Project UnLonely: Navigate Loneliness and Reconnect with Others

Even before 2020, chronic loneliness was a private experience of profound anguish that had become a public health crisis. Since then it has reached new heights. While we can't cure loneliness the way we can cure strep throat or even cancer, there are concrete, actionable and effective things we can do to manage it and keep it from becoming chronic. For an individual lonely reader, or for anyone who loves, serves, treats, or employs people vulnerable to loneliness in community, work or educational settings, this book will clarify how meaningful reconnection between the self and others begins, and how it can be nourished and sustained. Loneliness assumes many forms, from enduring physical isolation to feeling rejected because of difference, and it can have devastating consequences for our physical and mental health. As the founder of Project UnLonely, Dr. Jeremy Nobel unpacks our personal and national experiences of loneliness to discover its roots and to show how we can take steps to find comfort and connection. Dr. Nobel brings together many voices, from pioneering researchers, to leaders in business, education, the arts, and healthcare, to lonely people of every age, background, and circumstance. He discovers that the pandemic isolated us in ways that were not only physical, and that, at its core, a true sense of loneliness results from a disconnection to the self. He clarifies how meaningful reconnection can be nourished and sustained. And he reveals that an important component of the healing process is engaging in creativity, a powerful opportunity he shows us can be accessed by all. Project UnLonely will not just sound an alarm about the significant, growing negative impact of loneliness on nearly every sector of society, but also offer solace, hope and solutions. Supportive and clear-eyed, this is the book we will take into our new normal and rely on for years to come.