The surprising health benefits of spending time alone

Taking just 15 minutes out of your day to be alone can enhance your mental health. Photo / 123rf

A little solitude can go a long way to help cope with the stresses of modern life, writes Suzy Walker.

I am a raving extrovert - I love people, I get my energy from socialising and meeting new friends. But after a long day at work, followed by Christmas drinks and heading home to face the latest teenage outpourings, is it bad that I shout at my needy cockapoo Bertie scratching at the bathroom door? “I just need ONE minute alone!”

Is it just me or does anyone else crave to simply be “all by myself” sometimes?

While many studies show loneliness and spending long periods of time on your own can be bad for your health, there are studies now emerging that indicate that choosing to spend some quality time by yourself is beneficial to your mental health.

Solitude can be good for you

A new study published earlier this month found that choosing to spend time alone is good for your wellbeing because it can help soothe you, help you feel less irritated and more able to deal with the stresses of modern life. The study from Reading University tracked the social habits of 178 people over a 21-day period by asking them to keep a diary of the time they spent alone each day without being in contact with anyone either physically or digitally.

The volunteers in the study were prompted to answer three questions: how pressured they felt to behave in a certain way; how free they felt to be themselves, and how much they felt in control of what happened during their day. The study found that the longer people spent in solitude, the less stressed they were.

“Solitude can often be seen as a bad thing. People assume that solitude means you will feel lonely and isolated, but the study found that the opposite to be true - solitude can relieve the pressures of coping with busyness and stress. Choosing to be alone can help people feel more peaceful, centred and more able to cope,” says lead researcher Dr Netta Weinstein, professor of psychology at Reading University.

“There’s a difference between loneliness and solitude. Loneliness is a negative emotion when people don’t feel connected to others, to their community and they feel uncared for and rejected. But you can feel just as lonely in a crowd of people or in a relationship. Solitude, however, is a neutral, potentially beneficial state versus a negative emotion,” Weinstein says.

Indeed, studies have shown that it’s the quality, not the quantity of social connection that best predicts loneliness. You just have to think of your unhappily married friends to know that there’s nothing lonelier than being in a relationship with the wrong person.

Build a relationship with yourself

So why is solitude beneficial to your mental health? “Our research found that when you have the time to spend time alone, you start to build a healthy relationship with yourself and begin to be able to understand your own thoughts and feelings and figure out what you want,” says Weinstein.

“We found that when people were alone, they could be more themselves, felt free and could spend time doing things that were interesting and important to them. When you’re with other people, you’re always negotiating on what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do things. And that can be stressful.”

Solitude has also been found to boost your creativity. In a 2020 study, researchers discovered that feeling socially isolated made the parts of the brain that control imagination work harder. When you don’t have any social interactions, your brain turns on its creative networks to help you pass the time. Studies have also shown that productivity is enhanced when you can build in solitude to your day, and that open-plan offices can decrease productivity.

A 15-minute walk alone in nature can have massive health benefits to those of us with busy lives. Photo / Unsplash

The good news for busy people who find it hard to get a minute to themselves is that taking 15 minutes out of your day to be alone can boost your mental health batteries. “In our future research, we are exploring something called ‘solitude crafting’,” says Weinstein, “which is consciously encouraging you to create a list of experiences to do alone that will allow you to engage and/or explore your interests and passions.”

She suggests things like learning how to sketch in just 15 minutes, or learning about trees and going on a 15-minute nature walk where you identify different types of trees or plants, or reading a book where you learn about a different historical object, which has you learning and noticing and being more mindful of the world around you. “The goal behind solitude crafting is to find activities that build your competence and autonomy, open up your curiosity and give you a feeling of satisfaction,” she says.

Choose to be alone

So if solitude is important how do we make the most of it? “Firstly, it’s important to have a positive mindset. It’s your interpretation about what solitude means which impacts the feelings of wellbeing,” says Weinstein. “If you interpret solitude as ‘people don’t care about me and I’m alone because there’s something wrong with me’, solitude is not going to have a calming effect on you. However, if you actively and consciously choose to be on your own and have a mindset of ‘being alone allows me to think, to connect with myself, to connect with nature and get to know myself’, then solitude can have a positive impact on your mental health. Also if you feel connected to others and can think loving thoughts about people even if they are not around, then you won’t feel lonely,” Weinstein says.

The study did find that not all time alone is a positive experience but researchers came to the conclusion that being alone only makes you feel bad when you don’t want to be alone. However, if you actively choose to spend time in solitude, it can be life-enhancing. “Our research found that if you see the value in solitude and can still feel connected to others while being in solitude, you will not feel lonely,” Weinstein explains.