By Kingsley I. Ilechukwu, Senior Correspondent, Lagos

In keeping with its commitment to promote mental health wellness, Nigeria’s caring telecom company, 9mobile has called for improved awareness on the impact of loneliness on mental health. The telco brand made the call at the 5^th edition of its health talk series to mark this year’s global mental health awareness week.

Titled, “Loneliness and Mental Health”, the virtual session, featured  a certified medical doctor, writer, vlogger, public speaker, popularly known as Aproko Doctor on social media,  Egemba Chinonso Fidelis.

In his presentation, Dr. Egemba remarked that “loneliness is a bodily function and interestingly, human beings have come to realize the need to survive in groups. Therefore, loneliness can set-in when the social interaction needs of an individual are not met. He emphasized that there is a difference between ‘loneliness’ and ‘being alone’, adding that though the terms sound similarthey are totally different. Loneliness is a bodily function while being alone is a state of the mind.”

Mental health condition, he stated, could lead to loneliness while loneliness and also lead to mental health condition vice versa. According to Egemba, no pin-point cause had been traced to loneliness. However, certain groups of people were identified as being susceptible to loneliness namely people who overly kept to themselves otherwise called introverts.

Speaking further, Egemba identified two types of loneliness, acute and chronic. Acute loneliness, he explained, usually occurred suddenly and were temporal, while chronic loneliness could affect both the mental and physical health of an individual and usually lasted longer.

Commenting on the session, Executive Director, Regulatory and Corporate Affairs, 9mobile, Abdulrahman Ado, stated that a sound mental health was critical to the overall wellbeing of an individual. He said, “Mental health is one issue that needs to constantly be on the health front burner because of its impact on human lives. As a customer-centric brand that cares about the wellbeing of Nigerians, we are doing what we can to increase awareness through advocacy and ensure that the conversation around mental health is sustained, hence the need for the 9mobile Health Talk Series. This time around we chose to look at the nexus between loneliness and mental health which the facilitator dealt with robustly.”

The mental health awareness week is designed to drive conversation around mental health challenges and how to address it in the best interest and wellbeing of society.