![]() "By doing so, you're inviting other people to at least acknowledge and accept that and possibly even engage in it themselves."Īnd if even this does not help you obtain a separate space of your own, even for a little bit, remember that in many ways, solitude is what you make it. "Explain that it's not like you're isolating yourself and setting yourself apart, but that what you're doing is something of personal value," he recommends. By asking others for the time to yourself, and explaining why this is no reflection on their company, Salmon says you are bringing others into your trust, which they may appreciate. Solitude can be a communal exerciseįunny as it may sound, pursuing your solitude may help develop your sense of community. That means, effectively, that time alone may simply help even us out. A professor at the University of Durham in the U.K., Nguyen was tracking something she calls a person's arousal level: High arousal could mean something good (excitement) or bad (anger), just as low arousal moods could be good (contentment) or bad (boredom).Īnd in just that brief window of time, Nguyen says she has found that solitude correlates with a drop in those high-arousal moods. Thuy-vy Nguyen has found that just 15 minutes in solitude can have an effect. "And also, to be clear, this is not isolating yourself but simply giving yourself a time to kind of recharge the batteries." "Maybe even go into a room if you have a space that you can go to where you can be alone for a little bit," he says. Paul Salmon, a psychology professor at the University of Louisville, recommends looking at your quest for solitude more along the lines of a high-intensity interval workout - as a variety of exercise that can be brief and scattered throughout the day but no less effective for it. And you don't need to emulate a medieval hermit to get the kind of time and space needed to feel those effects either. Perhaps you, too, will find yourself wishing for a simple electric shock while waiting impatiently for that lightning bolt of inspiration.īut that bolt from the blue need not arrive for solitude to show some psychological benefits. Just look at a 2014 study in which a majority of participants preferred giving themselves an electric shock(!) to simply sitting alone with their thoughts for up to 15 minutes. Sometimes solitude is calming, sometimes meaningful, but for a lot of us, it's often downright uncomfortable. While the concepts are often paired in books and films, real life is obviously a lot more complicated. Don't get solitude mixed up with the promise of insight or revelation. ![]() We may crave time alone the way we crave time with othersĮasy there, Thoreau. ![]() In other words, if you feel alone, you probably are - at least for the purposes of your mental state. One's subjective perspective matters more than whether their objective circumstances would bear that out on closer inspection. Those questions aren't easy to answer, and to date, psychologists haven't settled on a single definition of solitude or the nature of its "active ingredient," in Coplan's words.īut many agree, at least when conducting their studies, that the key rests with whether participants feel alone. with a good Wi-Fi connection and updates to peruse on Instagram? What about when you're on a crowded subway platform, but with earbuds in and everyone else ignoring you? Where is the line between "together" and "alone"? After all, are you experiencing solitude if you are stranded on a desert island. It makes sense that there should be some confusion. Beyond his role as director of the Pickering Centre for Human Development, he and colleague Julie Bowker edited The Handbook of Solitude, a collection of some of the latest scholarly research on solitude. ![]()
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