The call is over. Everyone clicks away, the screen goes black and you are back at your kitchen table with a cold coffee and a to-do list. Or you are on the fourth floor of an open-plan office, hearing thirty conversations at once, none of them about you. You are surrounded by people and you still feel alone.
That is not a weakness, and you are far from the only one. In Sciensano's 2023-2024 Health Interview Survey, 48.3% of Belgians aged 15 and over reported moderate to severe loneliness. For 11.6% it was severe. One detail stands out for anyone in work: social loneliness, the sense that your wider network falls short, is highest among 35 to 64-year-olds, at around 4 in 10. That is exactly the age when the diary is full of work, children, the school run and caring for parents.
Loneliness is not a numbers game
Researchers make a distinction that helps make sense of the feeling. Social isolation is objective: you have few contacts. Loneliness is subjective: it is the gap between the contact you have and the contact you need. That is why you can feel lonely in a meeting with twelve people and perfectly content on a quiet Sunday on your own.
Sciensano draws a second line. Social loneliness is about a network that is too small or too thin. Emotional loneliness is about missing someone with whom you can truly be yourself. That second form affects 19.5% of the population. At work you mostly see the first kind. You have colleagues, but conversations stay functional: planning, deadlines, who takes the minutes. What is missing is the small, seemingly pointless talk that used to happen on its own by the coffee machine or in the car on the way to a client. With remote work it almost disappears, because every contact becomes an appointment in the calendar.
Why it matters
Loneliness feels like a private matter, but body and brain respond to it as a signal that something is wrong. People who feel alone for a long time often become more alert to rejection and read neutral signals as negative more quickly. A short email from your manager sounds cold. A colleague who does not wave back seems annoyed. In this way loneliness can feed itself: you withdraw to avoid further disappointment, and end up with even less contact.
In the long run, the link with health is well researched. A meta-analysis of 148 studies with 308,849 participants in total found that people with stronger social relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival over the follow-up period. In 2025 the World Health Organization estimated that 1 in 6 people worldwide are affected by loneliness, and noted that lonely adults may find it harder to find or keep a job.
What you can do yourself
Connection does not have to start big. What counts is repetition. Trust grows out of small, recurring moments with the same people, much more than out of one successful team day a year.
Start small, then do it again
Three minutes at the coffee machine count, especially if you have them again the following week with the same person. Ask a question that allows for more than "fine, and you?". How did the move go? Has your daughter settled into secondary school? People rarely remember exactly what you said. They do remember that you remembered.
Pick one person
You do not need to belong to every group. One colleague you can honestly tell that your day got off to a bad start already makes a big difference. Ask them to lunch, or suggest holding a catch-up as a walk instead of in a meeting room.
Make remote work less silent
Working from home removes chance encounters, so you have to organise them a little. It feels artificial, but it works better than waiting. A few things that often help teams:
- a regular fifteen-minute call with a colleague, with no agenda;
- starting meetings with two minutes of a real question, cameras on where possible;
- agreeing on the same office day with a few colleagues, so you are not sitting among empty desks;
- taking the train or car-sharing together now and then, even if only once a week.
Say it out loud
Many people wait for the other person to make the first move. The other person is usually waiting too. A sentence like "I've noticed I miss our chats since we mostly work from home, shall we set something up?" feels exposed, but it is rarely badly received. More often than not, the other person is simply relieved.
Do not let work be your only circle
If nearly all your social contact comes from work, you are vulnerable to a reorganisation, a new manager or a conflict. A running group, the school parents' association, volunteering with a youth movement, an evening class: every small circle absorbs part of the blow when things go wrong elsewhere.
What managers and HR can do
Loneliness at work is not only an individual task. Teams that communicate only through tickets and scheduled calls make chance contact almost impossible. A manager who also asks how someone is really doing in a one-to-one, gives new colleagues a fixed point of contact and aligns office days so people actually see each other, does more than an annual team event. The key is that none of it feels compulsory. An enforced relaxation session at five o'clock often achieves the opposite.
When small steps are not enough
These tips help when loneliness is mainly about a lack of opportunity. They work less well when something else lies underneath. Have you felt alone for months, are you avoiding contact more and more, sleeping badly, finding no pleasure in anything, or seeing yourself mainly as a burden? Then it is more than a practical problem. Loneliness and low mood can reinforce each other, and a conversation with your GP or a psychologist is the right next step. Social anxiety can also make a coffee break feel like an exam. There are good treatments for that.
If you are thinking about suicide, talk about it straight away. In Belgium you can call the Zelfmoordlijn on 1813 (Dutch) or the Centre de Prévention du Suicide on 0800 32 123 (French), free of charge, day and night.
Sometimes it already helps to talk to someone outside your own circle about what you miss and where you are stuck. Your employer may offer confidential support through Meapy Health. A conversation with a psychologist or coach is then free, and your employer does not know that it is you who called.
Sources
- Verhaegen K.A., Braekman E., Gisle L. (Sciensano), Gezondheidsenquête 2023-2024: Sociale gezondheid (Health Interview Survey 2023-2024: Social health), 2025.
- Holt-Lunstad J., Smith T.B., Layton J.B., Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review, PLoS Medicine, 2010.
- World Health Organization, Social connection linked to improved health and reduced risk of early death, 2025.
