Why Being Alone Might Be Better Than You Think

24:12Really hard to find people there to take our studies. So almost every continent, I will say. And so we had, for example, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Poland, South Africa, a couple others. And essentially, we wanted to know how adults in these different countries view being alone. To what extent do they think being alone is positive or negative, right? Beneficial or harmful. We see that in countries like the U.S., the U.K., Poland, in other words, countries that are more individualistic, People view being alone as more negative, as more unhealthy, whereas people in Japan and Mexico, two very different countries, but both we would consider collectivistic countries, viewed being alone as significantly more positive and healthier.

25:04What are some of the hypotheses for why collectivist cultures value solitude more? One of the things we know about more collectivistic cultures is that people view the self as more interdependent. So what I mean is that people view themselves as an individual as intertwined with their family members, their friends, their community. In other words, who I am is linked to who my friends and family are. And so I think that actually changes what being alone means, right? Because when I'm physically alone, yes, I'm by myself. But if I have this sense that my identity is always tied to my loved ones, then maybe that aloneness is actually less threatening.

25:51Because even though I'm physically by myself, I'm carrying my mom, right? I'm carrying my dad. I'm carrying my two little sisters with me all the time. I'm carrying these sources of meaning with me wherever I go. Whereas in more individualistic cultures, we know that the self is really viewed as a distinct entity that is not connected really to anybody else, right? We're unique. We're our own person. I will note, you know, it's not that that's inherently better or worse. These are just sort of different ways of viewing oneself. But if we do see the self as independent and not linked to other people, then I think when we're alone, we really are sort of disconnected.

26:33Right. And so I think there could be this sort of protective effect of having this more interdependent view of the self. Michaela's work seems to be bearing out what historian Faye Bound Alberti said earlier, that how a culture thinks being alone is supposed to feel influences how being alone actually feels. In this and so many other studies, Michaela has found that if you believe alone time is going to suck, then your alone time will feel yuckier and lonelier. And that is a very worrying conclusion, especially for someone who hosts a podcast that talks a lot about social connection. So much of our modern public health messaging tries to teach people about the negative effects of loneliness.

27:14But that messaging might ironically be making the loneliness crisis even worse. And Michaela says that this stems from a specific thing that many news articles get wrong when it comes to loneliness. We see the vast majority of news articles using loneliness and solitude interchangeably, which I think is not only inaccurate, I think it's also harmful. These experiences are distinct. Being alone is not loneliness. We can think of loneliness as a feeling, right? It is a subjective experience of feeling disconnected, regardless of whether you're physically by yourself or with other people. You can feel lonely even when you're in a crowd, right, in a party.

27:59And actually, what I found in my work, we see that the most sort of intense or painful loneliness often comes when we're with others because we have this expectation that we should be feeling connected to them. But for one reason or another, we don't. And so how correlated are loneliness and solitude? We've seen from decades of work that loneliness and solitude are actually weakly correlated. And the correlation is around point two. So just for those listening, you know, we think of correlations as a strength of a relationship between two experiences. Zero means there's no relationship at all.

28:38One means that they're the same thing. They're completely related. When one goes up, the other goes up. And so point two is, I mean, it's not nothing, right? We know that in general, when people are alone, especially for longer periods of time, it is common for them to experience loneliness. That said, point two is still not super high. And so there are many, many instances in which people are alone and not lonely at all. So loneliness is this subjective feeling, whereas solitude we can think of as the objective state of being alone. And so solitude in that sense is not inherently a positive or negative experience.

29:20Solitude is inherently neutral. But Michaela has also found that more effective alone time can actually make us happier. We're taught so much about how to interact with others, how to work as a team. We're not often explicitly taught how to be alone. It's something we sort of have to figure out on our own. I really view solitude as a skill. You know, it takes practice. it takes time to really cultivate this positive relationship to solitude. What are some of the best benefits of solitude? One of the, I would say, biggest benefits of spending time alone is emotional deactivation, or essentially when we spend time alone, you know, in general, our intense negative emotions, as well as our intense positive emotions, become less intense.

30:06Emotions become a little bit more neutralized. We know, for example, that when we spend time with other people, that presence of others can amplify our emotional experiences, right? Being with others makes anxiety often even more intense or can make excitement, happiness even more intense. And so when we're alone, we don't have that sort of feedback from others. And often there's less stimulation in the environments. And so it can help sort of deactivate intense negative emotions. I've run several studies where I've had participants come into the lab, indicate how they're feeling in that moment, and then they spend 10 to 15 minutes.

30:45In one study, we had them spend 30 minutes by themselves without actually any laptop, any phone, any device, with no activity, just truly by themselves with their thoughts sitting in a chair. And even then, we see that both positive emotion and negative emotion decreased. Emotions became more neutral. Michaela has found that being left alone with our thoughts, without the option of electrocuting ourselves, can be useful for regulating our feelings. Honestly, this result surprised me a bit. Whenever I'm feeling an intense emotion, my instinct is to reach out to a friend so that I can talk through what I'm experiencing.

31:21I hadn't realized that being by myself could also be helpful. There are many situations in which, for example, seeking social support and talking to others can help. Other people can help shift our perspectives, or they can just give us a hug and remind us that everything's going to be okay, or they can help normalize our experiences. There's lots of things we can gain from talking to others when we're feeling upset. But sometimes when we're in this really hot emotional state, people want to be by themselves. And I think that's not inherently a bad thing. Stepping back and spending some time by yourself can help you sort of cool off a little bit.

31:59Just like when, you know, people are in the middle of an argument, whether it's a romantic couple or friends, sometimes it's like, hey, let's take a minute, let's go into our rooms and then let's come back, right? To just sort of relax for a moment. That can be really powerful. And for those who are uncomfortable with being alone without any distractions, Michaela has some good news. To reap the emotional benefits of alone time, you don't necessarily just have to stare into the void. Being alone doesn't just have to be sitting by yourself, thinking, reflecting on your life. It can, but you can do so many different things.

32:32You can take a walk, you can read, you can tidy things up, you can cook. And so, you know, when people engage in these different activities when they're alone, it can both serve as a sort of distraction from what's going on and also just help them kind of relax. Right. And even physiologically help their body sort of recover from maybe a stressful experience, which really, I think, stands in contrast to a lot of what we're hearing now in the media and also a lot of what psychologists are studying. Your research has these really clear implications for public health messaging. If coverage of loneliness might be making things worse, what should media, you know, this podcast included, honestly, be doing differently?

33:17I think that we should be emphasizing the importance of social connection while also communicating to people that being alone can be OK, that it can be good, that there are situations in which it can promote our well -being. not just our well-being, it can promote our social lives and our relationships and enhance them, right? I think if we had messaging that better sort of portrayed both social connection and solitude as good for us, then I think we're in the situation where no matter what people are doing, whether they're by themselves or with others, they can make the most of that experience.

33:55You've also done some fascinating work on how the language we use matters. Tell me about that work. I ran this really simple study with my wonderful collaborator, Scott Campbell, at The Ohio State University. And we essentially asked participants to report their perceptions of and beliefs about and experiences of five different words for being alone. So we had solitude, being alone, time alone, me time, and isolation. Words that are often used interchangeably, but they have very different connotations. And indeed, we found that people viewed me time as the most positive, and they viewed isolation as the most negative.

34:37I also want to mention a really interesting finding, which was that people viewed time alone as more positive than being alone. even though it's so easy to just say this interchangeably, right? But I think the idea there is that time alone is maybe this evening that we're spending by ourselves, whereas being alone feels a little more long-term. Michaela ran an experiment to test how these different phrases affected people's mood and behavior. She split a group of college students into two experimental groups and asked them all to spend 30 minutes by themselves. The only difference between the two groups was in the instructions they received.

35:15Half of the participants were told to spend 30 minutes in me time. The other half were told to spend 30 minutes in isolation. So what we found in this study is that people who spent those 30 minutes in isolation experienced a reduction in their negative emotion and also a reduction in their positive emotion. So like I was saying earlier, right, we see this deactivation effect where people are feeling less bad, but they're also feeling less good. In the me time group, we see something different. We see that positive emotion significantly went up and negative emotion went down even more so than it did in that other group.

35:57Right. And so the me time group felt better after those 30 minutes. Not just that. We asked our participants to report what they had thought about in that 30 minute period and also what they did. Interestingly, Lori, we didn't see any differences in what participants reported doing in those 30 minutes between me time and isolation. We did, however, see a significant difference in what participants reported thinking about. So in the me time group, participants were more likely to think about personal growth, whereas in isolation, they were more likely to think about work and school. And so it is a little interesting, right, how even just the words we use can maybe shift what we do in this time.

36:40So to recap loneliness and being alone, two very different things. And how we think about and describe these concepts matters a lot because neither loneliness nor solitude are inherently bad. Being alone can leave you feeling calmer, clearer and more emotionally grounded. And that ache of loneliness can be a helpful signal that you need to make changes or as a push for personal growth. Now, does that mean that social connection isn't beneficial? Or that people experiencing chronic isolation don't require serious intervention? Of course not. But what these findings do mean is that we might all benefit if we change the way we discuss feelings like loneliness and solitude, both on a societal level and as individuals.

37:21Michaela's research demonstrates that talking about these experiences differently might prevent a lot of unnecessary suffering. But Michaela's work also shows that alone time is a skill, one that we need to learn to use more effectively if we want to get more of its benefits. Which raises a question, what does embracing healthy solitude actually look like in practice? After the break, we'll speak to a world-renowned advocate for alone time. We'll hear her tips for incorporating more well-being-boosting solo moments into our day-to-day lives. The Happiness Lab will be right back.

37:58Emma Gannon:I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit. And this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey, girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so just, like, distraught and, like, robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said, she has eczema. We've all been there, wanting to go out, feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems, and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be.

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40:32Emma Gannon:Hi, how's it going? Good, good. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this. I'm really excited. I love your show. I don't have my podcast anymore. So every time I do it, I'm like, can I remember? But it sounds like you can hear me okay. So this is Emma Gannon. Emma is a writer, podcaster, and the author of a new book, A Creative Compass, finding your way to a creative life. She's written extensively about the connection between loneliness and solitude. And that's in part because Emma is a huge fan of alone time. It's such a nuanced topic because loneliness and solitude are so different. You can be lonely in a crowded room.

41:11Emma Gannon:You can be lonely in a marriage. You can be lonely at a party. When you're feeling lonely, I believe it's because you're really disconnected from yourself. You feel lonely inside yourself. You feel lonely because no one understands you and you don't even understand you. And so in my solitude, I don't feel lonely. I've chosen it. And I honestly think that some of my favourite memories are of me being alone. And sometimes I feel like it's controversial to say it because we're meant to be on our deathbed and think that our best moments in life are with our loved ones. And of course that is true. I'm not saying it's not.

41:50Emma Gannon:But I think I'm also going to be on my deathbed thinking that trip was amazing that I had by myself. Like I went to New York by myself for a month, two years ago, and I think about it all the time. And I want to do something like that again. When you think of an experience like traveling alone or dining alone, how does that differ when you're with another person? It's a totally different experience. So when I'm with a friend and having dinner, I'm super focused on them. I'm focused on the experience and I want to be present and I want to be listening and I want to be conscious of it being kind of reciprocal.

42:25Emma Gannon:You know, it's a dance and it's enjoyable and I love it. But when I'm in those environments, I'm not looking at my surroundings as much. I'm not tasting the food as much because I'm, you know, my attention's on the other person. So when I'm on my own, I'm having a sensory experience. I'm taking in everything and looking around and people watching. And I absolutely see it as an essential thing for my nervous system. I can like regulate myself back to my default setting, I think. like I just went away for three nights last week by myself to a little town called Rye in England it's an hour train from my house super easy to get to and within maybe about half an hour of just getting off the train being by myself putting my bag down in the hotel room lying on the bed no one was gonna get me for three days and I had this like joy that went through my body but more than that I had this just sense of taking the mask off and like completely relaxing my whole entire body and whenever I come back from those trips my husband is like wow it's like a medicine it's not something that you should think about as a luxury you should think about it as is like a mental health toolkit once a month I need to do something and it doesn't have to be you know it's expensive to go away I'm not saying that but it needs to be at least like a long walk in silence or something like that.

43:47Emma does admit, however, that spending time alone is not always super easy in a society that's biased against loners.

43:54Emma Gannon:Busy restaurants treat a solo diner as sort of less important because they're not making as much money from you. They'll sit you at the bar a lot. You know, you're like shoved in the corner a little bit or you're ignored. I've had that a bit actually, where I haven't really been sort of checked in on. You know, you're sort of left and you're trying to get the bill and then you want another drink and then it's too late. So I think it would be great for kind of restaurants or whatever to understand that you're still having an experience and you're still trying to have a lovely time. When I was in my 20s, I was more sort of unsure of myself.

44:25Emma Gannon:And I think people would come up to me more or, you know, you'd get men being weird, or you would get people thinking you wanted company when you didn't. And I felt self-conscious. But people don't come over to me as much. Like I'm older now and I'm confident and I'm like, don't come near me. Like I give that energy of like, I'm busy and I'm eating. So we talked about traveling alone and dining alone. I'm curious about some of the other activities you've done on your own. Can you share some of those with me? Yeah, so I do like going with my friends to things, but I also actively choose moments to go alone.

45:00Emma Gannon:So I love going to the cinema by myself, especially to see something really moving. I saw a film called H is for Hawk recently, which is about grief and relationships to animals and had some deep themes. And I just knew I wanted to watch it alone. I just wanted to really immerse myself. I didn't want to talk to anyone afterwards. I wanted to just go for a walk and really digest the film like I really don't always want input I love sitting and like reflecting I'm so glad you brought up that example of going to the film by yourself because I don't do that often but there was this one period in grad school where I did it a lot it was over in the UK I was studying at the University of Bristol I just like didn't know that many people there's like great indie cinema in Bristol at the time and I'd walk there by myself and I would watch the movies by myself and I did have that feeling of feeling like a little bit of like a freak.

45:49If someone would see me by myself, they'd be like, who's that weird person? But I remember walking home from those movies and having such interesting thoughts about them, of just kind of like sinking into them in a different way. And even now when I think about the specific films that I watched back then, I remember them in a really different way than like the last movie that I watched in the cinema with my husband here. You have a connection to the things that you experience on your own. And that's kind of special.

46:13Emma Gannon:It really is. And I think it kind of preserves your individual experience like I remember once going to see this film and I loved it I was crying at the end like I had such a relationship with it and then the person next to me who I went to watch the film with just turned to me and said that was awful wasn't it they were like picking it apart for certain reasons and I was like oh you've kind of just burst the moment I was having with it so I think sometimes it's just nice to kind of sink in. And I did go to a concert by myself recently as well, which was a first, I think, actually. And I was like, oh, this is going to be a bit weird going by myself because you're really aware of how alone you are when you're in those big stadiums.

46:53Emma Gannon:And then I was wedged in the middle of two couples and they were having like a date night. And I was like, oh, this is really challenging. But I had a good time. I got into it. You've also written about something that you've called artist dates. Where does this concept come from and how do artist dates work? yes so this is from Julia Cameron the author of The Artist's Way and many other books and I love it and it's something that I do every week actually and it's essentially a solo date that you go on where you you have to do something just for the joy of it so you know her thinking is that it really helps you come up with new ideas but you're not really hunting for them you're just having a little day out by yourself essentially and she has a list in The Artist's Way to sort will prompt you.

47:37Emma Gannon:And there are things like go to a pet store, go for a walk, go to an art gallery, go to the cinema. It's so joyful coming up with ideas for artist dates. And I think her thinking behind it is like, you can't really be a creative person if you're not refilling the well. You need to go and do things and live out things for you to have ideas. Any good artist dates that you've been on recently? I mean, something that I do do is I go on Google Maps and I'll type in independent bookstore and I'll just see what ones I haven't been to within like an hour's walk or whatever. And there's a little bookstore in London, which is on a canal boat.

48:15Emma Gannon:And I just thought, I'm going to walk to the canal boat. I'm going to, you know, see what's going on in this part of London and I'm going to go to the bookstore and then I'm going to walk home again. And that was my artist date for that day. I'm curious, do you still ever feel lonely when you're on your own? Well when I was in New York for a month I had moments of feeling a bit lonely There is a tipping point of too much alone time A month was long My husband did come and visit me right in the middle for a few days So it broke it up a little bit But there were just a few nights where I was like walking down the Hudson River path or whatever And I would see like a group of four girlfriends laughing their heads off And I would be like okay I really miss my friends right now or I would see then like a romantic sunset and someone taking like a selfie with their boyfriend and I'd be like oh actually I you know I really miss my partner but I think that's just normal and then those feelings would come and then they would go again so it's such a normal human emotion and so I just let myself feel it I think.

49:17And so you mentioned this idea of the New York trip was starting to feel long right any advice on getting the balance right between the kind of effective

49:24Emma Gannon:alone time but not too much alone time yeah I think it's about really understanding your own self and your own mind and knowing when and this is a huge one that I'm still trying to work out is like sometimes what I need is a night in by myself and sometimes I need to put my shoes on and I need to go out and see a friend so yeah I think it's about thinking about what you need in that moment. Any ways that you've got an insight into what that looks like over time? I think over time, it's like making a note of how you feel. For example, recently, I just got over an illness and I kept being like, no, no, no, I should stay in again.

50:07Emma Gannon:I should stay in again. And I was like, no, I know what I need. I need to go out with someone who makes me laugh, like one of my funniest friends. And that's what I did. And I felt a million times better. Like it kind of was like helping me heal my illness. And so, yeah, it's like being very intentional with what you need. And we go in and out of being a caterpillar and being a butterfly, don't we? You know, but at the heart of all of this, I've got to say, I always need a bit of solitude. And so for someone who's listening right now who might be really afraid to spend more time alone, what do you think that fear is really about?

50:40Emma Gannon:It's the same reason why maybe we're scared to put down the alcohol in the evenings or, I don't know, sit in a room and think about something. I think there's a quote that's like, every person's problem stems from being unable to sit alone in a room. The quote is actually from the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. So it's like, for all the reasons we're on our phones for like 14 hours a day, it's the same thing. Like we don't want to be alone with our thoughts. I would assume it's because there's something that's not quite right.

51:20Emma Gannon:And if we stop, we have to confront what that thing is. whether that's that your marriage is falling apart or that you hate your job or you don't like your life. I mean, it's easier to plug the gap, isn't it, than go and sit by yourself and figure out what's going on. And I don't blame anyone for that. The first time you do it, in part because taking this time to be alone can cause you to notice all the stuff that you've been avoiding. It can be very uncomfortable. And so any advice for kind of getting over that hump so that you can get to enjoying it more? I mean, I don't think it needs to be this whole, like, I'm going to be a Buddhist monk for the weekend and only be with myself and my thoughts.

52:03Emma Gannon:No, I don't want to do that. That's too much. I start the day with my morning pages, which is like the Julia Cameron thing of journaling, writing three pages out. And honestly, if I do that in the morning, I'm kind of done with the introspection. I don't need to spend all day kind of, you know, meditating or whatever. It's not an exam that you need to pass. And I think it's too daunting sometimes to have to be with our thoughts all the time. Solitude for me is about pleasure and enjoyment and joy. Enjoy it and celebrate it and take up space, even if you're on your own. Loneliness can be painful, especially when it's chronic and leaves us feeling disconnected, both from other people and from ourselves.

52:44but loneliness can also be a totally normal and totally temporary feeling one that signals the need for change or an opportunity for growth and that is the logic behind this week's happiness hot take we need to rethink how we talk about loneliness and we need to fight our urge to treat solitude as something suspicious that way we can enjoy the benefits of social connection while also making room for time alone a skill that many of us never learn to practice but one that can help us regulate our emotions, reconnect with ourselves, spark creativity, and even strengthen our relationships. Next week, we'll wrap up our Happiness Hot Take series with one final ever-so-hot Happiness Hot Take.

53:26We should all bother each other a little more often. I'm going to try to borrow$100 from a stranger. Excuse me, do you think I'll borrow$100 from you? That's next week on Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

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54:22Emma Gannon:Have you ever brought your magic to Walt Disney World like, hey, we came to play? Did you tip your tiara to a Creole princess or get goofy officially? Step up like a boss and save the day? or see what life's like under the tree of light? Did you? If you could. Would you? When we come through, it's true magic. Because we came to play. Bring the magic at Walt Disney World Resort.

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