 The reason we decided to really talk about loneliness is because it is something that all people feel at some point in their life, SubhanAllah. Some may say that mental health isn't something that they deal with, but the reality, loneliness as a subset of things that people deal with as part of their mental health is something we all actually deal with. A definition of loneliness from a mental health background is that it is a gap between the level of connectedness that we feel versus what we actually want. And it's very different actually from social isolation. Social isolation is a lot more about your contacts and how many you have. So you can have a lot of contacts, but not actually feel lonely or the opposite can be true with again. It's a subjective feeling of loneliness. Some people feel content to be alone and others actually really do need the companionship of others. There are three kinds of loneliness that we discuss in the mental health field. One is emotional loneliness. A person longs for a close confidant, an intimate partner, kind of a mutual trust or bond, and this may happen with friends or maybe a marital bond. There's a second form of loneliness which is social, and that is when people long for quality friendships and support. In our Dean, we would call this a good Suhba, a Suhba Salihah. And thirdly, collective loneliness. And this means basically network. You can have people all around you. You can have family, you can have friends, but maybe you don't have a larger network of people that share your interests and your purpose, sense of purpose in life. Basically safe spaces that you can exist within. So today, Insha'Allah, we're going to talk a little bit about the rise of loneliness. In fact, many people would think this is because of the pandemic, but it's not just because of the pandemic. It turns out that a Harvard report on loneliness that was published in 2018 right before the pandemic showed that in America, we have reached an all-time high for loneliness. Would nearly half of the people in that study reporting always feeling alone. And the paradox is this is a period of time in our history where we are more connected than ever by social media, phones, Zoom, and so on. Yet loneliness is on the rise. And so what happens then, if you can imagine, that's where we were before the pandemic. And you enter into the pandemic with social isolation and other aspects of the pandemic that then really becomes more like a pressure cooker, right? A pressure pop. So the question might come up, why do we feel lonely? And on the mental health side of the discussion, we would say, you know, it's very much influenced by our social norms versus our individual needs. And this is why there needs to be a balance shift kind of between different cultures. Understanding that collectivist cultures tend to not feel quite as lonely as individualistic cultures. And here in the West in the US, this really is an individualistic culture by and large. And we also have to understand that loneliness has a very clear public health crisis to it. Like there's an element of concern here, because the research is showing that it is on the same scale. Imagine this loneliness is on the same scale as the opioid epidemic or obesity. In fact, some studies are showing that a person who smokes 15 cigarettes a day can have the same levels of heightened health risks as the one who is lonely. There is other research showing that there are more adults experiencing loneliness than have diabetes. So you see, Subhanallah, when we talk about the impacts of something like this, you can see why we chose this as a topic, especially now that we are just past that two-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic. And as I really kind of sum up a little bit here and kind of thinking about, well, what is the benefit of really thinking about how to solve this issue of loneliness? One of it is our natural fitra, the way Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala created our primordial instincts, which is to connect, to be amongst people. And we know that people who are connected to each other actually live longer and potentially happier and healthier lives. There's a lot of evidence to show that when there's social support that people have, they're able to actually maintain both physical health and mental health. And so I'll just very quickly give us a couple of tips. Basically five steps, like a toolkit of how to help loneliness from a mental health perspective. And then I'm very excited to have Sheikh Abedullah join us to talk about how to do this from an Islamic perspective, inshallah. So here's tip number one. In the research about loneliness, of how to combat this and how to navigate it, one of the most interesting ones that stood out to me was getting out in nature. I love this Subhanallah because there's something about feeling grounded that's very helpful. Something about the greenery and our spiritual teachers would say this to touch a tree, a leaf, something that's real because when you're in this virtual bubble all the time, it's hard to keep track of what's real and what isn't. And again, because our organization is called Madison and it really is modeling itself after the traditional Islamic holistic healing centers of the past, they had a greenery everywhere. And this was a very purposeful thing to really help us feel better. Number two, some people say that they rather not have a big circle of friends or that they're an introvert or they have social anxiety, let's say. Number two is help another person in some way. This really does combat loneliness because even though you don't have to be directly connected to them or stuck to them, what happens is if you are doing something with a sense of purpose, of service to someone else, that feeling of loneliness starts to actually dissipate. And this comes even from research in medical understanding and absolutely jives with our spiritual understanding Islamically as well. Number three, make time for the arts. Now, I know people might think this is an interesting one, but the Harvard Medical School has a project called the Unlonely Project. And what they found is when they had people who were feeling lonely, work in arts, everything from poetry to pottery. And today we'll have a little poetry for you, inshallah. They felt that this space of the arts actually was purposeful and it made them feel surprisingly connected even if they were physically alone. So try that out, inshallah. Make space for that, just like making space for nature. Number four, reach out to people you know for no reason at all. Subhanallah. And that means it's really easy to get caught up in this concept that we have to have a reason to call or text someone. But actually some researchers that looked at loneliness specifically said that if you reach out to people, even for no good reason at all, you start to feel that you're not as lonely anymore. An example of this is if you take a photo on your phone and you just send it off to anybody in your contact list and just use it to get a conversation started, right? Look at this cool picture I took, right? It's a tool for connection. All of these modern devices we have, social media and phones, if we use them intentionally to share moments of our experiences authentically, then we start to feel a lot more connected. And lastly, tell people when you do feel lonely. You'll be surprised how many people actually do care. And they actually do respond out and say, give you some beautiful messages. And remember that you are never actually as alone as you feel. There are billions of people in this world. And so many of them have experienced loneliness as well. And it's a temporary thing that will pass. The sun will set, the sun will rise, you'll meet new people, you'll lose people, you'll meet more people. It's the kind of cycle of life. And so I'm reminded by the Hadith of the Prophet ﷺ in which Sayyidina Abu Bakr Siddique is worried about how the enemies are coming after them and they're hiding alone, isolated in this cave, worried for their lives. And he asks the Prophet or tells the Prophet if they were just to look down at their feet, they would see Sayyidina Abu Bakr and Sayyidina Muhammad and Sayyidina Abu Bakr hiding in the cave. And he reassures them. And he says, what do you think of two people who the third of them is Allah? And then we have the verse in the Quran that reiterates this where Allah ﷺ tells the Prophet to tell Sayyidina Abu Bakr and remind him, Inna Allaha Ma'ana. Allah is with us always.