You Really Need Some Alone Time
Solitude is mentally and emotionally invigorating, so long as it doesn’t make you feel lonely
Solitude is the state of being by oneself. Loneliness is a feeling, the sadness of being lonely. The latter is awful, the former is crucial — for many of us — to emotional stability, mental productivity and overall happiness.
I like Aldous Huxley’s take on it: “The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude,” the English philosopher once said.
We all need time alone — even if we don’t realize it. Or at least most of us do.
A new survey finds 56% of US adults say time alone is important to their mental health. My bet is the other 44% either get too much alone time, and therefore feel lonely, or perhaps they just don’t recognize the value of solitude and what to actually do with alone time, and how relaxing and useful can be.
“By taking a brief pause alone, our nervous system can settle, our mind can settle, our body can settle,” said survey team-member Sophie Lazarus, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Ohio State University. “And I think that can be important.”
Ya think?
