Tips to Prevent Loneliness Part 2

The first question to answer is what kinds of friends you are looking for? Once you know, you can choose to engage in activities that will give you an opportunity to meet new people who share your interests. For example, are there political, religious, sports, social or other groups that you could re-engage with? Here are some habits that you could develop that could help you make new friends.

Habit #1 – Go Out, Meet New People Once A Month

If you want to build a social life, you need to constantly be meeting new people. Not everyone you meet will be a good fit for you, and not all your friends will be around forever. This is why you need to be supplying yourself with new faces, but not necessarily more than what you’re comfortable with.

You can dial it up or down, but don’t stop it; people won’t come knocking on your door to meet you.

What I recommend is to commit to helping some sort of social community that has the kind of people you want as friends. When you find a good community or group, go to the organizing team and offer to help, and get involved.

Most of them love to have more people involved, even if they don’t need that much help. They just appreciate your presence and will be grateful. You’ll instantly be in a position of a value-giver.

This works very well for two reasons. First, it’ll be more than easy for you to meet new people; many members of that community will come to you and get to know you, as one of the hosts. Second, this commitment will somewhat force you to go out and attend their social events, which means that you won’t need any more motivation to do it. It’s like beating procrastination before it even starts.

Habit #2 – Do Something Social Once A Week

Again, if you have to remember to be social, you probably won’t do it. This is why I suggest that you focus on building new habits, once and for all.

First, let’s make sure you don’t forget to keep in touch with people. What you do here is make a mark in your calendar an hour of time where you usually don’t do anything important. Block that hour, every week, for reaching out to people, calling, sending texts, etc. Something like Wednesday at 7 pm works great.

When you make that decision, you won’t have to remember to call people, you’ll just do it for one hour and enjoy the week without worrying that maybe you’re ignoring people.

During that hour, contact new and old friends, and try and make plans to meet with some of them. If you have one social activity per week, that’s far better than having no clarity and no consistency.

To make this even easier, start introducing people to each other, even if they’re both new friends. This will create a group effect, and they will start to call and make plans as well, you won’t be the only one doing it.

Friendship takes time, effort and advance planning. Think about the type of person that you’d like to meet and you just might increase your chances of meeting them!

Habit Three Ritualizing your social activities, instead of doing them only when you feel the motivation. Ritualization is the evolutionary process whereby a signal behavior is established or improved in such a way that it becomes a more effective or efficient means of communication. Any attribute-behavioral, physiological, developmental, or morphological traits--can be the basis of a communicative signal. 

The key attribute of the trait is that it in some way conveys information, usually about one individual to another. This information then makes the world of the recipient more predictable, less chaotic.  If your world is more predictable, it is easier to navigate and as an introvert, you will feel more comfortable communicating with others, which is a key to making new friends.

Habit Four Start thinking in terms of groups of friends, instead of individual friends.

Remember that most of the time the group isn't purposely trying to mean and exclusive. They just all know each other and it's easier for them to talk among themselves. They may also be a bit lazy and see getting to know someone new at work when they could just hang out with their buddies instead. Some of the group members may be a bit shy too and feel a bit inhibited about engaging someone unfamiliar. 

Below is some advice on handling these situations.

Take the initiative and throw yourself in there

Since it's easy for the group to benignly overlook you it's important to take the initiative to try to get to know everyone. Basically, whatever the group is doing, put yourself in there and attempt to join their conversation. The biggest barriers to doing this are feeling too shy to put yourself in the middle of things and feeling like you don't know what to say to everyone. 

It can help not to think of throwing yourself into things in Either-Or terms, i.e., you feel you have to be ultra-outgoing or there's no point in trying. Even pushing yourself a little bit more than usual may be all that's needed. Or maybe you'll only take a little initiative one day but go further the next. Another thing you can try to do is find a friendly person or two and try talking to them, and not pressure yourself to make the rounds and chat up every last individual. At a larger gathering that may not be realistic anyway.

Don't feel like you're at an audition

I think a lot of people put too much pressure on themselves when they hang out with a new group the first few times because they feel like they have to show their best side and win everyone over. This sometimes backfires. Act the way you normally would around people. Don't try to be more energetic than usual, or joke around more than you typically would. Basically, if the group is going to like you, they're going to like you. If the group is not going to like you, they are not, accept this fact and move on to a group that likes you.

Don't get discouraged if things don't go perfectly the first time

Another important thing to keep in mind is that the first time you meet everyone usually doesn't make or break you. We often have to hang out with a new person a few times before we know how the relationship is going to develop. Hanging out with someone once, and maybe only getting to actually talk to them for ten minutes, isn't long enough to judge.

You don't have to make everyone love you

Getting along with everyone is something to shoot for, but you can probably hang around a group again even if they all don't want to be lifelong friends after meeting you on a handful of occasions. In many social circles, some people like and hang out with each other more than others. 

Give everyone a chance even if your first impression of them isn't perfect

When you first meet a new group of people you're not going to like everyone instantly. One person might come off as a bit aloof, another may seem too boring, another you don't have much in common with, and so on. Ignore those first impressions and make an effort to be friendly with them all anyway. 

Groups are often quite obvious about what you need to do be accepted

If you pay attention you can often pick up obvious signs of what you need to do for the group to take you in. Signs could be as blatant as someone inviting to join them on a certain activity or mentioning the group often hangs out at a particular place on Friday nights.

Get into a larger group one sub-group at a time

Larger groups naturally take some time to find your place in, and it can be discouraging if you don't realize this. 

Tips to Prevent Loneliness

According to Statistics Canada, as many as 1.4 million elderly Canadians report feeling lonely. And the city, Vancouver, I live in as a reputation for being less than friendly if you believe the media stories. So is loneliness a problem for seniors in Vancouver. I think it is, based on conversations at the many workshops I have given on social connectedness.

The discrepancy between an individual’s loneliness and the number of connections in a social network is well documented, yet little is known about the placement of loneliness within, or the spread of loneliness through, social networks. Results of a number of studies indicated the spread of loneliness was found to be stronger than the spread of perceived social connections, stronger for friends than family members, and stronger for women than for men.

The results advance our understanding of the broad social forces that drive loneliness and suggest that efforts to reduce loneliness in our society may benefit by aggressively targeting the people in the periphery to help repair their social networks and to create a protective barrier against loneliness that can keep the whole network from unraveling. 

There was a study that involved more than 5,000 individuals who were asked to complete a loneliness questionnaire, give a medical history and receive a physical examination every two year to four years over a ten-year period. Participants also indicated who their friends and relatives were, and many of these individuals also took part in the study. By looking at the social networks of the participants and the number of lonely days they experienced each year, researchers were able to see how loneliness spread throughout the groups. The study found that:

·       People feel lonely for approximately 48 days out of each year, on average.

·       People are about 50-percent more likely to experience loneliness if someone they are directly connected to feels lonely.

·       Women report experiencing more loneliness

·       Loneliness is more likely to spread in women's social networks than in men's.

·       Loneliness is more likely to spread in networks of friends, rather than those of family.

Loneliness can be overcome. It does require a conscious effort on your part to make a change. Making a change, in the long run, can make you happier, healthier, and enable you to impact others around you in a positive way.

Here are some ways to prevent loneliness:

·       Recognize that loneliness is a sign that something needs to change.

·       Understand the effects that loneliness has on your life, both physically and mentally.

·       Consider doing community service or another activity that you enjoy. These situations present great opportunities to meet people and cultivate new friendships and social interactions.

·       Focus on developing quality relationships with people who share similar attitudes, interests, and values with you.

·       Expect the best. Lonely people often expect rejection, so instead focus on positive thoughts and attitudes in your social relationships.

Having just three or four close friends is enough to ward off loneliness and reduce the negative health consequences associated with this state of mind.

The problem is that as we age we lose friends for many reasons, and many of us find it hard to make new friends. So tomorrow I will post a few tips on how to make new friends.

American Culture as see by Normal Rockwell

Norman Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was a 20th-century American author, painter, and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades. Here is another artists rendition of what Normal Rockwell would paint today that reflects American Culture

Are You at Risk for High Blood Pressure?

Do you know what the risks are for high blood pressure? How do you know if you are at risk? There are many different causes of high blood pressure. As I said a few days ago that I have high blood pressure and have had for a number of years. Once I retired my high blood pressure became borderline high but I still have to use medication to control my blood pressure. I always thought I was in good shape and wondered why I had high blood pressure. High blood pressure is known as the silent killer. It is a disease that many who have it are unaware that they have it. Here are some things that you should look out for to see if you are at risk for high blood pressure.

Your blood pressure is high if it is over 120/80, which is the normal level of blood pressure. There are many everyday lifestyle habits that raise your pressure that you might not be aware of. One of those is being overweight. If you are overweight you are at a greater risk of developing high blood pressure.

Try to start a healthy diet or start exercising. Even losing a measly ten pounds can help you drastically and keep your blood pressure normal. Physical inactivity is also another lifestyle habit that causes many Americans to develop high blood pressure.

If you are not very physically active, consider starting to be. You can easily adapt the exercise to your everyday routine; you just have to plan it out. Try to do at least thirty minutes of exercise a day. This will help lower or control your blood pressure.

Many people are not concerned with what they eat, yet they want to be healthy. These two do not go together. If you want to stay healthy, you have to watch what you eat. Having unhealthy eating habits can cause high blood pressure as well. Try to eat less salt or sodium and more vegetables and fruits.

Using tobacco products is a great risk for developing high blood pressure. Smoking is a very common habit in the world and many of these people might have high blood pressure and not even know it. There are many ways to help rid the habit of nicotine or use of any tobacco product. 

Everyone is stressed at some point during their lives. You might be stressed every day or just once in awhile. Whatever the case may be, you can still develop high blood pressure through stress. If you find yourself stressed more often than not, consider some relaxation techniques. Meditation is a great way to start. If this doesn't work, consider something different.

Drinking alcohol also causes high blood pressure. Do you drink quite a bit? More than two drinks for a man and more than one for a woman can raise their blood pressure. If you drink more than this, consider cutting back. Once again, if you are addicted to drinking, or smoking, you can find many ways to help you quit.

These are very common lifestyle habits that cause high blood pressure. If you are at risk for high blood pressure or already have it, consider purchasing a home blood pressure monitoring device. This can help ensure that whatever habits you are changing or modifying are working.

Sometimes this change is not enough. You might have to use medication or incorporate medication into your exercise routine, etc. The best way to know this is to visit your doctor. Ask any and all questions you might be concerned about. They will happy to assist you in helping you have a healthier and active lifestyle.