Coping with loneliness in southern Myanmar

Abstract

Little is known about the experience of older adults’ loneliness in Southeast Asia. Situated in southern Myanmar, this study uses ethnographic interviews to shed light on coping strategies that older adults deploy to prevent and reduce loneliness. A resilient mindset was identified as essential to alleviating loneliness in older adults, a strategy described as including acceptance of loneliness and finding strength to fight against loneliness. Acceptance was facilitated by religious practices such as praying and meditating. Efforts to reduce loneliness included leisure activities “just to pass the time” and engagement in care provision. Culturally specific concepts such as prosociality and social harmony, as well as religious ideas such as karma and the desire for a non-lonely afterlife influenced the ways the people we interviewed coped with loneliness and adverse life events.