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Did you know the United Kingdom has a Minister of Loneliness? Why? Because its government recognized that loneliness is a serious health challenge that has been linked to a number of problems such as heart disease, sleep problems, anxiety, and more.  
Everyone feels lonely from time to time, but right now, your efforts to stay at home to thwart the pandemic might lead to new or increased feelings of loneliness. Today, I’m going to explain how mindfulness helps you manage loneliness and I’ll give you two practices that can help. 
Research shows that people who practice mindfulness meditation score lower on tests of loneliness. To be clear, this effect occurs when people practice meditation all by themselves, so it’s not that they’re less lonely because they’re sitting with others. So, how can mindfulness reduce loneliness?  
With mindfulness practice, you learn to take full responsibility for your emotions. You come to realize that happiness, joy, and contentment aren’t external to you. They are not dependent on what you have, where you are, or who you are with. These emotional states are generated from within and are always at your disposal. You can learn to find and focus on joyful things, so you can balance feelings of loneliness with feelings that are more pleasant and satisfying. I’ve got a few episodes dedicated to happiness practices.  
Episodes about Happiness Practices  

* Meditate on Positive Emotions to Boost Happiness
* Cultivate the Positive: Happiness is Countercultural
* Cultivate the Positive: Joy is More Stable than Happiness
* Cultivate the Positive: Contentment is Highly Underrated 

Now, of course, I’m not promising that mindfulness practice can keep you happy all the time. Upsetting and unpleasant emotions are a part of life, but mindfulness teaches you that all emotions come and go. The only way an emotion persists long term is if you feed it with thoughts that keep generating the same feelings over and over again. Let go of those thoughts and the emotion fades all by itself.  
All you have to do to learn this lesson is sit with your emotions. Next time you feel angry, or happy, sad, whatever, just sit down and pay attention to the feeling without getting caught up in thinking about it. Just notice how the emotion feels physically in your body, and you’ll see that eventually, it dissipates all by itself. You don’t have to do anything! When you learn this - and the best way to learn it is through direct experience - you become more at ease with your own emotional states. When you do feel lonely, for example, you’re not distressed by the feeling, because you know it won’t last.  
Mindfulness also helps because it keeps you grounded in the present moment. You’re not looking ahead. You’re not searching for something more. You’re just right here, right now, and you can be completely fulfilled with what your experience in this moment. 
Of course, these benefits come with practice, and until you have that practice under your belt, you may need some short term strategies to get past loneliness. Oh, who am I kidding, even seasoned practitioners need a little help now and again.  
Here are two lovely mindfulness practices you can use when you’re feeling lonely: