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.
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.
