Seven ways to benefit from solitude

No end of studies show that loneliness is bad for us, and the BPS has urged action from the government to tackle this 'scourge' in the UK population.

But while loneliness entails feeling that a need for social connection is going unmet, solitude is different. Most of us are able to spend periods of time alone, and not feel lonely or unhappy at all. In fact, research is showing that time in solitude can even be beneficial.

Unwind and destress

Time alone can calm us down. This is the message from studies by Thuy-Vy T Nguyen, now at the University of Durham, and colleagues. In one study, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the team found that just 15 minutes of solitude had an emotional 'deactivation' effect – lowering 'high arousal' emotions, including excitement and anxiety, and increasing 'low arousal' feelings, such as calmness. This effect did not happen when the participants were with another person.

Find your personal freedom

By taking the social pressure off, solitude can leave us free us to be who we 'are', according to a 2023 study in Scientific Reports by Netta Weinstein at the University of Reading and colleagues. The team asked 175 British and American adults aged over 35 to record what they did and how they felt for 21 days, then analysed these diary entries. 

They found that on days when participants chose to spend more time alone, they felt not only less stressed, but also less 'controlled' or pressured to behave in a certain way. These benefits were cumulative – those who spent more time alone over the course of the 21 days were less stressed and scored higher on the 'autonomy' measures at the end. This work shows that solitude can help certain aspects of well-being, the team concluded.

Take the time to get creative

Some people don't feel especially anxious in social situations, but also don't necessarily go looking for opportunities to socialise, either. Research on 295 undergraduate students in Personality and Individual Differences, led by Julie Bowker at the University at Buffalo, found that for such 'unsociable' people, solitude not only did not harm their wellbeing, but allowed them to be more creative.

Studies conducted since support this idea. For example, a 2021 study of more than 1,200 French adults, led by Maxence Mercier at the University of Paris, focused on changes during a strict 55-day COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 in France. The team found a significant increase in 'everyday' creativity (measured by levels of agreement with statements such as 'I come up with new and practical ideas') during this lockdown. 

Their results also suggested that people who were less creative beforehand enjoyed the biggest boosts to their creativity during lockdown. While the team certainly acknowledges that the lockdown had some negative consequences for physical and mental health, and that other factors were at play, this isolated time's effect on creativity appears to have been positive.

Frame it correctly

Younger people tend to feel differently than older people during periods of solitude, according to a 2023 study of 426 American adults. This work by Alexander Danvers and colleagues, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, found that for younger people, there was no link between feelings of loneliness and time spent alone; they were just as likely to feel lonely – or not lonely – while with other people as while by themselves. 

For participants aged over 67, though, it was a different story: they were more likely to feel lonely when they were by themselves, suggesting that solitude is more likely to have a negative impact on older people's wellbeing.

However, a study published last year in the Journal of Personality did find that lonely people could "more readily reap the emotional benefits" of solitude when they were encouraged to view it as an experience that could enhance their wellbeing. Encouraging older people to view time spent alone in a not entirely dim light may, then, help them to cope with being by themselves.

Acknowledge your 'aloneliness'

Though feeling that you're not getting enough social contact is harmful for wellbeing, research suggests that feeling that you're not spending enough time in solitude can also be damaging. Robert Caplan at Carleton University, US, and colleagues coined the term 'aloneliness' for negative feelings arising from insufficiency of desired solitude. 

In their work on almost 1,000 US undergraduates, published in Personality and Individual Differences in 2019, they found that some people preferred solitude more than others, and that aloneliness was associated with higher levels of stress and depressive symptoms. 

A particularly busy period at work or school, for example, could mean that people who crave periods of solitude don't get them, and this could increase feelings of life dissatisfaction, causing stress and an increase in negative emotions, the team writes. They argue that their results mean the potential implications of too little solitude for our wellbeing and mental health should be considered.

Exactly why some people are happier alone than others is still being explored. But, unsurprisingly, research suggests that extraverts are more likely to choose to spend time doing activities with other people than by themselves, so solitude could be tougher on them. There's also evidence from a study in the British Journal of Psychology by Norman P Li and Satoshi Kanazaq that, for more intelligent people, more time spent with friends is associated with lower levels of satisfaction with life. 

Though the researchers don't experimentally explore why this might be, it's possible that smart people with long-term goals to pursue feel more satisfied when they can spend plenty of time pursuing these goals, even if that means less time spent seeing friends.

Do as you please

What should you do while alone, to ensure you get the biggest improvements to your wellbeing? To some extent, of course, the answer will vary from person to person – someone working on a creative project, for example, will likely benefit from time spent on that. Broader research suggests, however, that it doesn't seem to matter too much what you do while alone, as long as you have chosen this activity, rather than having it forced upon you. 

Certainly, this was the finding from a 2021 study led by Dwight C.K. Tse at Strathclyde University, in Social Psychological and Personality Science. In this study, the team also found that more time spent on unchosen solitary activities was linked to lower scores both on a measure of life satisfaction and on questions assessing whether their lives felt meaningful. So, the general answer seems to be: do whatever you want.

But don't spend 'too much' time alone

Though different people seem to benefit more or less from shorter or longer periods of solitude, Danvers and colleagues' 2023 study also found that, regardless of age, participants who were alone for more than three-quarters of their time felt the most lonely. The team concluded that, whoever we are, when the amount of time we spend alone passes this point, feelings of loneliness become difficult to avoid.

On the whole, the research suggests that solitude can have its benefits, though for some people more than others. And, for those who crave plenty of time alone, not getting it could potentially threaten their wellbeing in the same way that loneliness harms those more averse to solitude.

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