How solitude can bring happiness and peace of mind – just don’t fear being alone
- Solitude can be good for us, research shows, because it helps reduce the intensity of daily life
- People who spend time on their own and free of distractions have greater control over their emotions
Making time for ourselves seems impossible for many of us. Jobs, families and electronic devices fill our daily lives.
But there’s also a stigma attached to solitude. When we think about being alone, the first things that usually come to mind are loneliness, rejection, isolation, boredom, withdrawal and sadness.
It’s no wonder so many of us think that it’s a bad thing. However, research from the University of Rochester in New York says that solitude can be good for us.
The findings, published in 2017 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, found that 15 minutes of device-free solitude reduces high-arousal emotions, while lessening stress and promoting relaxation.
Researchers conducted four separate experiments. The first compared solitude with social interactions; the second compared solitude with being alone during an activity, like reading; the third compared solitude with being alone thinking specific thoughts; while the fourth asked subjects to practise 15 minutes of device-free and activity-free solitude every day for a week and keep a diary of how it affected them.