How Loneliness Shows Up in the Body and How to Process It

Loneliness is not just an emotion. It shows up in the body. You might feel it as tight shoulders, a heavy chest, low energy, or a restless urge to eat, scroll, or stay busy. You might not even call it loneliness. You may just say, “I’m tired,” or “Something feels off.” But your body knows.

Science shows that loneliness affects more than feelings. It impacts stress hormones, inflammation, pain, and even how the brain responds to food (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015; Van Bogart & Hawkley, 2022). Scripture reminds us that God cares deeply about our whole selves, body, mind, and spirit. Let’s look at how loneliness lives in the body, how it shapes food and coping choices, and how gentle nourishment and movement can help you process it with care instead of control.

Loneliness puts the body on alert

Humans are designed for connection. We are made in the image of a triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Who lives and works in a relationship. Both Scripture and science affirm that we are created for community. When connection feels missing, whether you live alone, feel unseen in your relationships, or carry everything by yourself. Your nervous system may read that lack of connection as a threat. This does not mean you are weak. It means your body is doing its job.

Research shows that chronic loneliness activates the body’s stress response and is associated with increased inflammation over time (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010; Van Bogart & Hawkley, 2022). Inflammation is meant to protect us in the short term, but when it stays elevated, it can contribute to fatigue, pain, and chronic illness. This is why loneliness often feels physical.

Common ways loneliness shows up in the body

You may notice:

• Shallow breathing or chest tightness
• Neck, jaw, or shoulder tension
• Digestive discomfort or loss of appetite
• A heavy fatigue that rest doesn’t fully fix
• Increased aches or pain without a clear cause

Loneliness has been shown to predict increases in pain, fatigue, and low mood over time, even when other stressors are considered (Jaremka et al., 2013). Your body is not betraying you. It is communicating.

Why loneliness affects food and coping choices

When the body feels alone, it looks for relief. Food is one of the fastest ways to calm discomfort. Sugar, salt, and highly processed foods can briefly soothe the nervous system by activating reward pathways in the brain. 

Read my post on Emotional Cravings

That does not mean you lack discipline. It means your body is seeking regulation. Research consistently links loneliness with emotional eating, cravings, and lower overall diet quality (Hanna et al., 2023). Newer brain-imaging research suggests that loneliness may even change how strongly the brain responds to food cues, especially sweet foods, increasing reward-driven eating (Zhang et al., 2024).

Loneliness can sound like:

“I wasn’t hungry, but I kept snacking.”

“Eating feels easier than sitting with this feeling.”

“Cooking for one feels pointless.”

“I just needed something.”

Loneliness does not always lead to overeating. For some people, it leads to skipping meals, forgetting to eat, or losing interest in food altogether. Both patterns signal disconnection from care. Also known as disembodied. Disconnected from the body. I once worked with a single woman who carried deep loneliness. Over time, that loneliness led her to disconnect from her body as a way to cope. She struggled to notice basic physical cues like hunger or thirst, not because she didn’t care for herself, but because being fully present in her body had begun to feel unsafe.

There is science behind this. Our bodies have a built-in awareness system called interoception. Our ability to notice what’s happening inside the body, such as hunger, thirst, fullness, tension, or fatigue. Research shows that chronic stress, trauma, and social disconnection can disrupt interoception, making it harder to sense and respond to these internal cues accurately (Craig, 2002; Khalsa et al., 2018). When the nervous system feels overwhelmed, it may turn the volume down on body awareness as a form of protection. This response is known as dissociation. Dissociation is not a failure. It is the body’s way of helping someone survive when connection feels too painful or unsafe.

Scripture affirms this gentle truth:

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted; He saves those crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18),

reminding us that God meets us not by demanding awareness, but by drawing near with compassion. Over time, dissociation can make hunger feel confusing, thirst go unnoticed, and emotions feel distant or overwhelming. The body is not broken. It has adapted. Healing begins not by forcing reconnection, but by restoring safety so the body can speak again.

Interoception is your body’s ability to notice internal signals like hunger, thirst, fullness, tension, and the need to rest. It’s how your body communicates care from the inside out. When someone experiences long-term stress, trauma, or loneliness, this inner awareness can grow quiet, not because the body has failed, but because it learned to protect itself. Healing gently restores this connection so the body’s signals can be felt and trusted again.

When loneliness turns into control

Loneliness often teaches us to hold everything together by force. Over time, that constant effort can harden into control, not because we are stubborn, but because staying in charge once felt safer than being disappointed. Healing loneliness is not about trying harder; it is about learning to loosen our grip and trust again, which I explore more deeply in The Power of Surrender.

For some women, loneliness does not look like withdrawal. It looks like overdoing.

Doing more.

Helping more.

Producing more.

Busyness can keep loneliness quiet, but it does not heal it. Scripture speaks to lonely bodies, not just lonely thoughts.

God consistently meets people in Scripture through very physical care

Elijah was fed before he was corrected.

In 1 Kings 19 , Elijah is exhausted, afraid, and alone. He tells God he has had enough. God does not correct him first. God feeds him and lets him sleep twice. Only after Elijah’s body is tended to does God speak. This shows us something important: sometimes the most spiritual response to loneliness is nourishment and rest.

David named loneliness without fixing it.

In Psalm 142, David says plainly, “No one cares about me.” He does not clean it up or rush to resolve it. He brings his loneliness into God’s presence as it is. Loneliness does not disqualify you from faith. It invites honesty. 

Paul was abandoned and still strengthened.

Paul writes that no one stood by him during a moment of great need, yet he also says the Lord stood with him and strengthened him (2 Timothy 4:16–17). God’s presence does not replace human connection, but it sustains us while healing unfolds. Emotions live in the body, including loneliness. When loneliness goes unacknowledged, it does not disappear. It settles into the body. That is why tight shoulders, heavy chests, or unsettled stomachs can appear even when life looks “fine” on the outside.

Emotions always seek expression, and the body often becomes the place they speak when words feel unavailable, something I explore further in How Emotions Show Up in the Body. Loneliness is not something to fix. It is something to listen to. 

Gentle ways to nourish when loneliness hits

Instead of asking, “How do I stop emotional eating?”

Try asking, “How do I support my body when it is asking for comfort?”

Start with stabilization

A grounding plate might include:

• Protein (eggs, yogurt, beans, fish)
• Fiber (fruit, vegetables, whole grains)
• Healthy fat (nuts, olive oil, avocado)
• Something warm (tea, soup, warm water)

Balanced nourishment helps calm the nervous system so emotions do not feel so urgent (Hanna et al., 2023). Remember Elijah? This is not about eating perfectly. It is about eating kindly.

Movement that helps process loneliness

Movement does not have to be intense to be healing. Loneliness often carries heaviness or collapse. Gentle movement helps the body complete stress responses instead of storing them as tension.
Try:

• A 10-minute walk
• Slow stretching with breath 
• One song of free movement
• Gentle shaking of arms and legs
• Seated breathing with a hand on your chest

For some women, staying busy becomes a way to avoid feeling. But constant doing can be another form of disconnection, especially when motion replaces presence, as explored in Is Doing Too Much a Trauma Response?

Movement is not punishment. It is communication. Healing loneliness happens in a relationship. Loneliness does not heal through pressure or performance. It heals through safety, presence, and being seen. This is why I wrote The Embodied Beloved www.TheEmbodiedBeloved.com for women who are tired of forcing healing and ready to experience care that honors body, faith, and lived experience.

And if you are longing for support, rhythm, and community as you tend to your health, Reclaim Your Temple is a space where this healing is practiced slowly, faithfully, and together. This is the kind of healing we walk through slowly and together inside Reclaim Your Temple. 

This content is for educational and spiritual support and is not a substitute for medical or mental health care.

References 

Hanna, K., Collins, P. F., & Browne, S. (2023). The association between loneliness or social isolation and food and eating behaviours: A scoping review. Appetite, 186, 106555. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26269488/

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLOS Medicine, 7(7), e1000316. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237.

Jaremka, L. M., Fagundes, C. P., Peng, J., Bennett, J. M., Glaser, R., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (2013). Loneliness promotes inflammation during acute stress. Psychological Science, 24(7), 1089–1097. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797612464059

Van Bogart, K., & Hawkley, L. C. (2022). Loneliness and inflammation: A review of the literature. Frontiers in Immunology, 12, 791623. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/behavioral-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2021.801746/full

Wolf, L. D., Davis, M. C., & Yeung, E. W. (2014). Loneliness, daily pain, and perceptions of interpersonal events in adults with fibromyalgia. Health Psychology, 33(9), 929–937. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0034344

Zhang, X., Chen, Y., Zhao, Q., et al. (2024). Social isolation, food cue processing, eating behaviors, and mental health symptoms. JAMA Network Open, 7(3), e240221. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38573637/

Craig, A. D. (2002). How do you feel? Interoception: The sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3(8), 655–666. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn894

Khalsa, S. S., Adolphs, R., Cameron, O. G., Critchley, H. D., Davenport, P. W., Feinstein, J. S., … Paulus, M. P. (2018). Interoception and mental health: A roadmap. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 3(6), 501–513. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451902217302343?via%3Dihub

van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.