ourselves, and this again can help our relationship with other people to become more natural and relaxed.

Others can feel alone because they lack experience in sharing personal sides of themselves with others. One might need practice on opening up? Showing different sides of oneself is also important to feel close to others, which again reduces the feeling of loneliness. Know that a lot of people experience this as difficult, so daring to reach out to others is not necessarily beneficial for yourself, but also for a fellow student.

By reaching out to a student union or other activities you enjoy, you have great odds of meeting someone in the same situation as yourself.

Being physically active with others is like a Kinder egg: You strengthen 1: your mind and body, 2: your mental health, and 3: the community. See our course calendar for activities. If you like working out alone, strengthening your mental health will help you follow our advice better, so you will be less lonely.

Ask for and receive help when it’s needed

There are a lot of things you can do to take good care of yourself, but if you feel like there is too much adversity, know that there is help available. Some students are facing harder troubles in life than what we have described above. However, we hope that most students find something useful here. But what if you feel like you need something more?

The aim for your time as a student is as previously stated "to be independent", but that doesn’t mean you have to do everything all by yourself. Being independent also means cooperating with others, and daring to ask for help. Here we have put together a list of other help offers. There are a lot of people who can help you, and SiS's healthcare department wants to be there for you as a student.

We are here for you if you need it, and we wish you the best of luck with your studies.