Conquering Loneliness: Tips for Staying Connected While Working from Home

Welcome back to our LCVA blog!

Our blogs are now back monthly, bringing you the latest tips, advice, and updates from us!

June’s blog is going to focus on Loneliness Awareness Week, which falls on the 10th – 16th of this month.

We know that working from home can sometimes feel isolating – each of here at LCVA have had our own worries about staying connected with the world whilst working at our desks at home. But feelings of loneliness are something everyone can relate to, especially since the Covid 19 pandemic.

In this blog, we’re going to focus on loneliness due to working from home. Let’s start by exploring what loneliness means in this context!

This type of loneliness refers to the feeling of isolation and disconnection that arises due to the lack of in-person social interactions and physical presence of colleagues.

Some of the common causes of loneliness when working from home can be the absence of spontaneous office conversations, reduced opportunities for collaboration, and the overall separation from the social environment provided by a traditional workplace.

This feeling of missing out on social and office culture can lead to a sense of being emotionally and socially detached, despite being digitally connected.

There are both physical and mental effects that can occur as a result of this feeling – so let’s take a look at these effects and how they manifest.

In terms of physical effects, studies have found loneliness to be linked to higher blood pressure, heart disease, and an increased risk of stroke. Social isolation can also lead to a weakened immune response, making individuals more susceptible to infections and illnesses. Incredibly, feelings of loneliness can also manifest physically through headaches, gastrointestinal issues, and muscle tension.

As if the physical effects weren’t enough, there are also huge mental effects to loneliness. Depression and anxiety have been closely linked to loneliness, along with feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and insomnia. A lack of social interaction can also lead to increased stress levels, as individuals may feel overwhelmed without a support network. Low self-esteem can affect individuals in a similar way, negatively impacting their self-worth and confidence.

Understanding these effects highlights the importance of addressing loneliness, especially for those working from home, to maintain their physical health and well-being.

Now, let’s take a look at how we can prevent or overcome some of these challenging effects – and how we can stay connected with people whilst working from home!

Make sure to maintain a healthy lifestyle! We know that we give this advice a lot in our blogs and on social media, but it really makes a difference – exercising regularly, eating a balanced diet, and having a regular sleep schedule will have you feeling better in no time!

Another way to combat loneliness is to create a structured routine. This could be as simple as taking breaks, but it is important to establish clear boundaries between work and personal time to prevent burn out, and to make sure that you have time to spend with friends and family every day! A great way to help with this is to create a dedicated workspace that is separate from your living areas, in order to distinguish work time from personal time.

Make sure to stay connected! Schedule regular activities and meet-ups with family and friends, so you don’t feel disconnected from the outside world! You could even attend coffee mornings, church services, or local fairs, to foster a sense of community. Also, don’t forget to spend time on any hobbies or interests you may have – this is great way to get out and meet new people, whilst also doing something you love!

By incorporating these strategies into your daily life, you can mitigate the effects of loneliness, maintain your well-being, and create a more fulfilling work-from-home experience!

Now that you have a few tips on how to combat feelings of loneliness, we’d like to share how we as a team have worked on overcoming this together!

Here at LCVA, we make a huge effort to ensure that the team is happy in themselves and in their work.

We make sure to schedule weekly check-ups with each other, so we don’t end up spending all week just typing away on our own! In these check-ups, we catch up on any work-related business, but we also chat about day-to-day life, and share any fun news or even challenges that have happened to us during the week!

They are great for staying connected with each other, especially as we don’t have an in-person workspace where we see each other every day. We also have a group chat that we message on every day if we need help or clarification with anything.

We also make the effort to meet up in person whenever we can – whether this is for lunch or a volunteering day to help one of our clients – and this is great for team bonding and moral!

So there you have it! We hope that this blog has helped you learn a bit more about loneliness, it’s causes and effects, and some practical and mental strategies to combat loneliness.

Just know that you are not alone, we are here for you!

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