essay on solitude vs loneliness

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Solitude is not loneliness. Here’s the key philosophical difference.

• Arthur Schopenhauer believed that solitude was an opportunity for introspection, imagination, and contemplation with yourself.
• Research shows that solitude of this kind allows us to be more creative. But, in a the busy world of today, do we ever let ourselves be solitary?
• Loneliness is different from solitude. For many people, being alone is a scary and dangerous place. That’s why knowing the difference between solitude and loneliness is important.

You don’t have to be alone to feel lonely. Imagine there are two people sitting in the same busy café. One can feel quite contended, listening to music, tapping out an email, and people-watching between sips of coffee. The other can feel crushingly lonely, aware of how much they lack someone to share the moment with. This person watches the world not as some spectacle, but with a pining, longing ache.

There is a difference between loneliness and solitude , and both are highly complicated feelings. In any given day, we all have to spend a lot of time with only ourselves, inside of our head. That’s a normal part of life. But when does that become loneliness?

Spending time with myself

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is sometimes called the pessimistic philosopher, because he argued that “life swings like a pendulum between pain and boredom.” Inspired by reading the Hindu text called the Upanishads, he believed that the source of all life’s misery comes from our ceaseless and relentless desire. To be lonely, then, is to desire an absent want. It is to feel an emptiness that remains unsatisfied — to feel isolated, in need, or abandoned, but with no one to help.

Yet solitude is another thing altogether. To be solitary is to retreat into yourself, and to take great pleasure in your own company. When we’re solitary we reach into a communion with the self, and we can think as freely, and be as honest, as we like. It’s only when we are cut off from all other distractions, and other people, that we have the space to meditate on life, and to discover great things.

Schopenhauer knew, though, that not everyone does or can feel this way. We’re all lonely at times. In the busiest of cities, or on the quietest of walks, we can be painfully aware of a lack in our lives. Loneliness is looking at a hole. It’s the feeling of absence. What Schopenhauer offers is a change in perspective. Being inside our heads is an opportunity to spend time with ourselves. It’s a place of freedom and honesty, where our thoughts can go wherever we want. We can teleport ourselves to some magical world, relive a happy memory, or philosophize on reality.

It’s a blessing to talk to yourself, and you might be surprised by what you learn.

Space to think

In the busy bustle of our lives, there is very little opportunity to embrace the kind of solitude Schopenhauer celebrates. Every dull or quiet moment is ruthlessly jammed with stimulation. We cannot wait for a bus, go to the toilet, or wait in line without the twitching need to do something. The quiet, solitary moments are filled with noise, lest we spend too much time with ourselves.

And Schopenhauer is right to say we lose something in this. According to research done by Bowker et al., the conscious and deliberate withdraw from social interaction (solitude, not loneliness) is linked with increased creativity. As Bowker puts it, “During childhood and adolescence, the idea is that if you’re removing yourself too much from your peers, then you’re missing out…[and] there has been such an emphasis on the negative effects of avoiding and withdrawing from peers.”

We are taught from a young age that sociability is good, that the crowd is happiness, and that belonging and fulfillment comes from relationships.

There is, of course, a lot of truth to this. But what being in company gives us in one area, it deprives us in another. When we take time to ourselves, we give ourselves space to imagine. When our mind is not constantly bombarded with content, it can create .

Michael Harris puts it well in his Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World, in which he writes, “Until recently, there were still moments in the day when the busyness abated and life’s pace decelerated. You would find yourself alone, separated from friends and colleagues, and you would be thrown back on your own resources, your own thoughts. Such interludes could provoke feelings of loneliness and boredom. Yet they also provided opportunities to tap into ideas, perceptions, and emotions inaccessible to the social self.”

When solitude is a problem

For a lot of people, there is no such thing as the solitude Schopenhauer, Harris, and Bowker describe. For these people, being alone is terrifying and terrible. While solitude might sometimes be necessary for creativity, loneliness can often be the dark and fertile ground to depression. Samuel Johnson, the literary giant and depressive, found much to fear in the quiet absence of loneliness. His best advice for those of a similarly melancholy disposition was, “If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.” (This quotation I first came across in the wonderful book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon.)

The balance between solitude and loneliness is a knife’s edge. There is no sure-fire way to tell the two apart. Solitude is often a chosen state, while loneliness is forced. But even this is complicated by depression. The chosen withdrawal from company and relationships is a classic red flag for depression. Decisions born of mental illnesses might be “chosen,” yet are no better for it. Ultimately, the only way to tell solitude from loneliness is to examine your most private self. Some people might be able to do this on the power of their own introspection, but others need help. Conversation, with friends, family, or a therapist, is what turns the spotlight on the self. It’s under this light that we can see just how far we really flourish being alone.

Jonny Thomson runs a popular Instagram account called Mini Philosophy (@ philosophyminis ). His first book is  Mini Philosophy: A Small Book of Big Ideas .

Solitude Vs. Loneliness: How To Be Alone Without Feeling Lonely

My will was so much stronger than I had ever imagined. My confidence grew from this experience, serving as a reminder that I can, and will, be okay alone.

During the coronavirus lockdown, for instance, I worked in front of a computer all day long. I had no interaction with anyone and it was as isolating and lonely as those retreats were — if not more — for different reasons.

Let’s explore how solitude, loneliness, and isolation relate to each other, and how you can cope with unwanted feelings of loneliness and solitude.

What Is The Difference Between Solitude, Loneliness, And Isolation?

Loneliness, solitude, and isolation may seem very similar to one another, but they are not identical.

The Pros And Cons Of Solitude

Or, we may transition from feeling very excited (a positive high arousal state) to being lonely or bored (a negative low arousal state).

It is also common to have feelings of inadequacy (“I’m not enough”) , low self-esteem, and self-loathing when dealing with chronic loneliness.

Why Is Solitude Important And Who Benefits From It?

While generally understood as meaning that one has to be physically isolated from others, solitude doesn’t have to be so drastic.

Trust me — you will not be the same once your inner voice is speaking louder than all the noise that surrounds you on your journey toward embracing solitude.

How To Be Solitary Without Being Lonely

According to loneliness expert, Dr. Holt-Lunstad, the quality and quantity of our relationships directly impact how lonely we feel.

And that was odd for me because I genuinely enjoyed being around people.

If your answer to any of these questions is “no,” take steps to ensure that your solitude originates from a real desire to spend time alone and is not just a way to avoid engaging with others.

Rather, productive solitude is “ a deeper internal process ” that can sometimes be excruciating to go through and one that takes time to become a pleasant source of self-knowledge.

I turn off all the outside noise — phones, laptops, notifications — all of it.

As you get more practice with the ritual of morning solitude, you can increase the amount of time and adjust your activities accordingly.

You can be alone without being lonely, but you shouldn’t use solitude as a way of avoiding meaningful connections with other people.

How To Get Help With Feelings Of Loneliness

People who have lived in extreme isolation and loneliness have lived to tell the tale and there are ways to manage feelings of loneliness.

On top of that, my close friends were busy with their own lives and so whenever I felt lonely, I would self-isolate, using that time to read, write or watch YouTube or Netflix.

After the first two weeks of awkwardness, it was amazing! I felt very connected to the people there, even though we were all very different.

What’s more, is that simply incorporating a few hours of improv into my week spilled over onto my job.

I would strongly suggest that you take steps to volunteer or pursue a hobby where you can meet people who share similar passions, even if those steps are hard or awkward.

When I was working as a freelancer, I remember going through intense bouts of loneliness.

So I started speaking to a therapist over the phone and that made a big difference: just having someone to talk to, helped me navigate a lot of what I was feeling.

That meant that I needed to try harder to connect with myself through mindfulness and physical exercise while pushing myself to connect with others and tell them how I was feeling.

One way of easing yourself into it is to find a support group where others can support you in your journey to where you want to be.

When you feel ready to do so, you can begin sharing your own experiences. And from there, when you can, try meeting people in real life.

Working from home, I tended to remain indoors in front of my computer from the minute I woke up.

Elevating endorphins and serotonin can do wonders for improving your mood and making you feel more positive.

Closing Thoughts

Being in solitude doesn’t mean embracing a life full of isolation, loneliness, or depression .

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If you’re struggling with loneliness from solitude, we’ve put together resources to meet you wherever you are — whether you want someone to talk to right now, or are looking for longer-term ways to help ease your loneliness.

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Solitude vs. Loneliness: Understanding the Difference

In our hyperconnected age, where social media, digital communication, and a never-ending stream of information often blur the boundaries of our personal space, understanding the nuances between solitude and loneliness becomes more crucial than ever. The prevailing culture of ‘always-on’ can exacerbate feelings of loneliness when we’re alone and ironically, even when we’re among others. At the same time, the fear of missing out may deter us from experiencing the fruitful tranquillity that solitude can offer.

By unpacking the true meanings and implications of solitude and loneliness, we can reassess our relationship with ourselves and the world around us. This deeper understanding allows us to appreciate solitude as a means of self-exploration and introspection rather than a state of unwanted isolation. It also helps us recognize when feelings of loneliness are a signal that we need to seek more meaningful connections with others, rather than just more interaction.

Defining Solitude and Loneliness

Solitude, in its purest form, is a conscious choice, a purposeful extraction of oneself from the clamor of communal living to enjoy the tranquility of one’s own company. It is often pursued by those who crave an escape from the sensory overload that can accompany social interaction, desiring instead the soothing whisper of solitude.

The act of choosing solitude is an act of self-care. Let’s consider some of the reasons why:

• Solitude allows for the internal processing of thoughts and emotions that can often get swept aside in the rush of daily life.
• This mental and emotional decluttering can lead to greater clarity and understanding of oneself.
• In the stillness of solitude, individuals can dive deep into their thoughts and feelings, undisturbed by external stimuli.
• Such introspection can facilitate a more profound self-awareness, nurturing personal growth, and self-understanding.
• Solitude provides the fertile ground needed for the seeds of creativity to flourish, often resulting in rich and diverse intellectual and artistic outputs.

While solitude is a state of intentional aloneness, loneliness is a state of emotional distress arising from a sense of isolation, whether real or perceived. It’s an uninvited guest, a feeling of being alone not by choice but by circumstance, that can intrude at any time.

Unlike solitude, loneliness carries with it a profound sense of dissatisfaction and longing. It entails more than just physical isolation, and is defined by several key aspects:

• Loneliness is about feeling emotionally disconnected and unseen, even in a crowd. It’s akin to feeling adrift in a sea of people, yearning for a connection that seems just out of reach.
• It often surfaces from the perceived discrepancy between our desired level of social interaction and what we actually experience. When we feel that our need for meaningful connection is unfulfilled, the shadow of loneliness begins to creep in.
• Loneliness emphasizes the absence of significant relationships or the lack of depth in existing ones, leading to feelings of isolation and disconnection.
• It is not a one-size-fits-all emotion. Loneliness can vary from a transient feeling of melancholy to a chronic, crippling condition affecting one’s mental and physical health.
• It can manifest as a general sense of unease, a feeling of being misunderstood, or a profound sense of emptiness and abandonment.

The Impact of Solitude and Loneliness

The positive influence of solitude.

The positive influence of solitude on mental health is well documented. It creates a quiet, private space in which individuals can take a step back from the demands of everyday life and engage in deep self-reflection. This allows introverts and highly sensitive individuals, in particular, to regain energy that might be depleted by too much social interaction.

Cultivating Self-Awareness

A key benefit of solitude is its potential to foster self-awareness. In our noisy, fast-paced world, it can be challenging to find the time and space to introspect. In solitude, however, one can disconnect from external distractions and connect deeply with oneself.

This process of introspection is instrumental in understanding one’s thoughts, feelings, motivations, and behaviors. Self-awareness, in turn, can lead to greater emotional intelligence, better decision-making, improved relationships, and overall increased life satisfaction.

Inspiring Creativity

Another powerful influence of solitude is its impact on creativity. When we remove ourselves from the constant input and stimulation of others, our minds are free to wander, explore, and generate new ideas. This form of uninterrupted, free-flowing thought can spark creativity and innovation, as it allows us to think outside the box and approach problems from fresh perspectives.

In fact, many great minds throughout history, from artists and writers to scientists and philosophers, have praised solitude as a key ingredient in their creative process. Isaac Newton developed his theories of gravity during a period of solitude when the plague closed the University of Cambridge, and Albert Einstein famously stated, “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”

Facilitating Spiritual Growth

The positive effects of solitude extend beyond the realm of self-awareness and creativity. It can also foster spiritual growth and inner peace, providing the quiet needed for meditation, prayer, or other spiritual practices. Many religious and spiritual traditions across the world embrace solitude as a means to deepen one’s spiritual connection and enhance personal growth.

Related article: What Happens When An Introvert Oversocializes?

The Detrimental Effects of Loneliness

While loneliness can occasionally serve as a signal to seek out social connection, its chronic form can have profound detrimental effects on both mental and physical health.

From a psychological standpoint, chronic loneliness is often linked to mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety. Feeling persistently disconnected from others can lead to a negative spiral of emotions, causing feelings of sadness and hopelessness that characterize depression. Anxiety, on the other hand, can be fueled by the worry and fear often accompanying feelings of loneliness.

Negative Self-Perception and Low Self-Esteem

Loneliness is also associated with a decrease in self-esteem and an increase in negative self-perception. It can lead to feelings of unworthiness, perpetuating a vicious cycle of social withdrawal and further isolation. Over time, this can result in a compromised sense of well-being and a lower quality of life.

Physical Health Impacts

Beyond the mental health implications, chronic loneliness can also take a toll on physical health. Research has linked prolonged loneliness to a weakened immune system, making individuals more susceptible to a variety of illnesses. It has also been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, as the stress of chronic loneliness can contribute to inflammation and high blood pressure.

Disrupted Sleep Patterns

Additionally, studies have suggested that individuals experiencing chronic loneliness may have disrupted sleep patterns, leading to insomnia or poor-quality sleep. This lack of restorative sleep can, in turn, contribute to a myriad of health problems, including fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and a higher risk of heart disease and stroke.

Accelerated Aging Process

Recent research even suggests that loneliness can accelerate the aging process. Lonely individuals may experience a higher rate of decline in physical mobility and a decrease in overall health over time compared to their more socially connected peers.

Chronic Loneliness

The adverse effects of chronic loneliness underscore the importance of maintaining meaningful social connections and seeking help when feelings of loneliness become overwhelming. The first step towards addressing loneliness is recognizing it as a valid emotional experience that requires attention and care. From there, one can begin to explore various strategies to alleviate these feelings and cultivate healthier social interactions.

Turning Loneliness into Solitude

While loneliness can be harmful, it’s crucial to remember that we have the power to transform it into solitude. Here’s how:

• Self-Acceptance : Learn to enjoy your own company. Embrace who you are, with all your strengths and weaknesses. This acceptance can turn lonely moments into peaceful solitude.
• Mindfulness : Practice mindfulness to stay present and engaged in the current moment. This can help you find joy and contentment in your alone time.
• Find Your Interests : Discover activities that you enjoy doing alone. This could be reading, painting, meditating, gardening, or even taking long walks. Engaging in these activities can make solitude a fulfilling experience.
• Connect Meaningfully with Others : Make sure to maintain meaningful relationships even while enjoying your solitude. Healthy relationships can reduce feelings of loneliness and enrich your life.

From Loneliness to Self-Discovery

In our journey from loneliness to self-discovery, the introspective nature of solitude can serve as a powerful tool for personal growth. It invites us to confront and explore our innermost thoughts and feelings, laying the groundwork for a deeper understanding of ourselves. As we traverse the pathways of our minds in solitude, we learn to appreciate our unique perspectives and experiences.

We begin to recognize our strengths and weaknesses, our passions and fears, our dreams and aspirations. This self-discovery process can enhance our emotional intelligence, resilience, and adaptability, enriching our relationships and interactions. Therefore, solitude not only helps us overcome loneliness but also paves the way for self-acceptance, self-improvement, and ultimately, self-love.

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Solitude vs Loneliness: What’s the Difference?

• Fact Checked

Written by:

• Neda Shamsdiba

published on:

• December 21, 2023

Updated on:

• June 12, 2024

Looking for a therapist?

There’s a huge stigma around being alone.

Society tells the story that doing things alone—that eating out alone, that traveling alone, that being single—is directly associated with sadness, strangeness, and wrongness.

But what if I told you that you could spend time alone and be completely happy? There’s a big difference between solitude and loneliness.

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One can be beneficial to all aspects of your life, and the other could kill you.

So what’s the difference?

What’s Loneliness?

Loneliness is a negative state of being alone. It’s usually characterized by the feeling that something is missing or wrong.

It’s being alone, and not liking it.

Loneliness can stem from not being comfortable with yourself or from feeling like you’re an outcast or don’t belong, and it can be unbearable.

And it’s a common feeling.

Even as our world grows smaller and smaller with the increased connectivity of the internet and social media, the world becomes more lonely. A recent study found that almost half of the 20,000 Americans surveyed  reported sometimes or always feeling lonely.

So what’s the big deal with feeling a little lonely?

Well, researchers say that loneliness can be so bad that it’s a predictor of premature death .

But, that doesn’t mean everyone who is alone is miserable and fated for an early death.

This is where the difference between loneliness and solitude comes into play.

What’s Solitude?

While loneliness is an awful feeling, solitude is a choice.

It’s being alone, and being happy about it.

While loneliness is so bad that researchers find it a more significant health threat than obesity ; solitude has immense benefits.

Among other things, solitude increases self-awareness, boosts creativity , reduces stress, and promotes relaxation .

So how do you move from loneliness into solitude?

How to go From Loneliness to Solitude

I used to hate being alone, especially the idea of doing things in public alone, like going out to eat.

So I always surrounded myself with people.

A year ago, I spent six months in a new state and then one month in a new country where I knew no one but my boyfriend.

And while we spent most of our time together, I started experiencing being alone.

At first, it was sad and weird – I was feeling lonely. But after some adjustments, I couldn’t believe I had missed out on solitude for so long.

Now, I love the moments (that grow rarer and rarer) where I get to be completely alone.

You can make this shift and reap the benefits yourself. Here’s how:

1. Connect With Nature

One of the ultimate cures of loneliness is spending time in nature.

Whether you’re embracing being alone or are having a day when your friends and family aren’t around, stepping out into nature will melt away any loneliness and turn it into solitude.

You can even choose an outdoor space that others frequent, like a hiking trail or dog park for a little social interaction.

It’s a lot harder to feel lonely when you’re immersed in the beauty of nature, and if you feel weird about venturing on public activities alone, nature is a great place to start. Not that it matters, but as far as social stigmas go solo walks or hikes are pretty “normal.”

Plus, spending time in nature leads to better overall health . It reduces stress, and the risks of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, premature death, preterm birth, and high blood pressure, among other benefits.

2. Do What You Love

When you’re with other people, often what you can do is restricted.

Don’t get me wrong, having other people in your life and doing things with them is important too, but more on that later.

The point is when you have time alone you can quickly shrug off the feeling of loneliness by filling your time with activities you love – things that make you happy.

Read a book, cook your favorite meals, paint, listen to inspiring podcasts or Ted Talks, practice your favorite self-care rituals, etc.

Doing what you love will quickly turn loneliness into solitude, and leave you cherishing your time spent alone. Plus, time really does pass by faster when you’re having fun.

And if you have loads of alone time on your hands and need a change, learn something new.

Find a new hobby , learn a new language, start or grow a side hustle.

3. Change Your Mindset

Positive thoughts are powerful. I know it’s easy to roll your eyes at that and shrug it off as some overly spiritual self-help.

But just put your skepticism aside for a second, because even scientific research backs it up.

Positive thoughts have been proven to reduce anxiety  and the risk of premature death .

So the next time you feel loneliness creep in, change your thoughts.

Instead of “I’m lonely because no one gets me” or “there must be something wrong with me” think “I’m choosing to be alone” or “I’m spending time with myself because I’m great company.”

And, if being alone isn’t a choice right now, remind yourself that it’s not infinite. There are over 7 billion people in the world, and you will find your tribe, and your aloneness will not be permanent.

4. Spend Time Alone…Like Really Alone

When you’re alone, are you actually alone? Or are you scrolling through your social media feeds and viewing everyone’s Instagram stories?

Heavy use of social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat can result in greater feelings of social isolation .

So when you find yourself alone, whether intentionally or not, disconnect from social media and take the time to be alone and connect with yourself.

5. Embrace the Silence…Eventually

One of the most significant benefits of solitude is increased self-awareness, and in many ways, this comes from embracing silence.

I know – silence can be awkward. But when you’re fully connected and comfortable with yourself, there’s nothing weird about silence.

Fully embracing silence takes time. If the idea of a 30-minute silent meditation sounds impossible, the good news is you can start small and eventually embracing silence will become second nature.

So start small and do one thing every day in silence. It can be just a few minutes of drinking your morning coffee or tea in quiet reflection or ditching your headphones on your next hike.

A Balancing Act

I’ve focused a lot on the power of solitude in this article – because it’s a big deal. You are important, so you should know how to spend time with just you and enjoy it – how to be in solitude and not loneliness.

But as with all things in life, it’s about balance.

Connecting with other people is part of a healthy and fulfilled life too.

Research in blue zones, the areas where people live much longer than average, has found that what these people do better than the rest of us – is socializing (real-life socializing).

Psychologists Susan Pinker visited one of these areas, and in her Ted Talk, she explains the fascinating impact that socialization can have on living to 100 and beyond.

If you live a life of solitude – for example living alone, this doesn’t mean you have to rush out and find a roommate. But taking the time out to visit your local coffee shop or joining an exercise class can provide a dose of healthy socializing.

Making Loneliness a Thing of The Past

Everyone who has been alive has felt loneliness at least once, but this feeling doesn’t have to be the norm. Through connecting with yourself and understanding solitude, you never have to linger in the feeling of loneliness again.

The tips in this article will have you well on your way to the joys of solitude, and leaving the pain of loneliness in the past.

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Solitude and Loneliness: 6 Ways to Understand the Difference

Do you ever feel like no one understands you? Do you find yourself longing for the comfort of companionship, yet shying away from social interaction? You’re not alone. In this blog post, we’ll explore solitude and loneliness. What they are, why they happen, and how to make peace with them in order to live a more fulfilling life.

What is Solitude?

Solitude can be a powerful and transformative experience. It allows us to take a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. To step away from external distractions and reconnect with our inner selves. It can be used as an opportunity for self-reflection, introspection, and personal exploration. Solitude provides insights into who we are and how we can better understand ourselves. Through solitude, we can uncover greater levels of creativity and personal growth . Intentionally finding yourself in seclusion or isolation is a great way to gain perspective and learn more about yourself. 

What is Loneliness?

Loneliness can be a deeply distressing emotion, often characterized by feelings of isolation and disconnection from the world around us. It is an experience that arises when we feel there is a discrepancy between the quality and quantity of social relationships we have compared to what we desire. Such feelings can be experienced even when surrounded by people, emphasizing the subjective nature of loneliness. When feelings of loneliness persist, they can lead to sadness, emptiness, and a sense of not being understood or valued by others.

Solitude vs Loneliness

Exploring the difference between solitude and loneliness is crucial for several reasons:

1. Mental Well-Being

Being alone can be a great opportunity for self-reflection and creative growth. But it’s essential to recognize the difference between solitude and loneliness. When we embrace our solitude with the right attitude, it can become a powerful source of renewal and personal discovery. It allows us to gain clarity over our emotions and strengthen our mental resilience. On the other hand, failing to recognize loneliness and its impact can lead to prolonged negative emotions. It can damage your mental health and potentially contribute to depression or anxiety. With an understanding of the difference between these two experiences, you can learn how to better manage your mental well-being. 

2. Self-Awareness

By understanding the differences between feelings of solitude and loneliness, individuals can increase their self-knowledge and awareness. When in solitude, individuals are able to engage in healthy self-reflection and reflection on life’s experiences without external distractions. In contrast, loneliness is often caused by the unfulfilled need for meaningful human relationships. Through recognizing the contrast between these two states, individuals can make conscious decisions about their social life and emotional well-being. 

3. Social Connections

We need to learn the nuances between solitude and loneliness. This can help us find a better equilibrium between our need for personal time and time spent with others. This can also foster more meaningful relationships. Solitude is essential for self-reflection, growth, and renewal. Allowing loneliness to become prolonged can cause serious mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. We need to recognize when to seek solitude and when to reach out. This is so that we can create a balance between alone time and socializing that leads to healthier relationships. .

4. Personal Growth

Exploring moments of solitude can be a profound and valuable experience. It can help us understand ourselves better and bring forth our inner creativity. Taking time to reflect on life experiences, brainstorm ideas, or simply enjoy peace and quiet are just some ways to make the most of solitude. On the other hand, we need to recognize that loneliness is a part of life. Understanding how to address it can help us build stronger support networks and cope with emotional distress. By embracing solitude positively, we can learn more about ourselves and discover new paths of personal growth and development. 

5. Emotional Resilience

Knowing the difference between solitude and loneliness is essential for cultivating emotional resilience. Solitude can be liberating and loneliness can be difficult. To be able to see that helps us to manage life’s twists and turns more effectively. By recognizing the distinction between beneficial moments of being alone and malignant isolation, we are better equipped to tackle these situations head on. Take the time to understand the difference between solitude and loneliness. This can help us create a stronger emotional foundation for facing life’s uncertainties. 

6. Quality of Life

By exploring the nuanced difference between loneliness and solitude, individuals can benefit greatly in terms of their overall quality of life. Learn to accept being alone without feeling isolated or scared of being judged for feeling lonely. Only then can we begin to lead a balanced, more meaningful, and enjoyable existence. Taking the time to recognize and understand the difference between loneliness and solitude can be an incredibly powerful tool to achieving a greater level of happiness. 

The Influence of Technology on Solitude and Loneliness

Technology has had an immense impact on loneliness and solitude. It profoundly influences how people perceive and live with being alone and connecting with others. For some, it is a positive shift that has opened up new possibilities for communication digitally or virtually. Whereas for others, it can be detrimental to mental health due to feelings of isolation or lack of human contact. No matter the experience, technology has undeniably changed the way we interact and manage our lives when alone. 

Increased Connectivity

Technology, particularly modern social media and messaging applications, has enabled us to keep in touch with our loved ones from the comfort of our own homes. This heightened connectivity helps to alleviate loneliness and feelings of isolation. However, it can also be tricky to determine when we should take time for ourselves and enjoy a moment of peaceful solitude. Finding the balance between social interaction and personal time can be a challenge. With a few small changes, though, it’s possible to make sure you get enough quality alone time. 

Social Media and Loneliness

Social media has been linked to a surge in loneliness and social disconnection. Seeing other people’s seemingly perfect lives on platforms like Instagram can lead to feelings of inferiority and comparison, thus exacerbating one’s own isolation. While social media offers the potential for connection, it can also have a damaging effect when used too excessively. 

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

The fear of missing out ( FOMO ) has been exacerbated by technology and social media. When people observe their peers engaging in fun activities or attending exciting events posted on the internet, it can invoke disheartening emotions of loneliness and feeling left out. This can happen even if the person is consciously deciding to stay away. This can be a challenging struggle to overcome. 

Digital Disconnection

Excessive technology usage can lead to a breakdown in meaningful human connection. With more and more interactions happening over screens, people are losing the opportunity to build relationships with deep understanding and empathy. As reliance on devices increases, there is a risk of losing out on the benefits of face-to-face communication, such as reading body language and picking up on subtle nuances. It is important to remember to unplug and reconnect with the real world in order to foster meaningful relationships. 

Online Communities

Technology has opened up a world of possibilities for people to come together in online social networks and virtual support systems. This has been hugely beneficial to those with highly specific interests or needs, enabling them to find like-minded individuals in far flung places. However, it can also lead to an overreliance on virtual connections, leaving individuals feeling more isolated and alone than ever before. 

Internet Addiction

The overreliance on technology and the internet can quickly spiral into addiction, bringing about serious repercussions such as social isolation, an erosion of real-world relationships, and a greater sense of loneliness. Prolonged and unchecked engagement with digital activities can lead to an unhealthy detachment from reality, leading to a disruption in natural routines and an overall decline in mental health. 

Impaired Communication Skills

The overreliance on digital communication can have a detrimental effect on someone’s ability to build meaningful relationships in person, as it might prevent them from developing the important interpersonal skills necessary for human connection. The lack of practice engaging with people face-to-face can leave individuals feeling unable to effectively navigate social situations and struggle to form lasting bonds. 

Digital Detox

The increasing presence of technology has had a profound effect on our individual feelings of solitude and loneliness. In response, individuals are taking steps to break away from the screens that surround us and invest in meaningful relationships, activities, and experiences that can satisfy our innate need for genuine solitude. By accepting digital detox challenges and engaging in activities that can help us reconnect with ourselves and our environment, we are becoming more conscious about how we use technology in our lives. This shift is us building a healthier relationship with technology while also allowing us to foster meaningful relationships and experiences that provide true solace. 

Strategies for Disconnecting to Reconnect with Oneself

You can have a great experience by taking some time away from technology and reconnecting with yourself. It can help you with mindfulness, thinking about yourself, and growing as a person. Finding the right balance between using technology and disconnecting is different for everyone. Try these tips to see what works best for you to get back in touch with yourself and have a better relationship with tech.

Set Boundaries

Set limits on how much time you use technology each day. Create “tech-free” zones or hours, like when you eat or before you go to bed. That way, you can have some time without technology and think about things by yourself.

Unplug Devices

Turn off notifications on your devices, or put them on silent mode. Use an alarm clock instead of your phone to avoid extra time looking at a screen.

Digital Detox Days

Take regular breaks from technology. Use these breaks to do activities that will help you relax, like reading, writing in a journal, or spending time outdoors. This will help you be more mindful and get to know yourself better.

Practice Mindful Awareness

Be aware of why you are using technology. Don’t get lost in mindlessly scrolling through social media and focus on using technology for specific purposes or tasks.

Establish Tech-Free Rituals

Create daily rituals that don’t involve technology, like meditating in the morning, taking an evening stroll or doing some mindful breathing exercises. These can help you stay connected to yourself without any distractions.

Cultivate Hobbies and Interests

Try out fun activities that do not involve technology, like painting, gardening, playing a musical instrument, or cooking. These things will help you express yourself and relax.

Connect with Nature

Reconnect with yourself and nature by spending time outdoors. Go for a hike, camp out, or just take a stroll in the park. These activities can help you to feel refreshed and connected again.

Prioritize Real-Life Connections

Nurture your relationships with friends and family. Plan activities or get-togethers that help you have meaningful conversations and make strong connections.

Closing Thoughts

Exploring solitude and loneliness can help you understand the effects they have on your life. If you embrace solitude with intention and mindfulness, it can become a place to grow, discover yourself, and be creative. Diving deep into your thoughts and feelings will give you a better understanding of yourself. Loneliness shows us how important it is to connect with others. It encourages us to form meaningful relationships with people around us, teaching us empathy, compassion, and belonging. Being vulnerable helps build stronger connections with other people in our lives which brings love and shared experiences.

It’s important to understand that you can have both moments of time alone and meaningful relationships with others. These two things don’t have to be one or the other, but instead work together in harmony for your emotional health. In our always-connected world, it can be hard to find this balance between solitude and social connection. Technology and virtual connections can make it difficult for us to remember how great real moments of solitude are and how strong genuine relationships are. So, let’s take a step back from technology every now and then, enjoy the present moment, and appreciate real connections with people around us.

As we explore our life’s journey, let’s remember to appreciate both our alone time and the relationships we have with others. Doing this allows us to value our uniqueness while cherishing the connections that make up humanity. When solitude and social connection are balanced in harmony, they become the basis for a more meaningful and rewarding life.

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Abiding Loneliness: An Existential Perspective On Loneliness

By Michele A. Carter

Note: The following essay was published by the Park Ridge Center for Health, Faith, And Ethics ( www.parkridgecenter.org ) in 2003.

Loneliness is a condition of human life, an experience of being human which enables the individual to sustain, extend, and deepen his humanity. Loneliness is within life itself. [1]

Throughout history, accounts of loneliness appear in the writings of poets, novelists, theologians, and philosophers. Loneliness, whether a state of being alone, feeling lonely, or experiencing solitude, is portrayed as an essential aspect of human existence, an inescapable fact of life. Loneliness is depicted as one of the most profound and disturbing of human experiences, often resonating with the more contemplative or spiritual aspects of our being.

Like suffering, existential loneliness is a spiritual phenomenon that may be conceived of in either positive or negative terms. It may be inherently valuable, a source of creativity and a means of reconciliation and revelation, particularly for patients with terminal illness. The purposeful and therapeutic engagement of the patient's experience of existential loneliness can deepen our understanding of human need and of the moral responses appropriate to it, paving the way for a more meaningful experience of life and death.

Here I describe existential loneliness from three distinct frames of reference: philosophy, literature, and clinical care, and suggest that the more common approaches to the "treatment" of loneliness are insufficient. I briefly summarize some of the social science literature that depicts loneliness as abnormal and destructive, a condition requiring remedial measures.

Writing about the existential dimensions of illness is fraught with difficulties. First, the term existentialism is usually associated with abstract, philosophical notions that are believed to have little use in the concrete, science-based, and decision-oriented culture of health care. The latter half of the twentieth century was marked by an unprecedented proliferation of advances in scientific and medical achievements. In the effort to eradicate human disease we have amassed considerable scientific knowledge and medical technology. And yet, as the discourse of progress infiltrates our social practices, personal relationships, and healing institutions, something important to our humanity seems unutterably lost. Many contemporary writers decry the spiritual emptiness, violence, and impoverishment of meaning so evident in these postmodern times. Indeed, in a generation so estranged from the inner domain of the soul that many argue it simply does not exist, the implausible effort by some to "quantify the heart's agony and ecstasy" [2] leaves us lonely, disengaged from our deeper selves. The quest for authentic existence and the search for meaning intrinsic to the existential mode of being certainly seem at odds with an American view of the pursuit of happiness, wealth, and leisure as the highest good.

There is a second reason why it is difficult to talk about existential concepts in the health care arena. If and when existential ideas of doctoring or nursing are discussed in teaching programs or with patients and families, they inevitably provoke questions about vulnerability, angst, anxiety, emptiness, and the search for meaning. For health care professionals trained to be objective, to solve concrete problems, to follow a plan of care toward a particular end, and above all to do no harm, existentialism can be an unwelcome and alien concept. And yet, how many of the corridors of hospitals and clinics are filled with people, patients and practitioners alike, whose genuine sickness is despair, loss of meaning, and loneliness-one treatment for which lies buried deep in our shared humanity? For some patients, even those committed to the spiritual discipline of solitude, illness can disrupt one's faith and provoke new forms of isolation and aloneness not previously experienced. For others, patients and caregivers alike, the very idea that loneliness could be a path to our shared humanity and thus a moral good is simply too vague, threatening, and unacceptable.

Selective Review of the Empirical Literature on Loneliness

Loneliness has been variously interpreted. Most health care providers have sociological and psychodynamic views. Psychologist R.S. Weiss defines loneliness as a response to the absence of a particular type of relationship or attachment. [3] There are two types: emotional loneliness and social loneliness. Emotional loneliness occurs in the loss or absence of a close attachment figure, such as a spouse or partner. Social loneliness refers to isolation one feels when there is an absence of an engaging social network. Similarly, K.S. Rook defines loneliness as "an enduring condition of an emotional state that arises when a person feels estranged from, is misunderstood or rejected by, and/or lacks appropriate social partners for a desired activity, particularly activities that provide a sense of social integration and opportunities for emotional intimacy." [4]

Scholars in psychology, sociology, nursing, and social science have tracked the prevalence of loneliness in American life, with estimates ranging from 8.4% to 10% in childhood [5] to 25% among adults in 1969. [6] Loneliness is particularly troublesome for such disparate groups as single adolescent mothers with low incomes, alcoholics, freshman college students, divorced and widowed adults, and the elderly. It is inversely related to measures of self-esteem and strongly associated with anxiety, depression, interpersonal hostility, substance abuse, suicide, health problems [7] , and eating disorders. [8] Clearly, social loneliness is a subjective and multidimensional state involving emotional distress, social inadequacy, interpersonal isolation, and self-alienation. [9]

Psychodynamic perspectives view loneliness as pathological, resulting usually from problems in interpersonal relationships, or in infant and childhood attachments. Social loneliness has been associated with symptoms seen in neuroses [10] and schizophrenia. [11] Intolerance for being alone was included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders third edition as one of the diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder. [12] In a recent publication on the relationship of loneliness, narcissism, and intimacy, psychoanalyst Shmuel Erlich notes that although descriptive accounts of loneliness are a common phenomenon in clinical psychoanalytic theory and practice, the meaning of loneliness remains "an enigma." [13]

Thus, sociological perspectives are concerned with social and environmental forces that increase or intensify the prevalence of painful feelings associated with being isolated or feeling alienated from others. Psychodynamic perspectives see loneliness as unpleasant and distressing and look to deficits or inadequacies in the character or development of the individual as root causes.

These frameworks reflect a deeply disturbing and paltry account of what the experience of being human calls forth. To regard loneliness as abnormal is to misunderstand its vital purpose in our lives: to discover and accept who we are, and to reconcile ontological claims of human finitude with our needs for personal connection and spiritual transcendence. The existential perspective, on the other hand, regards loneliness as intrinsic to what it means to be human.

The Existential Perspective on Loneliness

Existentialism is a philosophical movement that takes the central question of philosophy to be that of the meaning of human existence. It is regarded by some as a revolt against traditional philosophy and its concern with objectivity, reason, and what Immanuel Kant called the "thing-in-itself." Existentialism cannot be reduced to axioms or principles; it is concerned with people as they consciously experience the phenomena of everyday life-the anxieties, moods, concerns, and choices made possible by human freedom. Existentialism concerns itself with the engagement of the self in the activities and projects of life, including the subjective projects of ascribing meaning or purpose to our actions and pursuits. It deals with questions about how to live authentically, how to confront one's inner life, and how to approach the problem of death. Most forms of existentialism explore the conditions under which human life is ordered and experienced. Existentialism asks what it means "to be" or "to become," and proposes the ontological questions, "Who am I? Why do I exist?" Put another way, why are we? What is the purpose for which we live? What gives life its meaning, value, dynamic force, and rational aim? In its final chapters, or even at this present moment, can I genuinely say of my life that it really matters at all? And finally, what is it that death cannot destroy, to which I contribute something of value that abides and serves every moment of my life? Existentialists do not provide systematic answers to these questions, because the task for each of us is to accept responsibility for who we become-a challenge that provokes a quest for individual meaning and, paradoxically, a desire to connect one's separate existence to the existence of others. This paradox, that each person is, on the one hand, an independent and unique self striving for meaning and purpose in a particular human life, and yet also a relational, social self that depends on others to become more fully human, reflects the universal tension of human co-existence.

Even intensely religious persons ask these questions of themselves. For Søren Kierkegaard, the Christian existentialist, it is not possible to escape being what one is-a finite, temporal, interior self "thoroughly absorbed in the root by which he is connected with the whole." [14] His writings bear witness to the necessity of affirming the integrity of the individual self in the concrete activities and choices of daily existence. For Kierkegaard, human existence manifests in three basic modes or spheres: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. In describing these stages of life, Kierkegaard's concern is to demonstrate the utter subjectivity of human existence, especially in relation to the question of what it means to be a Christian.

The aesthetic sphere of life is marked on the surface by the pursuit of pleasure and materiality but masks a passive alienation and loneliness. In the ethical sphere the individual engages a sense of duty, moral reflection, and choice. For Kierkegaard, the stages of life culminate in the religious sphere, marked by a deliberate leap of faith whereby the gap between the finite and infinite, the immanent and the transcendent is bridged. For Kierkegaard, faith always involves a choice, a daring risk, and a commitment, and the sole antidote to the common experience of despair or loneliness is the courage of faith. Without this leap of faith, the individual remains forever alienated from the ground of his very being. The purposeful confrontation of the despair which constitutes the loneliness of being, becomes a means of revelation and recovery.

Many writers in the Western tradition portray this existential form of loneliness as an unavoidable condition of our humanity. It resides in the innermost being of the self, expanding as each individual becomes aware of and confronts the ultimate experiences of life: change, upheaval, tragedy, joy, the passage of time, and death. Loneliness in this sense is not the same as suffering the loss of a loved one, or a perceived lack of a sense of wholeness or integrity. Further, it is not the unhealthy psychological defense against the threat of being alone, especially if being alone means we must confront the critical questions of life and death. Rather, existential loneliness is a way of being in the world, a way of grasping for and confronting one's own subjective truth. It is the experience of discovering one's own questions regarding human existence, and of confronting the sheer contingencies of the human condition. From an existential perspective, the lonely individual seeks to grasp some meaning in the face of life's impermanence, the angoisse of human freedom, and the inevitability of death. In his beautiful and tragic essay "God's Lonely Man," novelist Thomas Wolfe connects the intense loneliness of his own life to this universal aspect of humanity. He writes:

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence. When we examine the moments, acts, and statements of all kinds of people-not only the grief and ecstasy of the greatest poets, but also the huge unhappiness of the average soul…we find, I think, that they are all suffering from the same thing. The final cause of their complaint is loneliness. [15]

For Wolfe, the experience of loneliness is neither strange nor curious, but "inevitable and right" because it is part of the human heart. Just as the experience of joy is heightened by sorrow, loneliness, "haunted always with the certainty of death," [16] makes like precious. Loneliness and death are thus inescapable facets of human existence, each ontologically necessary for a coherent human life.

Loneliness is not the experience of what one lacks, but rather the experience of what one is. In a culture deeply entrenched in the rhetoric of autonomy and rights, the song of God's lonely man so often goes unvoiced and unheeded. It is ironic how much of our freedom we expend on power-on conquering death, disease, and decay, all the while concealing from each other our carefully buried loneliness, which if shared, would deepen our understanding of each other.

The notion that loneliness is a positive good and an ontological necessity can be traced to the philosophical works of the German existentialist, Martin Heidegger. In Being and Time, he develops the idea that human existence is understood through a particular individual's personal and practical concerns. [17] By fully engaging in these concerns and the projects that matter to us we become open to what we are: subjective, vulnerable, responsible, and self-interpreting beings. It is up to each person to decide how to face the loneliness of imminent death or the threat of meaninglessness, which strikes at the root of existence. According to Heidegger, we are in an authentic mode of existence when we choose and act with full awareness of our ultimate freedom, responsibility, finitude, and aloneness. In contrast, the person who flees from these human conditions and permits others to define and shape his values surrenders himself to an anguished and inauthentic life.

In his moving treatise Loneliness, Clark Moustakas probes the depths of loneliness from a phenomenological perspective. In his view, existential loneliness is that fundamental human attitude or experience provoked by the quest for being. A person enters the state of loneliness when some compelling, essential aspect of life is suddenly challenged, realized, threatened, altered, or denied; the individual is confronted with the awareness of choice and the possibility of meaning or its lack. Loneliness is not merely a normal part of human life, it is essential for human growth and authentic existence. By truly experiencing loneliness, the individual affirms his being and authenticity. When positively embraced and confronted, loneliness has a salutary role: the integration and deepening of self. Through loneliness, the individual "discovers life, who he is, what he really wants, the meaning of his existence, [and] the true nature of his relation with others." [18] To face up to our loneliness, to recognize it in the faces of others, is to participate in morality itself.

Moustakas distinguishes between two types of loneliness. There is the loneliness of solitude in which one experiences a peaceful state of being alone with the ultimate mysteries of life-the harmony of people, nature, faith, and the universe. Secondly, there is the loneliness of a life suddenly shattered by tragedy, illness, betrayal, deceit, and death. The crisis penetrates the person's immediate world. [19] When this experience occurs, the loneliness is unique to each individual and is expressed in many ways. In confronting loneliness, the individual directly faces the crisis with a willingness to experience fully the emotions the crisis has generated: fear, grief, bewilderment, pain, or loss. Confronting these emotions gives rise to suffering, but this suffering in turn deepens one's sensitivity to self and to others, paving the way to healing, to true compassion, and to a sense of renewed vitality and hope.

This idea that loneliness is a fundamental aspect of our spiritual selves is central to the work of theologian Paul Tillich, whose existential writings were informed by Kierkegaard. In The Eternal Now, Tillich regards loneliness as an inevitable facet of human existence, but one that is ultimately manifested in personal and spiritual growth. The experience of being alone becomes a source of creativity and a heightened sense of self, which often results in more profound connections with other individuals or God. To be aware of one's loneliness or of the existential quest for meaning in life requires courage. This is both an ethical reality and an ontological concept. Ultimately, it is through faith that one has the courage "to be as oneself:" an authentic being. [20]

In a similar vein, Thomas Merton invokes this idea of human transcendence. In Thoughts in Solitude he writes:

The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God. [21]

For each of these religious existentialists, only in the crisis of loneliness and despair can an individual have access to the truth about him or her self. In the end, this subjective truth is the path of reconciliation, but getting there requires initial confrontation and subsequent faith. In confrontation with the self, the individual is summoned to a deeper existence, which produces a deeper suffering, or an even deeper faith. As Kierkegaard notes, recovery or reconciliation presupposes that love is present, "like the sprout in the grain," [22] and opens the way to forgiveness and self-transcendence.

The literature on human loneliness is immense and provocative. Many thinkers have declared existential loneliness an inevitable and inescapable facet of human life, and that its conscious presence in our lives can lead to a more profound sense of meaning and spiritual purpose. How does the phenomenon of existential loneliness manifest itself in the illness experience? To what degree can awareness of existential loneliness be a positive response to it? Questions that inform this exploration include: What human good does the experience of existential loneliness permit, inhibit, fulfill, or constrain? What moral concerns, if any, does understanding the experience of existential loneliness in critically ill patients raise for health care providers or other caregivers? And finally, does the experience of existential loneliness in dying patients awaken us to some aspect of our humanity that is otherwise hidden from us? In short, does existential loneliness have anything worthwhile to teach us?

Existential Loneliness and the Experience of Illness

Illness, like loneliness, love, and death, is an ontological feature of human life. Illness represents a distinct way of being in the world, typically characterized as a loss or interruption of the familiar patterns of life. It is well known that the experience of being ill can elicit strong and uncomfortable emotions, raising anxious questions about self, dignity, and bodily integrity, as well as concerns about the ineffable or redemptive mysteries of human life. Often illness provokes a sense of frustration and helplessness as familiar roles and life projects are disrupted. The stress and burden of illness can weaken an individual, generating feelings of anxiety, dread, and worry. According to Eric Cassell, the experience of illness is often characterized as a state of suffering, a loss of wholeness or integrity, provoked by the awareness that one's familiar way of being in the world has been suddenly threatened or shattered. The person becomes aware that his body can no longer be taken for granted or ignored; it asserts its claim on our attention through pain, dysfunction, or impairment. [23] This paradox, that in illness we "are brought home to a heightened awareness of the body, but it is a body in which we are no longer home," [24] is a common experience for many patients, and illustrates the sense of deep contradiction that serious illness often imposes on the self.

In The Meaning of Illness, S. Kay Toombs argues that "existential aloneness is necessarily a part of serious illness." [25] In the life-world of illness, the meaning and significance of our humanity is created from that which defines us-finite, embodied, mortal selves engaged in the daily projects of life and living. The experience of illness is characterized by losses-loss of identity, bodily integrity, freedom, control, and certainty-that penetrate over sense of invulnerability. Ultimately, illness is a private experience with the self, often causing unavoidable preoccupation with pain, malaise, incapacity, and change. Moreover, a life-threatening illness elicits profound emotional reactions, which may ultimately challenge one's faith or reason for existence. In some patients, the experience of being ill invalidates one's sense of self, time, and agency, often culminating in fear and isolation. In others, the disequilibrium of illness is experienced as an altered state of reality, often provoking existential questions about the ultimate value, meaning, and purpose of human life.

David Barnard has argued that physicians and other practitioners should integrate these existential concepts into patient care. He identifies three of the most important existential realities that caregivers and their patients must confront: mortality, finitude, and spirituality. Mortality is more than the certainty of our own death. It is the passage and loss from our life of the things we value and care about. To be conscious of our mortality is to be conscious of the irreversibility of time and the inevitability of change. In Barnard's view, our lives involve a "letting go" of valued sources of meaning so that new ones can be born. Finitude encompasses more than mortality. It is the awareness of the many forms of limitations we must endure. For patients there may be limits on mental capacity, physical strength, moral courage, or physical endurance. For caregivers, the limits may be inadequate knowledge, powerlessness in the face of certain illnesses, moral weakness, a melancholy sense of fate, futility, or uncertainty. Spirituality is not limited to organized religious belief systems, but incorporates the search for meaning, connection, and transcendence. The human need to pursue meaning is "the dimension of depth in all of life's endeavors and institutions." Following Tillich, Barnard regards the spiritual dimension of our lives as an immediate and inseparable aspect of our humanity-that sphere of meaning which engulfs who we are, why we suffer, and what morality obliges us to do or to be. [26]

Barnard defines existential in a very specific way: the existential level of subjective experience and discourse emphasizes the interior or inner dimension of a person. His primary concern is that human beings are creatures who seek love and meaning in the face of death. He focuses on the tension between the physician's persona -the effectively neutral or detached concern of the physician as a professional; and the physician as a person -affected by the full range of emotions, needs, vulnerabilities, and fears that constitute a human being's inner life. While some distinction between the professional and personal is both appropriate and necessary in clinical practice, a strict cleavage between them results in the loss of something crucial to the therapeutic relationship. He advocates for an existential perspective on doctoring, one that reconnects doctors to the inner life of the human beings who are their patients, to their psychological and spiritual selves. He concludes that the caregiver's ability to form reliable, empathic relationships with patients as they embrace illness and relinquish parts of the self provides a safe "holding place" for patients, a place where the self becomes coherent, reconnected, centered, and whole. In addition, by redirecting our attention away from the physician as a technician solving problems of disease and treatment, we come to appreciate the physician as a person who also strives for authenticity, personal significance, and a richer understanding of the human experience.

The following case story, I explores themes of existential loneliness embedded in the relationship between a hospitalized patient being treated for a terminal illness and myself, her primary caregiver. To regard existential loneliness as manifesting only in the person who is ill, and not in the caregiver as well, is to deny a fundamental aspect of the caregiver's humanity-the quest for being. Therefore, I acknowledge that this account of the patient's experience is as much my own personal story as it is hers. Because I hope to convey an accurate description of the patient's own experience, the patient's words are given verbatim where possible.

Kelly Ann, a twenty-nine-year-old mother from a large Irish family had a cancer of the lymphatic system. Ten years of conventional chemotherapy and radiation treatments kept her illness in intermittent states of remission. We met her when she was hospitalized for management of systemic herpes, pancytopenia, fever, anemia, and the administration of chemotherapy. The chemotherapy has caused total alopecia, severe nausea and vomiting, weakness, weight loss, and premature menopause.

Married and divorced twice, Kelly Ann had a nine-year-old daughter and received Medicaid as well as occasional child support. She was not able to work and resided with her daughter in government-supported housing. Her older sister lived in the same complex and was the patient's principal emotional support. For most of her hospitalizations she was under the care of doctors and nurses with whom she had established relationships of considerable trust and confidence. During these hospital visits, Kelly Ann consistently experienced a great deal of emotional stress and physical symptoms, but she was able to make her own decisions about her care and about the welfare of her daughter.

I encountered Kelly Ann in the solarium next to her hospital room. She looked weak and tired, but seemed to relish the chance to talk. She conversed in a halting voice, frequently sipping water to relieve her dry throat. When asked how she was feeling, she confessed that she wanted to give up her therapy. She knew that she would "be dead" if she did not continue with the chemotherapy protocol and was afraid her doctor would be disappointed in her if she did not continue the recommended therapy. On the other hand, she did not think she could continue a therapy that left her acutely ill for three out of every four weeks. This vacillation regarding treatment produced a diffuse anxiety, manifesting as nervous chatter, frequent gesticulations, restlessness, and uncertainty. She described the "uncomfortable and lonely" feeling of being all alone in making these "life and death" decisions, stating that she definitely wanted to live and get well so that she could take care of her daughter. "She is my reason for living. She has never known me when I wasn't sick. She is my blessing."

Several days later a conversation took place in which Kelly Ann acknowledged that for the first time she had "started thinking a lot more about what I really want in life. I want my pastimes back, I want my body the way it used to be." When asked what or who would be most helpful to her she replied: "I have to live with myself the way I am every day of my life, so I just ask God to help me make the right decisions so I can get through this terrible time in my life." She admitted to feeling depressed about the recent breakup of her relationship with her boyfriend and the lack of any true friendships other than with her sister. She admitted to periodic "crying spells, angry tantrums, and feeling sorry for myself." She said her illness made her feel "all alone," "apart from others," "deserted by her friends," like being "cut off in a room full of people."

In most of these conversations Kelly Ann's affect was flat and her manner withdrawn, although paradoxically she also seemed to welcome the opportunity to talk and relate to others. She spoke of the changes her illness was causing in her family and church friends and expressed some unrealistic hopes for "going back to school." She continued to express ambivalence about continuing her treatments and diet and longed for the day when she could return to "a normal existence." In my assessment of her at this phase of her illness it was clear that Kelly Ann was suffering from a social form of loneliness, manifested as a social isolation, situational depression, a fear of being alone, and a dark, brooding mood.

As her body's ability to ward off the disease and the potent drugs that attempted to control it steadily diminished, Kelly Ann became increasingly distressed and agitated. Slowly, she confronted the painful reality that her disease was terminal and that most likely she would die before her child's tenth birthday, now only a month away. The slow, bewildering recognition that she was beginning to separate "from her own life" evoked a variety of intimate feelings in us both. She began to be more introspective, often reflecting upon her life before she became ill, and she began to relinquish certain tasks and goals she had set for herself. Anguished over her young daughter and the guilt she felt in "deserting her,"she took comfort in the thought that maybe others could learn from her illness: "You know, being bald and yellow at the prime of my life."

Frequently, I sat in silence next to her as she lay in bed, her wounded body drawn up in a fetal position. Gazing at her face-a curious mixture of confusion, rage, hope, and denial-I was struck with a feeling that can only be described as a recognition. It felt as if I was recovering some long forgotten dialogue within myself, recollecting like some Platonic soul a deep knowledge I already possessed. I watched her grow and decay in quiet, nearly imperceptible ways, knowing that her being and mine lay coiled in our separate selves, each secreting its own loneliness. We endured the span of time between her immediate existence and its inevitable end, navigating that universe between being and nothingness. Our relationship deepened further as her need for inclusion, affection, and validation finally gave way to her need to "let go." We spoke quietly of the ways in which her bloated and scarred body would soon cease functioning and of her ultimate fear that she would suffocate in her own vomit. These conversations reduced some of her dread about "how dying happens." Each day she would place my stethoscope over her heart, hoping to assert some control over her final destiny. In the midst of constant reassurance, family love, and genuine dialogue, Kelly Ann released her hold on life and died two days before her thirtieth birthday.

In the end, Kelly Ann's existential quest for being was never fulfilled, as she could only ask, "Why is this happening to me?" It is a familiar question for patients who face serious illness, but for Kelly Ann its meaning was never fully grasped. I understood the loneliness that engulfed her spirit-the loneliness of a broken and abbreviated life, yet I am convinced that confronting this loneliness with her opened up new vistas of compassion and genuine understanding in us both. Her loneliness revealed her true being. It made her who she was and without it she could not have been the person she was trying to become. I know now that her loneliness, and, for that matter, my own, is not something that should be eradicated or cured; it is a loneliness that connects us to each other, and reconnects us to a larger aspect of our shared humanity. I know, too, that to die before one's own children must be an unfathomable burden, but to die without a sense of human tenderness, connectedness, or a core of being that matters to another is a moral waste. In the end, it is not death's dignity that will give our patients and us the peace we seek. It is the affirmation of who we are-moral, finite, vulnerable beings striving to fashion a life of our own. Kelly Ann's life, made even more precious by its brevity, closed before its full meaning could be revealed. The forces of love and death that pulled her in opposite directions for so many months were finally reconciled in her young daughter's last embrace.

Therapeutic Dialogue: An Existential Tool

Clearly, physicians, nurses, and other caregivers possess a special moral privilege as they witness the efforts of patients who struggle to give their lives a sense of meaning and purpose in the face of disease or death. To provide merciful care to patients experiencing serious disruptions in their health, spiritual well-being, and personal identity, practitioners must be able to identify and appropriately respond to the existential dimensions of illness. Many patients facing critical or terminal illness experience existential loneliness, the understanding of which is vital to a morally adequate patient-provider relationship. Additionally, I have argued against those who pathologize the experience of loneliness, believing instead that it should be confronted and embraced, rather than disguised or treated through the use of drugs or distraction techniques. By helping patients talk frankly and openly about the impact the illness is having on their lives and future goals, practitioners can help patients discover new insights about themselves and others. By definition, existential loneliness is an aspect of our basic humanity, an ineliminable feature of our species. For some patients, loneliness may manifest in an outward cry for meaning or affirmation of oneself before God, while for others it may be a quiet song of faith. Either way, it awakens us to the real existence of others and to the moral features of the helping relationship.

The most important tool for assessing and responding to the existential needs of a patient is the clinical or therapeutic dialogue, understood as a form of relating in which the patient is regarded as an existential subject rather than as an object of care. Dialogue is the therapeutic tool through which the meaning of the patient's illness experience is realized, shared, and owned. In many situations involving terminal illness, the dialogue may be unspoken, captured more in expressions of tenderness, listening, and being with the other. As the Russian literary critic and theorist Mikhail Bakhtin has noted, the human "being" is in the dialogue that is shared, and through this language our mutual humanity springs forth. According to Bakhtin: "Life is dialogical by its very nature. To live means to engage in dialogue, to question, to listen, to answer, to disagree. [27] The goal of the dialogue between a patient and a caregiver is not so much to interpret the patient's ordeal, but to "responsively understand." [28] This understanding serves to nurture the patient's sense of well being, to nourish the ideal of self-authenticity, and to restore or the broken pieces of self.

In the context of existential loneliness, the goal of the therapeutic dialogue is to help the patient recover his or her own inner dialogue, to discover a deeper sense of self worth, and to open the self to the possibility of new understanding and meaning in life or illness. Genuine dialogical engagement by the caregiver is not only a therapeutic activity geared toward the patient's good. It is also a moral act that enhances the humanity of both the patient and practitioner as they confront the loneliness of life and the mysteries of human existence. In approaching patient care from the perspective of existential loneliness, an inescapable tension between faith and experience, tragedy and serenity, and alienation and affirmation becomes palpable. To encounter patients from this perspective may bring both celebration and despair to patients as well as providers, but inevitably and unmistakably it binds us together, restoring wholeness and integrity to the human community.

The assertion that loneliness is an irreducible part of the very fabric of human life can be traced throughout the existential writings of philosophers, poets, theologians, and literary scholars. Many have written that the very essence of humanity is our separateness and aloneness. Many have asserted that the human response to loneliness is the reaching out to another, either directly, such as relating to another person or group, or indirectly, through creative expression, solitude, or important life projects. The existential dimension of illness and the loneliness it can produce are rarely talked about in clinical practice and even more rarely taught; yet they are essential aspects of human existence and moral understanding. Not only should we avoid fleeing from the expression of loneliness in our patients and in ourselves, we should avoid the urge to treat it with pills or placebos. Rather, the existential loneliness of illness should be confronted, embraced, and engaged, for it is within the loneliness of our shared existence that our deepest human responses may be realized and reciprocated.

1. Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1961), ix.

2. Rollo May, Existential Psychology , 2nd edition (New York: Random House, 1960), 40.

3. R.S. Weiss, Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973), 17.

4. K.S. Rook, "Research on Social Support, Loneliness and Social Isolation: Towards an Integrated Review of Personality," Social Psychology 5 (1984): 209.

5. Karen L. Kristensen, "The Lived Experience of Childhood Loneliness: A Phenomenological Study," Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing 18 (1995): 125-137.

6. N. Bradburn, The Structure of Psychological Well-being (Chicago: Aldine, 1969).

7. Ami Rokach, "Relations of Perceived Causes and the Experiences of Loneliness," Psychological Reports 80 (1997): 1067-74.

8. Jari-Erik Nurmi, "Social Strategies and Loneliness," The Journal of Social Psychology 137, no. 6 (1997): 764-77.

9. Ami Rokach and Heather Brock, "Loneliness and the Effects of Life Changes," The Journal of Psychology 131, no.3 (1997): 284-98.

10. Karen Horney, The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1937).

11. F. Fromm-Reichmann, "Loneliness," Psychiatry 22 (1959): 1-15.

12. John G. Gunderson, "The Borderline Patient's Intolerance of Aloneness: Insecure Attachments and Therapist Availability," American Journal of Psychiatry 153, no. 6 (June 1996): 752-8.

13. Erlich H. Shmuel, "On Loneliness, Narcissism, and Intimacy," American Journal of Psychoanalysis 58, no.2 (1998): 135-162.

14. Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life , vol. II, trans. W. Lowrie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1944), 220. Originally published in Danish 1943.

15. Thomas Wolfe, "God's Lonely Man," in Masterworks of English Prose: A Critical Reader , ed. John L. Bradley and Martin Stevens (New York: Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1968), 454-462.

16. Ibid., 26.

17. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time , trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1968). Originally published in German 1927.

18. Moustakas, Loneliness , 102.

19. Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness and Love (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972).

20. Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now (New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1963).

21. Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (New York: Doubleday, 1968), 40.

22. Kierkegard, Either/Or , 220.

23. Eric J. Cassell, "The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine," The New England Journal of Medicine 306 (1982): 639-45.

24. Drew Leder, "Illness and Exile: Sophocles' Philoctetes," Literature and Medicine 9 (1990): 1-11.

25. S. Kay Toombs, The Meaning of Illness: A Phenomenological Account of the Different Perspectives of Physician and Patient (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992), 36.

26. David Barnard, "Love and Death: Existential Dimensions of Physicians' Difficulties With Moral Problems," The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 13 (1998): 409.

27. Tzvetan Todorov, "Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle," trans. Wlad Godzich in Theory and History of Literature . Vol. 13 (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 97.

28. Ibid., 112

Loneliness vs. Solitude: The Differences (Why They Matter)

— Researched and written by Dr. Sandip Roy .

You can feel lonely while surrounded by friends . We’ve all been there at some point.

Loneliness is a feeling of isolation and emptiness. It makes one feel unoccupied, unwanted, and unloved.

Loneliness, as a feeling, has an evolutionary benefit. It reminds us that we need to connect or reconnect with those who can increase their chances of survival.

Whereas solitude or “aloneness” is a state of being alone, not lonely.

Table of Contents

Loneliness is different from solitude.

Loneliness or being lonely is a feeling of isolation  despite  a desire for social interactions. Lonely people have an acute sense of separation, rejection, or abandonment in their relationships. Solitude or the state of being alone is an empowering and liberating choice.

Loneliness is feeling sad about being alone. Solitude or being alone is a preference that can be uplifting. Lonely people are often helpless, something that those who desire solitude do not experience.

Solitude is the state when you are alone but do not feel lonely.

Loneliness is the state when you feel lonely, whether you are physically alone or not. You can feel lonely even when you are with people, like your long-term partner or a room full of familiar faces. It is a suffocating feeling.

People who love spending time alone also maintain positive social contacts, to which they can return whenever they want. The solitude-loving people temper their social exchanges with intervals of solitude.

Solitude has a few health benefits, including an increased ability to focus and meditate,  self-evaluate for success , and  refresh the mind .

Loneliness can be caused by many reasons such as mental illness, social anxiety, or depression. On the other hand, solitude can be caused by choices such as living in a remote location or simply choosing to be alone for some time.

Loneliness can lead to mental health problems such as depression or anxiety, while solitude has been shown to have positive effects on our mental health.

However, studies find both loneliness and isolation for a prolonged time can have harmful effects on our mental and physical health.

Is loneliness dangerous for your mental health?

Yes, loneliness is dangerous for your mental health because it can cause depression, stress, anxiety, and other mental illnesses. Lonely people tend to have poor mental and physical health. Loneliness can amplify feelings of insecurity, self-doubt, and social anxiety.

Many people who are lonely have low self-esteem , which can generate feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness .

Loneliness is a complicated issue. It’s hard to tell whether loneliness is the cause or the result of other psychological problems. Poor mental health can lead to loneliness, but loneliness can also cause poor mental health. It’s important to find a way of helping people who are lonely that doesn’t overlook the underlying issue.

People with mental health problems tend to spend a lot of time alone, and this can cause or increase loneliness in them. Loneliness can cause people to withdraw from social life, which leads to social loneliness and feelings of isolation.

Research indicates that loneliness happens for a reason.

Loneliness prods people to stay together and protect each other from external threats.

This might explain why those who feel excluded (socially outcast) are more sensitive to threatening messages (Masi et al., 2013; Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010; Vohs, Baumeister, & Chin, 2007).

If humans did not feel lonely, they would not have formed mutually-serving societies that made them rise to the top of the food chain.

Loneliness drives us to make new friends with other people in the same situation as us. It nudges us to spend more time with our partners or family members.

Why is solitude important?

Solitude is important because it can have many positive effects on our mental health. Solitude improves your mental well-being. Studies have shown that people who learn to find comfort in solitude tend to be happier, experience lower levels of stress, and are less likely to have depression.

Solitude can be a great source of inspiration for your creative processes. It is an opportunity to take time and think about your ideas, and also a chance to reflect on what you’ve learned.

Solitude provides you with moments of reflection and peace. It is a time for self-reflection and introspection. It also helps you to recharge your batteries and get rid of the distractions that come with being around people all the time.

Solitude can provide us with the time and space to clear our minds and get some perspective on things. It can also help us connect with ourselves and our inner selves.

Many see solitude as something negative. However, with the right mindset, it can be an opportunity to get away from the stress and demands of everyday life.

What are the benefits of being alone?

Being alone at times is something vital to be aware of. However, it is often overlooked because we live in a society that values social interaction over solitude. Here are the benefits of being alone:

• It increases creativity.
• It increases productivity.
• It prioritizes your interests.
• It improves focus and memory.
• It strengthens your relationships.
• It increases self-compassion and self-love.
• It provides a chance to stabilize our emotions.
• It increases contemplation and clarity of thinking.
• It allows us time and energy to recover from illness or injury.

The recent pandemic had us go into forced isolation. The sociable people hated it, while the solitude-preferring people loved it. The issue that both types of people felt was how to socialize again .

Final Words

Loneliness is a feeling of not belonging, and of not being desired. Solitude is a source of healing and rejuvenation.

Loneliness is a feeling that can be triggered by circumstances, memories, and thoughts. It is harmful and can be a source of depression.

7 Books On Loneliness, For Those Sadly Alone During Holidays

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√ Also Read: How to escape loneliness after a long, forced solitude ?

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Loneliness: Causes and Health Consequences

Loneliness vs. solitude.

• Health Risks

While common definitions of loneliness describe it as a state of solitude or being alone, loneliness is actually a state of mind. Loneliness causes people to feel empty, alone, and unwanted. People who are lonely often crave human contact, but their state of mind makes it more difficult to form connections with others.

Growing concerns around the dangers of loneliness have prompted a call to action by US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who recently issued an 82-page advisory on the issue. The advisory cites data from several studies, including research that found that nearly half of adults in the US experience feelings of loneliness daily.

Murthy's report also cites a meta-analysis that found that the risk of premature death due to loneliness increased by 26% and 29% due to social isolation. Furthermore, the lack of social connection can increase the risk of anxiety, depression, stroke, heart disease, and dementia.

Johner Images / Getty Images

Defining Loneliness

Loneliness is a universal human emotion that is both complex and unique to each individual. Because it has no single common cause, preventing and treating this potentially damaging state of mind can vary dramatically.

For example, a lonely child who struggles to make friends at school has different needs than a lonely older adult whose spouse has recently died.

Researchers suggest that loneliness is associated with social isolation, poor social skills, introversion, and depression.

Loneliness, according to many experts, is not necessarily about being alone. Instead, if you feel alone and isolated, then that is how loneliness plays into your state of mind.

For example, a college freshman might feel lonely despite being surrounded by roommates and other peers. A soldier beginning their military career might feel lonely after being deployed to a foreign country, despite being constantly surrounded by other troop members.

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Are You Feeling Lonely? Take the Test

This fast and free loneliness test can help you analyze your current emotions and determine whether or not you may be feeling lonely at the moment:

While research clearly shows that loneliness and isolation are bad for both mental and physical health, being alone is not the same as being lonely. In fact, solitude actually has a number of important mental health benefits, including allowing people to better focus and recharge.

• Loneliness is marked by feelings of isolation despite wanting social connections. It is often perceived as an involuntary separation, rejection, or abandonment by other people.
• Solitude , on the other hand, is voluntary. People who enjoy spending time by themselves continue to maintain positive social relationships that they can return to when they crave connection. They still spend time with others, but these interactions are balanced with periods of time alone.

Loneliness is a state of mind linked to wanting human contact but feeling alone. People can be alone and not feel lonely, or they can have contact with people and still experience feelings of isolation.

Causes of Loneliness

Contributing factors to loneliness include situational variables, such as physical isolation, moving to a new location, and divorce. The death of someone significant in a person's life can also lead to feelings of loneliness.

Additionally, it can be a symptom of a psychological disorder such as depression. Depression often causes people to withdrawal socially, which can lead to isolation. Research also suggests that loneliness can be a factor that contributes to symptoms of depression.

Loneliness can also be attributed to internal factors such as low self-esteem . People who lack confidence in themselves often believe that they are unworthy of the attention or regard of other people, which can lead to isolation and chronic loneliness .

Personality factors may also play a role. Introverts , for example, might be less likely to cultivate and seek social connections, which can contribute to feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Health Risks Associated With Loneliness

Loneliness has a wide range of negative effects on both physical and mental health , including:

• Alcohol and drug misuse
• Altered brain function
• Alzheimer's disease progression
• Antisocial behavior
• Cardiovascular disease and stroke
• Decreased memory and learning
• Depression and suicide
• Increased stress levels
• Poor decision-making

If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911. 

For more mental health resources, see our National Helpline Database .

These are not the only areas in which loneliness takes its toll. For example, lonely adults get less exercise than those who are not lonely. Their diet is higher in fat, their sleep is less efficient, and they report more daytime fatigue. Loneliness also disrupts the regulation of cellular processes deep within the body, predisposing lonely people to premature aging.

What Research Suggests About Loneliness

People who feel less lonely are more likely to be married, have higher incomes, and have higher educational status. High levels of loneliness are associated with physical health symptoms, living alone, small social networks, and low-quality social relationships.

Close Friends Help Combat Loneliness

Statistics suggest that loneliness is becoming increasingly prevalent, particularly in younger generations. According to one 2019 survey, 25% of adults between the ages of 18 and 27 reported having no close friends, while 22% reported having no friends at all.

The rise of the internet and ironically, social media, are partially to blame.

Experts believe that it is not the quantity of social interaction that combats loneliness, but the quality .

Having a few close friends is enough to ward off loneliness and reduce the negative health consequences associated with this state of mind. Research suggests that the experience of actual face-to-face contact with friends helps boost people's sense of well-being.

Loneliness Can Be Contagious

One study suggests that loneliness may actually be contagious. Research has found that non-lonely people who spend time with lonely people are more likely to develop feelings of loneliness.

Tips to Prevent and Overcome Loneliness

Loneliness can be overcome. It does require a conscious effort to make a change. In the long run, making a change can make you happier, healthier, and enable you to impact others around you in a positive way.

Here are some ways to prevent loneliness:

• Consider community service or another activity that you enjoy . These situations present great opportunities to meet people and cultivate new friendships and social interactions.
• Expect the best . Lonely people often expect rejection, so instead, try focusing on positive thoughts and attitudes in your social relationships.
• Focus on developing quality relationships . Seek people who share similar attitudes, interests, and values with you.
• Recognize that loneliness is a sign that something needs to change. Don't expect things to change overnight, but you can start taking steps that will help relieve your feelings of loneliness and build connections that support your well-being.
• Understand the effects of loneliness on your life . There are physical and mental repercussions to loneliness. If you recognize some of these symptoms affecting how you feel, make a conscious effort to combat them.
• Join a group or start your own . For example, you might try creating a Meetup group where people from your area with similar interests can get together. You might also consider taking a class at a community college, joining a book club, or taking an exercise class.
• Strengthen a current relationship . Building new connections is important, but improving your existing relationships can also be a great way to combat loneliness. Try calling a friend or family member you have spoken to in a while.
• Talk to someone you can trust . Reaching out to someone in your life to talk about what you are feeling is important. This can be someone you know such as a family member, but you might also consider talking to your doctor or a therapist. Online therapy can be a great option because it allows you to contact a therapist whenever it is convenient for you.

Loneliness can leave people feeling isolated and disconnected from others. It is a complex state of mind that can be caused by life changes, mental health conditions, poor self-esteem, and personality traits. Loneliness can also have serious health consequences including decreased mental wellness and physical problems.

Loneliness can have a serious effect on your health, so it is important to be able to recognize signs that you are feeling lonely. It is also important to remember that being alone isn't the same as being lonely. 

If loneliness is affecting your well-being, there are things that you can do that can help you form new connections and find the social support that you need. Work on forming new connections and spend some time talking to people in your life. If you're still struggling, consider therapy. Whatever you choose to do, just remember that there are people who can help.

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

The Difference between Loneliness and Solitude

American loneliness has deep cultural and historical roots. can we remedy it with the promise of solitude.

Americans lead lonely lives. Or so say so many headlines . Study after study posits that we have never been more socially isolated than we are now, and that the pain of loneliness is expressed not just in our psychic yearning for companionship but also in our physical afflictions. Lonely minds are also lonely bodies, experiencing higher rates of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, dementia, cancer, impaired immune function, inflammation, and premature death. The lethality of loneliness has been compared to smoking fifteen cigarettes per day, and to the physical effects of severe alcoholism. Some studies even indicate that lonely bodies exhibit altered genetic and cellular structures.

Paradoxically, these revelations have arrived at the very moment that our smart phones, designed to keep us constantly connected, have increasingly colonized our lives. Our electronic devices ding and ring and chirp and buzz at all hours of the day and night, calling us back to our work, reminding us to make time for play—and yet all of those alerts and notifications leave us feeling empty, drained, more alone and alienated than ever. And just as our appetite for and consumption of social media has become a daily dietary staple—allowing us to keep in touch with people all around the world—our personal interactions have somehow become more and more shallow and less and less fulfilling.

Over the last twenty years, feelings of loneliness have doubled—up from 20 per cent of American adults in 1980 to an astonishing 40 per cent in 2010. But is this a purely modern phenomenon? Or does American loneliness have deeper cultural and historical roots?

In the nineteenth century, loneliness and solitude occupied the minds of many American thinkers. In 1863, for example, the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson wrote hauntingly about the ache and anxiety of isolation:

The Loneliness One dare not sound — And would as soon surmise As in its Grave go plumbing To ascertain the size —

The Loneliness whose worst alarm Is lest itself should see — And perish from before itself For just a scrutiny —

The Horror not to be surveyed — But skirted in the Dark — With Consciousness suspended — After being under Lock —

I fear me this — is Loneliness — The Maker of the soul Its Caverns and its Corridors Illuminate — or seal —

Dickinson’s lonely horror, which she “skirted in the Dark,” cut into the caverns and corridors of her very soul and, at least at times, sealed her off from the pleasures and obligations of friendship.

Scholars have long disagreed about the reasons behind Dickinson’s renunciation of society: Did the anguish of isolation inspire, or “illuminate,” her lyrical creativity? Did she make a voluntary, conscious, artistic decision to retreat? Or did sickness reflexively lead to an unwelcome seclusion? Notably, she was afflicted with iritis in her mid-thirties (an inflammation of the muscles of the eye) and died in 1886 after two and a half years of prolonged illness from Bright’s disease (historically understood as inflammation of the kidneys and frequently associated with hypertension and heart disease). Whatever the reasons for her emotional pain and embodied suffering, Dickinson’s solitary life and work often reads much like a nineteenth-century version of our twenty-first-century visceral fear of being left alone with ourselves.

In the twentieth century, as Americans increasingly flocked to big cities, images of urban loneliness became more widespread. Take, for only one instance, Edward Hopper’s iconic Nighthawks (1942), a now-ubiquitous symbol of isolation within the crowded city: Four lone souls find themselves imprisoned inside the glass cage of an anonymous diner, together and yet wholly, impenetrably apart. Their existential longing, their cosmic aloneness, is on perpetual display for all to see. Their fluorescent faces stare desolately—thoughtlessly—into separate, invisible distances. Hopper’s heart-rending painting portrays a version of what William James described in 1895 as “the nightmare view of life,” life at “the edge of the slope,” a life not worth living.

But some mid-twentieth-century thinkers were beginning to pick apart these blurred categories. In the wake of the Holocaust and devastation of WWII, after Europe had been ravaged by the political isolation of individuals left powerless by totalitarian regimes, it had become increasingly apparent that solitude—the freedom to keep company with oneself—was something distinct from isolation and loneliness. In 1957, the German-American theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich described this striking difference: “Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s being alone,” he declared. “It has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.”

These distinctions also captured the political theorist Hannah Arendt’s imagination, and, in 1953, she wrote a formative essay, “Ideology and Terror.” She had fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and had become a naturalized American citizen in 1951, and she drew upon her experience of totalitarianism in Europe to develop a triumvirate—isolation ( Isolation ), loneliness ( Verlassenheit ), and solitude ( Einsamkeit )—that would be at the heart of all of her subsequent thinking.

For Arendt, isolation threatened political life. Tyrannical governments used lies and propaganda to remake reality, to rewrite history, rendering the individual’s relationship with her world unrecognizable. Terror severed people’s political contacts, and it destroyed their ability to deliberate, judge, and act in public. Tyranny transformed the public sphere into an uninhabitable, unnavigable wilderness.

Loneliness was an even more extreme state of “uprootedness” or “superfluousness,” as Arendt put it. It not only threatened public political life. It also destroyed private life and the individual’s capacity for thought—a hallmark of totalitarian governments. “Isolation and loneliness are not the same,” Arendt observed. “I can be isolated—that is in a situation in which I cannot act, because there is nobody who will act with me—without being lonely; and I can be lonely—that is in a situation in which I as a person feel myself deserted by all human companionship—without being isolated.” The peculiar thing about totalitarianism, as she understood it, was that it capitalized on isolation and loneliness to destroy both public and private life, leaving the individual politically and existentially homeless. Verlassenheit can also be translated as “abandonment,” which is what Arendt meant when she said that loneliness leaves the individual with “no place in the world [to be] recognized and guaranteed by others.” Lonely people are abandoned people who don’t “belong to the world at all,” she lamented, which is “among the most radical and desperate experiences of man.”

Unlike isolation and loneliness, solitude carved out space for the thinking activity, for the inner dialogue that makes moral judgments—the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, truth and falsehood—possible. In her Denktagebuch (thought diary), Arendt indicated that Einsamkeit was the state of being “alone with myself, thinking.” And she continued to develop this concept in “Ideology and Terror,” when she wrote:

All thinking, strictly speaking, is done in solitude and is a dialogue between me and myself; but this dialogue of the two-in-one does not lose contact with the world of my fellow-men because they are represented in the self with whom I lead the dialogue of thought. The problem of solitude is that this two-in-one needs the others in order to become one again: one unchangeable individual whose identity can never be mistaken for that of any other. For the confirmation of my identity I depend entirely upon other people; and it is the great saving grace of companionship for solitary men that it makes them “whole” again.

For Arendt, then, the private and public worlds were distinguishable even if they weren’t entirely separate. She was never lonely in her solitude because she had the freedom to think, to converse and debate with herself, to discover truth and meaning. In solitude, she cultivated a friendship with her deepest, innermost self. But she also needed a community of others to recognize her unique, “unexchangeable” self—and she understood that being fully human requires our recognition, and even celebration, of plurality and difference. We move from the glorious solitude of our own thought into a shared world of public deliberation, judgment, and action.

The epidemic of American loneliness has deep historical and cultural roots. In many ways, American history can be read as a story of loss—from the very beginning, Native Americans and African slaves and white European colonists all felt (even if in markedly different ways) the loss of community, the loss of a sense of place, the loss of spirituality, the loss, even, of love. Dickinson and Hopper are only two examples of this American iconography of loss. But what makes Arendt’s thought so illuminating to lonely Americans today, in the twenty-first century, is precisely her positive promise of solitude. Through the practice of solitude, we can recover a sense of belonging, first to ourselves and then to the world.

We are more plugged in, more connected, than we have ever been. And yet we are also lonelier. We are facing a president whose daily Tweets instill fear, uncertainty, suspicion, and doubt among the population; we are witnessing a renewed assault on immigrants, the LBGTIQ community, women, Jews, Blacks, Muslims, the poor, the elderly, and the sick; and our public spaces for open democratic debate have been slowly eroding. No wonder, then, that we feel lonelier than ever.

Perhaps the most radical thing we can do is to turn off our smart phones, turn off social media, turn off the news, and consciously cultivate private spaces for solitary contemplation. Arendt reminds us that if we can learn to keep ourselves company, we can free our minds and our bodies from the terror of not being seen or heard. We can learn to appreciate and love our unique, unexchangable selves, which, in turn, makes it possible for us to appreciate and love human plurality in all of its beauty and complexity. Through the practice of solitude, we can illuminate our common world.

Jennifer Stitt  is a historian of modern American thought, culture, and politics who earned a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She’s working on her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives and writes in Birmingham.

This is third installment of a five-part series on solitude by Stitt. Read the first installment here and second installment here .

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The History of Loneliness

The female chimpanzee at the Philadelphia Zoological Garden died of complications from a cold early in the morning of December 27, 1878. “Miss Chimpanzee,” according to news reports, died “while receiving the attentions of her companion.” Both she and that companion, a four-year-old male, had been born near the Gabon River, in West Africa; they had arrived in Philadelphia in April, together. “These Apes can be captured only when young,” the zoo superintendent, Arthur E. Brown, explained, and they are generally taken only one or two at a time. In the wild, “they live together in small bands of half a dozen and build platforms among the branches, out of boughs and leaves, on which they sleep.” But in Philadelphia, in the monkey house, where it was just the two of them, they had become “accustomed to sleep at night in each other’s arms on a blanket on the floor,” clutching each other, desperately, achingly, through the long, cold night.

The Philadelphia Zoological Garden was the first zoo in the United States. It opened in 1874, two years after Charles Darwin published “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,” in which he related what he had learned about the social attachments of primates from Abraham Bartlett, the superintendent of the Zoological Society of London:

Many kinds of monkeys, as I am assured by the keepers in the Zoological Gardens, delight in fondling and being fondled by each other, and by persons to whom they are attached. Mr. Bartlett has described to me the behavior of two chimpanzees, rather older animals than those generally imported into this country, when they were first brought together. They sat opposite, touching each other with their much protruded lips; and the one put his hand on the shoulder of the other. They then mutually folded each other in their arms. Afterwards they stood up, each with one arm on the shoulder of the other, lifted up their heads, opened their mouths, and yelled with delight.

Mr. and Miss Chimpanzee, in Philadelphia, were two of only four chimpanzees in America, and when she died human observers mourned her loss, but, above all, they remarked on the behavior of her companion. For a long time, they reported, he tried in vain to rouse her. Then he “went into a frenzy of grief.” This paroxysm accorded entirely with what Darwin had described in humans: “Persons suffering from excessive grief often seek relief by violent and almost frantic movements.” The bereaved chimpanzee began to pull out the hair from his head. He wailed, making a sound the zookeeper had never heard before: Hah-ah-ah-ah-ah . “His cries were heard over the entire garden. He dashed himself against the bars of the cage and butted his head upon the hard-wood bottom, and when this burst of grief was ended he poked his head under the straw in one corner and moaned as if his heart would break.”

Nothing quite like this had ever been recorded. Superintendent Brown prepared a scholarly article, “Grief in the Chimpanzee.” Even long after the death of the female, Brown reported, the male “invariably slept on a cross-beam at the top of the cage, returning to inherited habit, and showing, probably, that the apprehension of unseen dangers has been heightened by his sense of loneliness.”

Loneliness is grief, distended. People are primates, and even more sociable than chimpanzees. We hunger for intimacy. We wither without it. And yet, long before the present pandemic, with its forced isolation and social distancing, humans had begun building their own monkey houses. Before modern times, very few human beings lived alone. Slowly, beginning not much more than a century ago, that changed. In the United States, more than one in four people now lives alone; in some parts of the country, especially big cities, that percentage is much higher. You can live alone without being lonely, and you can be lonely without living alone, but the two are closely tied together, which makes lockdowns, sheltering in place, that much harder to bear. Loneliness, it seems unnecessary to say, is terrible for your health. In 2017 and 2018, the former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy declared an “epidemic of loneliness,” and the U.K. appointed a Minister of Loneliness. To diagnose this condition, doctors at U.C.L.A. devised a Loneliness Scale. Do you often, sometimes, rarely, or never feel these ways?

I am unhappy doing so many things alone. I have nobody to talk to. I cannot tolerate being so alone. I feel as if nobody really understands me. I am no longer close to anyone. There is no one I can turn to. I feel isolated from others.

In the age of quarantine, does one disease produce another?

“Loneliness” is a vogue term, and like all vogue terms it’s a cover for all sorts of things most people would rather not name and have no idea how to fix. Plenty of people like to be alone. I myself love to be alone. But solitude and seclusion, which are the things I love, are different from loneliness, which is a thing I hate. Loneliness is a state of profound distress. Neuroscientists identify loneliness as a state of hypervigilance whose origins lie among our primate ancestors and in our own hunter-gatherer past. Much of the research in this field was led by John Cacioppo, at the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, at the University of Chicago. Cacioppo, who died in 2018, was known as Dr. Loneliness. In the new book “ Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World ” (Harper Wave), Murthy explains how Cacioppo’s evolutionary theory of loneliness has been tested by anthropologists at the University of Oxford, who have traced its origins back fifty-two million years, to the very first primates. Primates need to belong to an intimate social group, a family or a band, in order to survive; this is especially true for humans (humans you don’t know might very well kill you, which is a problem not shared by most other primates). Separated from the group—either finding yourself alone or finding yourself among a group of people who do not know and understand you—triggers a fight-or-flight response. Cacioppo argued that your body understands being alone, or being with strangers, as an emergency. “Over millennia, this hypervigilance in response to isolation became embedded in our nervous system to produce the anxiety we associate with loneliness,” Murthy writes. We breathe fast, our heart races, our blood pressure rises, we don’t sleep. We act fearful, defensive, and self-involved, all of which drive away people who might actually want to help, and tend to stop lonely people from doing what would benefit them most: reaching out to others.

The loneliness epidemic, in this sense, is rather like the obesity epidemic. Evolutionarily speaking, panicking while being alone, like finding high-calorie foods irresistible, is highly adaptive, but, more recently, in a world where laws (mostly) prevent us from killing one another, we need to work with strangers every day, and the problem is more likely to be too much high-calorie food rather than too little. These drives backfire.

Loneliness, Murthy argues, lies behind a host of problems—anxiety, violence, trauma, crime, suicide, depression, political apathy, and even political polarization. Murthy writes with compassion, but his everything-can-be-reduced-to-loneliness argument is hard to swallow, not least because much of what he has to say about loneliness was said about homelessness in the nineteen-eighties, when “homelessness” was the vogue term—a word somehow easier to say than “poverty”—and saying it didn’t help. (Since then, the number of homeless Americans has increased.) Curiously, Murthy often conflates the two, explaining loneliness as feeling homeless. To belong is to feel at home. “To be at home is to be known,” he writes. Home can be anywhere. Human societies are so intricate that people have meaningful, intimate ties of all kinds, with all sorts of groups of other people, even across distances. You can feel at home with friends, or at work, or in a college dining hall, or at church, or in Yankee Stadium, or at your neighborhood bar. Loneliness is the feeling that no place is home. “In community after community,” Murthy writes, “I met lonely people who felt homeless even though they had a roof over their heads.” Maybe what people experiencing loneliness and people experiencing homelessness both need are homes with other humans who love them and need them, and to know they are needed by them in societies that care about them. That’s not a policy agenda. That’s an indictment of modern life.

In “ A Biography of Loneliness: The History of an Emotion ” (Oxford), the British historian Fay Bound Alberti defines loneliness as “a conscious, cognitive feeling of estrangement or social separation from meaningful others,” and she objects to the idea that it’s universal, transhistorical, and the source of all that ails us. She argues that the condition really didn’t exist before the nineteenth century, at least not in a chronic form. It’s not that people—widows and widowers, in particular, and the very poor, the sick, and the outcast—weren’t lonely; it’s that, since it wasn’t possible to survive without living among other people, and without being bonded to other people, by ties of affection and loyalty and obligation, loneliness was a passing experience. Monarchs probably were lonely, chronically. (Hey, it’s lonely at the top!) But, for most ordinary people, daily living involved such intricate webs of dependence and exchange—and shared shelter—that to be chronically or desperately lonely was to be dying. The word “loneliness” very seldom appears in English before about 1800. Robinson Crusoe was alone, but never lonely. One exception is “Hamlet”: Ophelia suffers from “loneliness”; then she drowns herself.

Modern loneliness, in Alberti’s view, is the child of capitalism and secularism. “Many of the divisions and hierarchies that have developed since the eighteenth century—between self and world, individual and community, public and private—have been naturalized through the politics and philosophy of individualism,” she writes. “Is it any coincidence that a language of loneliness emerged at the same time?” It is not a coincidence. The rise of privacy, itself a product of market capitalism—privacy being something that you buy—is a driver of loneliness. So is individualism, which you also have to pay for.

Alberti’s book is a cultural history (she offers an anodyne reading of “Wuthering Heights,” for instance, and another of the letters of Sylvia Plath ). But the social history is more interesting, and there the scholarship demonstrates that whatever epidemic of loneliness can be said to exist is very closely associated with living alone. Whether living alone makes people lonely or whether people live alone because they’re lonely might seem to be harder to say, but the preponderance of the evidence supports the former: it is the force of history, not the exertion of choice, that leads people to live alone. This is a problem for people trying to fight an epidemic of loneliness, because the force of history is relentless.

Before the twentieth century, according to the best longitudinal demographic studies, about five per cent of all households (or about one per cent of the world population) consisted of just one person. That figure began rising around 1910, driven by urbanization, the decline of live-in servants, a declining birth rate, and the replacement of the traditional, multigenerational family with the nuclear family. By the time David Riesman published “ The Lonely Crowd ,” in 1950, nine per cent of all households consisted of a single person. In 1959, psychiatry discovered loneliness, in a subtle essay by the German analyst Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. “Loneliness seems to be such a painful, frightening experience that people will do practically everything to avoid it,” she wrote. She, too, shrank in horror from its contemplation. “The longing for interpersonal intimacy stays with every human being from infancy through life,” she wrote, “and there is no human being who is not threatened by its loss.” People who are not lonely are so terrified of loneliness that they shun the lonely, afraid that the condition might be contagious. And people who are lonely are themselves so horrified by what they are experiencing that they become secretive and self-obsessed—“it produces the sad conviction that nobody else has experienced or ever will sense what they are experiencing or have experienced,” Fromm-Reichmann wrote. One tragedy of loneliness is that lonely people can’t see that lots of people feel the same way they do.

“During the past half century, our species has embarked on a remarkable social experiment,” the sociologist Eric Klinenberg wrote in “ Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone ,” from 2012. “For the first time in human history, great numbers of people—at all ages, in all places, of every political persuasion—have begun settling down as singletons.” Klinenberg considers this to be, in large part, a triumph; more plausibly, it is a disaster. Beginning in the nineteen-sixties, the percentage of single-person households grew at a much steeper rate, driven by a high divorce rate, a still-falling birth rate, and longer lifespans over all. (After the rise of the nuclear family, the old began to reside alone, with women typically outliving their husbands.) A medical literature on loneliness began to emerge in the nineteen-eighties, at the same time that policymakers became concerned with, and named, “homelessness,” which is a far more dire condition than being a single-person household: to be homeless is to be a household that does not hold a house. Cacioppo began his research in the nineteen-nineties, even as humans were building a network of computers, to connect us all. Klinenberg, who graduated from college in 1993, is particularly interested in people who chose to live alone right about then.

I suppose I was one of them. I tried living alone when I was twenty-five, because it seemed important to me, the way owning a piece of furniture that I did not find on the street seemed important to me, as a sign that I had come of age, could pay rent without subletting a sublet. I could afford to buy privacy, I might say now, but then I’m sure I would have said that I had become “my own person.” I lasted only two months. I didn’t like watching television alone, and also I didn’t have a television, and this, if not the golden age of television, was the golden age of “The Simpsons,” so I started watching television with the person who lived in the apartment next door. I moved in with him, and then I married him.

This experience might not fit so well into the story Klinenberg tells; he argues that networked technologies of communication, beginning with the telephone’s widespread adoption, in the nineteen-fifties, helped make living alone possible. Radio, television, Internet, social media: we can feel at home online. Or not. Robert Putnam’s influential book about the decline of American community ties, “Bowling Alone,” came out in 2000, four years before the launch of Facebook, which monetized loneliness. Some people say that the success of social media was a product of an epidemic of loneliness; some people say it was a contributor to it; some people say it’s the only remedy for it. Connect! Disconnect! The Economist declared loneliness to be “the leprosy of the 21st century.” The epidemic only grew.

This is not a peculiarly American phenomenon. Living alone, while common in the United States, is more common in many other parts of the world, including Scandinavia, Japan, Germany, France, the U.K., Australia, and Canada, and it’s on the rise in China, India, and Brazil. Living alone works best in nations with strong social supports. It works worst in places like the United States. It is best to have not only an Internet but a social safety net.

Then the great, global confinement began: enforced isolation, social distancing, shutdowns, lockdowns, a human but inhuman zoological garden. Zoom is better than nothing. But for how long? And what about the moment your connection crashes: the panic, the last tie severed? It is a terrible, frightful experiment, a test of the human capacity to bear loneliness. Do you pull out your hair? Do you dash yourself against the walls of your cage? Do you, locked inside, thrash and cry and moan? Sometimes, rarely, or never? More today than yesterday? ♦

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What Time Alone Offers: Narratives of Solitude From Adolescence to Older Adulthood

Netta weinstein.

1 School of Psychology and Clinical Language Science, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom

Thuy-vy Nguyen

2 Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom

Heather Hansen

Associated data.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Solitude – the state of being alone and not physically with another – can be rewarding. The present research explored the potential benefits of solitude from a pragmatist approach: a ground-up, top-down perspective that is receptive to new knowledge but informed by theory. Participant recruitment was stratified by age and gender, and the sample involved 2,035 individuals including adolescents (13–16 years), adults (35–55 years), or older adults (65+ years). Data were analyzed with a mixed-methods approach. Coded themes from brief narratives about solitude were extracted, and their frequencies (i.e., their salience to participants ) were compared across the lifespan. Themes were then correlated with two indicators of well-being in solitude: self-determined motivation for solitude and peaceful mood. Several prominent themes emerged when talking about time spent in solitude. With the exception of feeling competent in solitude, which was described frequently but consistently unrelated to self-reported well-being regardless of age, benefits of solitude tended to shift over the lifespan. Some qualities, such as a sense of autonomy (self-connection and reliance; absence of pressure), were salient and consequential for everyone, but increasingly so from adolescence to older adulthood. Older adults also reported feeling most peaceful in solitude and described their social connection and alienation less frequently, suggesting they see solitude and social time as more distinct states. Findings are discussed in light of existing work on solitude across the lifespan, and theoretical frameworks that spoke well to the data (e.g., self-determination theory).

Narratives of Solitude: a Lifespan Perspective on What is Learned and What is Gained

Solitude – the state of being alone and not physically with another ( Nguyen et al., 2021 ) – is increasingly understood to confer benefits. Until now, research in social, developmental, and clinical psychology, and in medicine, has mainly examined drawbacks of solitude and certain negative psychological states broadly associated with it, such as loneliness and social anxiety (e.g., Heinrich and Gullone, 2006 ; Cacioppo and Hawkley, 2009 ; Hawkley and Cacioppo, 2010 ; Coplan et al., 2015 ). But a growing body of work focuses on positive solitude by identifying and classifying the ways in which people flourish when alone. It is now quite clear that solitude is distinct from loneliness, the feeling of alienation from others ( Galanaki, 2004 , 2005 ), and isolation, the experience of choiceless and extended alone time ( Coplan and Bowker, 2013 ). Compared to the vast knowledge researchers have about loneliness and alienation, positive solitude research is nascent and additional work is needed to identify and describe potential benefits.

The current research explored content within brief written narratives of “everyday” solitude. The primary interest was in the lessons learned, and benefits of, time spent alone, because less is known about these aspects of solitude. However, to avoid biasing participants toward an unduly positive view of solitude that would lead them to describe benefits they would not otherwise endorse, instructions asked about both benefits and costs. Furthermore, the study examined whether and how these qualities of solitude change across the lifespan, from adolescence to adulthood, because previous work suggests the characteristics and challenges associated with developmental stages affect people’s experiences in solitude ( Coplan and Bowker, 2013 ).

The focus was on time spent in solitude during 3 months of the COVID-19 outbreak, which took place during the time of this research. During this time, solitude was presumed to be challenging and individuals spent more time in solitude than they had before. Despite this increased exposure to solitude, few emotional costs were identified as a direct function of spending time in solitude during these early months ( Weinstein and Nguyen, 2020 ). At the same time, some learned to appreciate solitude during this time ( Peyser, 2021 ). The present research was designed to capture what was learned about time spent alone.

Solitude Across the Lifespan

Multiple studies point to the importance of taking a lifespan perspective in understanding solitude. From adolescence ( Thomas and Azmitia, 2019 ), onward to adulthood and older adulthood ( Long and Averill, 2003 ; Ost Mor et al., 2020 ), individuals experience solitude as a positive space rich in opportunity ( Buchholz and Catton, 1999 ; Long et al., 2003 ). Researchers are beginning to index and thus better understand the benefits of solitude (also referred to as positive solitude) by developing comprehensive explanations of what can be gained from time spent alone. Those benefits can either be aimed inward (directed internally) or outward (directed toward others and connections in the world; Long et al., 2003 ).

Very recently, qualitative work was conducted which involved interviews with older adults and their adult caregivers ( Ost Mor et al., 2020 ) about the positive experience of “being with myself.” Interviews revealed a number of benefits of solitude and observed that they varied across the span of adulthood. In particular, as compared to mid-life adults, older adults described more quietness and interface with nature, recreation, hobbies, or habits. Similarly, in other work, older adults appeared to be better than younger people at using their alone time to reap benefits for their well-being ( Larson, 1990 ), including benefits to positive emotions ( Lay et al., 2019 ) and emotion regulation ( Rokach and Brock, 1998 ).

Solitude benefits may evolve early in life, with benefits readily increasing from adolescence through older adulthood. While pre-adolescents (aged 11 and 12) may struggle with the process of separating from their parents and thus experience anxiety during time spent alone, middle adolescents have expressed they increasingly appreciate time alone ( Larson, 1997 ), and throughout the teen years adolescents have a more positive attitude toward aloneness ( Marcoen et al., 1987 ; Corsano et al., 2006 ). It has been proposed that as adolescents age, time alone becomes a space for freedom (i.e., from parental influences), reflection, and creativity ( Ammaniti et al., 1988 ).

Assessing Well-Being in Solitude

Self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan and Deci, 2000a , b ; Deci and Ryan, 2008a ; Ryan and Deci, 2017 ) provides a useful framework for understanding well-being in solitude along the lifespan. SDT-informed research posits that solitude is more beneficial to the extent that it is undertaken for self-determined motivation (i.e., driving reasons) coming from one’s own interests and values rather than from internal demands or pressures ( Nguyen et al., 2018 ; Thomas and Azmitia, 2019 ). In the context of solitude, self-determined motivation is an important aspect of solitude in both adulthood and older adulthood ( Ost Mor et al., 2020 ). Arguably, this aspect of being alone is sufficiently important in that it defines positive solitude and differentiates it from isolation ( Burger, 1995 ). Furthermore, motivation for solitude may change throughout development just as the benefits of solitude do. For example, older adults are more likely to choose time alone ( Larson, 1990 ), and self-determined solitude is associated with more positive emotions in older adults ( Lay et al., 2020 ). Still, the question of how self-determined motivation for solitude relates to beneficial experiences across the lifespan remains largely unanswered.

Well-being in solitude is also experienced through peaceful (i.e., relaxed and not lonely) affect. Loneliness is associated with detrimental solitude (or self-isolation) and has substantial implications for mental and physical health ( Victor et al., 2000 ; Matias et al., 2011 ; O'Súilleabháin et al., 2019 ; Smith and Victor, 2019 ). But loneliness is not isomorphic with the state of solitude. Instead, it can be understood in terms of its associations with cognitive perceptions of one’s alone and social space ( Hawkley and Cacioppo, 2010 ; Russell et al., 2012 ; Goossens, 2018 ) and can also be experienced when around others ( Van Baarsen et al., 2001 ). Individuals may feel well-being benefits of their solitude in other ways than the absence of loneliness. Feeling relaxed is perhaps the most noteworthy of emotional well-being benefits ( Buchholz, 1997 ). For example, Nguyen et al. (2018) identified that most of the enjoyment in solitude comes in the form of low-arousal positive affect, namely, relaxation. Similarly, Ost Mor et al. (2020) identified that positive solitude is enjoyable in no small part because it is relaxing.

Current Research

Salience of solitude benefits can be explored by asking participants to reflect on what they learn and how they benefit from their time alone. Salient benefits should be spontaneously described with greater frequency. However, to understand the significance (e.g., for well-being) of those themes, it is useful to evaluate how they relate to separate perceptions of well-being during solitude. There has been little research documenting the gains of solitude across the adolescent to older adult lifespan. The current research was intended to build understanding of potential gains made in solitude, while staying open to the potential costs of being alone. Brief narratives of solitude were examined over 3months, through a pragmatist approach that sought to maximize both insights from data and from theory ( Howe, 1988 ; Onwuegbuzie and Johnson, 2006 ; Creswell and Plano Clark, 2011 ).

The pragmatist perspective reflected two study goals: theory building without prior assumptions and conferring new theoretical perspectives to relate back to the existing literature on solitude. To do so, the study used a qualitative analytic method, namely, thematic analysis, strategically: First, themes were formulated while staying naïve to existing theory, and then, themes were refined and tested applying expert perspectives to the data. Findings were also validated through quantitative analyses relating themes to well-being in solitude. This was in line with the current research goals ( Johnson and Onwuegbuzie, 2004 ) of evaluating salience of solitude benefits as well as their significance.

To summarize, a data-driven approach was used to draw out, identify, and code themes without particular bias from previous work in any particular age group. Then, the personal significance of those identified themes was tested top-down, based on previous research and theory ( Ryan and Deci, 2017 ; Nguyen et al., 2018 ).

Methodological and analytic decisions were registered in advance. 1 The study tested pre-registered research questions (RQ):

• What can be learned or gained from solitude? ( Qualitative )
• Are these benefits (of RQ1) associated with self-determined motivation for solitude? ( Quantitative 2 )
• Are these benefits (of RQ1) associated with two types of peaceful mood – relaxation and the absence of loneliness – in solitude? ( Quantitative )

Materials and Methods

Study recruitment and sampling.

This study analyzed data from three large purposive samples selected on the basis of age, gender, and a broad geographic spread within the United Kingdom. A first, adolescent sample consisted of n =1,001 13–16-year olds [534 (53.3%) boys, 464 (46.3%) girls, and 3 (0.4%) subjects who identified as another gender]. Adult participants were n =523 individuals between 25 and 51 years of age, 3 who identified as male (250 or 47.8%), female (272 or 52.0%), or other (1 or 0.2%). Finally, older adults were comprised of n =511 individuals [215 men (42.1%) and 296 (57.9%) women] between the ages of 59–85 years. 4 Three adults who did not give their age but were recruited with the adults were coded into the adult group.

Adolescents were recruited through ICM Unlimited, a social research polling company. 5 No hard quota controls were set for this research. However, soft quotas were set to ensure a good spread of respondents of each age (13-, 14-, 15-, vs. 16-year olds), gender, and region across the United Kingdom. ICM Unlimited contacted parents first with an invitation email containing the link to the survey, targeted by relevant variables. The first part of the survey was targeted at adults of an appropriate age range (c 30–50). Parents were asked whether they had children of the relevant age group (13–16-year olds) and asked for consent for their child to take part in the research after being shown an information sheet and consent form designed to inform and support the agency of parents. Children then saw the information sheet and asked for their consent to take part in the survey with age-appropriate language. Parents left the room, and adolescents completed the online study. Adults and older adults were recruited through stratification on Prolific Academic, an online panel company. Recruitment was stratified by age ranges to represent adults mid-life, who could be clearly distinguished from adolescents, and older adults. This study received approval from the University of Reading School of Psychology Ethics Committee (Num. 2020-080-NW). All participants were paid for taking part.

Narratives of Solitude

A diverse set of prompts was used to approach the issue of solitude benefits through a number of complementary lenses. Participants responded to two questions: “Over the past 3months many of us have spent quite a bit of time alone or without face-to-face contact with friends and family due to the coronavirus. During this time people have experienced many feelings, including happy, sad, lonely, and feeling relaxed. We are interested in hearing your unique experiences during this time, giving as much detail as you feel comfortable. Please tell us in a few sentences or in as much detail as you would like to give, as if you are writing in a journal.” This three-form design maximizes data resources to address complex issues with efficiency ( Graham et al., 2006 ). Given the lead, “Think about times when you may have been on your own or alone in the past 3months,” participants were then randomly assigned to receive one of the following three prompts that asked them to think on the issue more deeply: “What have you learned?,” “What have you learned about yourself?,” or “What have you learned about the relationships in your life (for example with family, friends)?.” All questions also asked, “How have you learnt this?” All participants then received a second prompt using the same solitude instructions: “…What has made times spent being on your own, or alone, good or bad in the past 3months? Think about a time when it was especially easy or hard.”

Measures of Positive Solitude

To ensure participants were thinking about time spent in solitude, the following measures all started with instructions to think back to “a time when you may have been on your own or alone.” Participants responded to the following items using a scale ranging from 1 ( does not apply to me at all ) to 7 ( applies to me very much ).

Self-Determined Motivation for Solitude

Self-determined motivation for solitude was measured with three items assessing: “Having time to myself was important and beneficial to me,” “I really valued having time by myself,” and “I felt I have no choice but to be alone,” taken from Nguyen et al. (2018) . Reliabilities were as: α =0.57 for adolescents; α =0.63 for adults, and α =0.73 for older adults. 6

Peaceful Mood Within Solitude

Relaxed and lonely moods were measured with five items: Relaxed mood was averaged from four items (calm, relaxed, at ease, and restful), and loneliness was measured with a single face-valid item (lonely). The average score of the four items assessing relaxed mood was further averaged with the reversed score for loneliness to reflect equal parts of both in a final mood measure. The two constructs were correlated moderately to highly: r =−0.44 in adolescents, r =−0.50 in adults, and r =−0.55, ps <0.001 in older adults.

Data Processing and Analyses

Generating narrative codes.

Themes were generated based on explorations of the raw data by five independent research assistants (and none of the authors) who were instructed on the basic concept that solitude can hold both costs and benefits. For practical considerations, adolescent data were considered first, and then, the group of five research assistants identified additional codes for themes unique to adult and older adult data. No analyses were conducted until codes had been set for the full sample. Three extensive conversations were held to discuss potential themes. These were moderated by the first author, whose job it was to minimize redundancy in different codes, and to establish both a conceptual clarity of codes and a common definition for each code agreed on by the research assistants.

Thus, decisions were made as a group to optimize each code for the following qualities: (1) comprehensiveness of data captured, (2) redundancy reduction, and (3) conceptual clarity. At this point, placeholder names were given to each code as a structure for undertaking the actual coding of the data. In most cases, identical themes observed across age groups allowed comparisons between adolescent, adult, and older adult data. But, in some cases, adults also raised themes not described by adolescents. In those cases, with respect to some narrative codes, only adult and older adult data could be compared.

Coding Narratives

Following the process of identifying codes, naïve researchers responsible for this task read through responses and coded narratives in terms of whether they had a theme present (coded 1) or absent (coded 0). Two researchers independently coded each data point, and a third independently coded a random subset. Following disagreements, researchers discussed the full set of codes and agreed on each theme for each response. Researchers were also given freedom to retain original codes if they did not see eye-to-eye. Final interrater agreement was kappa >0.80 for all codes. As pre-registered, to generate the final coding structure, a narrative was coded if any researcher identified the theme in that particular narrative.

Code Parsimony

The five researchers who determined the coding scheme identified a large number of codes (up to 25 codes after combining lowest order codes the researchers had initially agreed represented a single construct). A multi-step process was undertaken to identify higher order themes and to achieve greater code parsimony. First, the lead author of this paper considered codes in light of current theoretical approaches and literature in solitude reviewed above (namely, classification of solitude benefits by Long et al., 2003 ; self-determination theory, Ryan and Deci, 2017 ), as well as in light of additional insights from the data themselves, and generated 10 potential overarching categories that define the specific themes (i.e., codes). However, rather than sorting specific codes into their overarching themes herself, she asked experts in solitude (including two co-authors of this paper who were not actively involved in the coding process) to sort codes into the overarching theme categories or to indicate when a code did not fit into any of them. In this way, the overarching themes, and the placement of subthemes within them, were validated through multiple perspectives.

Expert Ratings

Experts ( M years studying solitude=15.29; SD =11.28) reported they had studied adolescents ( n =3), adults ( n =6), and older adults ( n =2) in relation to solitude. Each was asked to drag individual codes into their ideal overarching theme, or alternatively to identify if any code did not fit any of the proposed themes well. Specific codes were distributed into a theme when a majority vote of the eight experts placed them in the category (See supplemental materials 7 for codes and their themes).

Exploratory Factor Analyses

Expert ratings were used to reduce the full set of codes to a smaller number of overarching themes. To ensure those themes were orthogonal, they were then subjected to an exploratory factor analysis. Specifically, a polychoric correlation matrix was conducted, which is similar to an exploratory factor analysis but more appropriate for dichotomous data ( Holgado-Tello et al., 2010 ). Ten dimensions were requested (one for each variable) and a cutoff above 0.50 was used to determine whether items loaded together. The result showed that “autonomy” and “self-connection” loaded together (0.65 and 0.71), and indicated a meaningful covariation between “competence” (0.55) and “activities” (0.61). Other variables did not load together.

Final Set of Themes

The final themes resulting from the full thematic coding process are shown in Figure 1 in shaded gray boxes, with white boxes representing lower order themes embedded in each because doing so more accurately represented expert rating or statistical covariation.

Hierarchy of codes and themes extracted from narratives through the full thematic analysis process. Grayed boxes represented overarching themes, or self-reports, which were tested as separate variables in qualitative and quantitative models.

Quantitative Analyses

The final set of themes and self-reports of motivation and peaceful mood were then analyzed quantitatively using SPSS-27 through several steps. First, multiple analyses of variance (MANOVA) analyses predicted themes and mood from age groups (adolescents vs. adults vs. older adults). MANOVAs first tested statistically significant omnibus effects across all outcomes (themes or self-reports) to reduce the chance of spurious effects of age. These analyses were used to describe differences in salience of themes across the different age groups (i.e., whether individuals in certain age groups would find particular consequences of their solitude to be evident and therefore mention them at higher rates).

Second, linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the practical significance of themes on well-being by testing the relations between themes and well-being in solitude measures. It was presumed that those frequent themes that relate to well-being are not only salient, but also consequential for wellness. Simultaneously, moderations by age were estimated through testing interaction terms for each theme in the same models. This additional step asked the question: does the significance of certain themes differ across age groups, such that a theme relates more strongly to self-reported well-being at certain ages? To reduce spurious effects and the number of analyses, themes were modeled simultaneously in multiple regression models.

Final Themes

Inward-focused.

Competence involved felt efficacy, a focus on skill-building, and engagement in activities. When individuals responded that they engaged in activities and created structure in their days, they also felt they could build skills and feel effective in daily activities.

“Doing my own hobbies that I am interested in that don't require the presence of others” (female, age 15) “I have spent my time with cooking, painting art and craft and good games videos” (male, age 15) “I've learned some new languages and studied some new things on the internet I've been thinking after lockdown to enjoy life more” (male, age 14) “when I'm alone I tend to learn new things, exercise more and play more music” (male, age 30) “It's absolutely fine to be on your own, you have got more time to do things you have not got time to do, like reading or online learning” (female, age 31) “I've learned that I prefer more productive and studious pastimes as opposed to things like watching TV and playing video games. I really only discovered this by accident; I decided to try and learn Spanish and found myself enjoying the experience” (female, age 42) “I have caught up with a lot of reading and completed an online course in a subject that really interests me. I did well on the course and this has encouraged me to pursue the subject further” (female, age 69) “Good - pottering in garden, being creative, listening to music, walking in the park - saying hello to people, at the end of the day having crossed most items off my to-do list, rooting out the stuff lurking at the back of my food cupboard and using it, experimenting with recipes” (female, age 62)

Themes of autonomy involved a sense of self-reliance, elimination of pressure, and self-connection. Solitude that had autonomy facilitated a connection with the self that was conducive to a sense of choice, and freedom from the pressures and responsibilities set by others.

“I like myself and my own company” (female, age 13) “I can rely on my parents but I would prefer to do things myself and my own way” (male, age 13) “Be more independent and think for myself” (male, age 15) “How to love and be comfortable with my own company. It has made me more confident about myself” (female, age 30) “I learnt to listen to my own desires, needs and wishes. I tried to enjoy the moments and the activities I really like” (male, age 36) “Freedom to relax and be myself whilst alone. To do things that I want to do without distraction or interruption” (male, age 41) “It has been easy as I said before, I am really comfortable with myself. [self-growth: I have the time I need to reflect on things], with no pressure. I feel in control” (female, age 44) “I found the times on my own to be good as I was able to devote time to doing the things I enjoy” (female, age 63) “I have been able to feel quite relaxed, feeling I had nobody to answer to but myself” (male, age 77)

Self-Growth

Experts agreed that self-growth was further made up of self-reflection, development of coping ability, and spirituality. Examples of these include as:

“Time spent alone has been really good to reflect on where I am going in my life” (female, age 16) “Gives me time to work things out and collect my thoughts” (male, age 16) “When I am alone I can reflect and organise my thoughts on my life direction and problem-solve any issues I may have been facing. I can also check-in with my plans for the future and make sure I am on the right path” (female, age 38) “Good - acceptance and appreciation of the present moment. Presence. Meditating” (male, age 42) “The times spent alone have allowed me to relax away from the constant demands on my time. But they've given me time to reflect on how my life has improved now that I'm married with children” (male, age 60) “I have learned that it is nice to have some 'alone' time. It gives me time to think clearer without someone else being around interrupting my thought processes” (female, 61) “It has been good. It has brought me a much calmer outlook to things happening in my life” (female, age 69)

Disrupted Well-Being

Disrupted well-being was made up the loss of familiarity, lack of structure, and inactivity, or missing human contact.

“Being alone has been bad because I sleep lots and do not do much” (male, age 13) “It was hard when I had no structure to work towards” (female, age 14) “My times on my own weren't too good, because I'm far from home and I literally feel like there no one that I know better in miles” (male, age 30) “Being in solitude can have negative effect on one’s psychological or mental state thus it’s not particularly all cool to feel alone” (male, age 30) “There have been occasions when I have been on my own with no plans and I have not left my bed all day. This day was spent procrastinating until I felt very negative about my life overall” (female, age 31) “I have learned that on days when I am alone, if I don't plan ahead and set myself a task or reward for the day, that I will end up spending most of the day in bed, not doing anything productive. I often feel a bit down about this as I feel that I have wasted a day” (female, age 31)

Outward-Focused

Interpersonal connection involved a sense that solitude had in some way contributed to appreciating relationships, the use of technology for reaching out, and diversity in interactions.

“I have learnt I really value them and I speak to my friends online everyday as I miss them” (male, age 13) “Connecting with friends online has made me feel good and part of a community” (female, age 15) “Being alone from my parents has enabled me to think and reflect back upon our relationship and the parts that I value and to focus on this rather than the negative things that were missing from my childhood” (female, age 30) “Time spend on my own is easier with video call with my family and friends” (female, 31) “I have learned that I need people around me throughout the day. I miss the day to day conversations with people” (male, age 44) “Being alone gives an added freedom but also brings a closer relationship to family through more regular contact” (male, age 60) “I’ve learned that I need people more than I thought” (female, age 69)

Alienation was made up of disrupted relationships as a function of solitude (not coding disruptions from COVID-19, outside the context of solitude).

“I miss my friends and being able to interact with them” (male, age 14) “I feel I have no friends” (male, age 16) “For a long while, I was fine spending time by myself, as I am a loner by nature. However, recently I have felt very frustrated and angry that I don't have any friends to call on” (male, age 37) “I have learned that I don't have as many good friends as I had hoped.” (female, age 44) “… I spend a lot of time dealing with my family's needs” (female, age 60)

Other/Uncategorized

Self-care involved one original theme described by adults and older adults, which concerned activities focused on caring for oneself and rejuvenation.

“I focused on myself and I tried to exercise ….” (female, age 26) “I learned to take care about my own health. To cook healthy food for myself, to exercise” (male, age 30) “I have learned that given sufficient time to myself free of interruptions, I can be productive and get things done. I've also learned that rest is really important and that doing nothing is okay. I've learned this simply by having free time to myself and either being able to plan and get on with the mountain of jobs I have built up, or by sitting and watching Netflix when the weather is too bad to go outside” (female, age 32) “I do things I enjoy when on my own like yoga and Pilates and this makes me find being on my own easy and enjoyable” (female, age 60) “I’ve been attending an 8-week course via zoom for mindfulness and this has helped me relax and it’s my choice to be quiet and alone after my mindfulness classes. It’s good just to switch off from all that’s going on in the world” (female, age 67)

Appreciating the Environment

Appreciating the environment involved one original theme described by adults and older adults, which concerned activities focused on caring for oneself and rejuvenation.

“Focusing on something, for example gardening, has been an enjoyable hobby to spend this time alone. I think the act of doing something manually, and especially in contact with nature, helps grounding yourself and it sort of becomes a moment of meditation almost, when you can just free your mind from everything and just focus on the task you are doing at that moment” (female, age 26) “I also enjoy going for quiet walks with nothing, but birds chirping and few cars” (male, age 32) “Being alone makes you appreciate the silence and nature and it gives peace” (Female, age 36) “I prefer to walk in the hills on long day hikes on my own, being at one with nature and feeling the bones of the land” (male, age 60) “Good things of being alone is you can completely switch off from distractions and appreciate nature” (female, age 63) “I have been alone when I have taken walks out in the countryside and have reflected on what is important to me” (female, age 66).

Frequencies of Narratives as a Function of Age

The first test involved comparing frequency of codes across age categories to test whether certain ages would recall certain benefits more frequently than others. Examining omnibus effects, themes were expressed at different rates in the different age groups, Wilks’ Lambda F (14, 4,058)=35.22, p <0.001, d =0.19. Results of the MANOVA also showed main effects of age group on frequencies of narrative codes (presented bottom half of Table 1 ), and each was further investigated in pairwise comparisons (presented top half of Table 1 ).

Frequencies of narrative codes for each of the three age groups and their differences across age groups.

F , p , and d were determined from MANOVA analyses predicting each theme from the three age groups. ^Full sample is the percent across the sample (note, adolescents are disproportionately represented). ABC letters denote statistical significance when different (e.g., A vs. B ) and no differences when the same. Letters down the alphabet ( A, B, C ) represent higher percentages. ^These codes were also identified in adults and older adults and were conducted in a separate MANOVA because they were only available for adults and older adults.

From pairwise comparisons, a number of themes were described most often by adults, when compared to adolescents or older adults. Notably, adults described competence themes at significantly higher rates (48.9%) than the other groups, although competence was seen as a common benefit of solitude in other age groups as well (41.9% of older adults and 42.1% of adolescents). Adults also described self-growth as a benefit of solitude at higher rates (61.6%) than either of the other age groups (37.6–43.2%), and they described more self-care as a frequent benefit (18.9% of adults described solitude as a place for self-care). However, adults also described more disrupted well-being (adults: 35.6%; vs. 23.7 and 29.4%), suggesting that alongside the beneficial themes reviewed above, they also thought more about the costs of solitude.

Notably, where adolescents differed was on the salience of autonomy themes. Across adulthood, autonomy as a benefit of solitude was a common theme (53.8–54.7%), which was apparent, but less frequent, in adolescents (22.8%).

Finally, older adults described fewer relational costs and benefits. Specifically, older adults placed the least emphasis on solitude as making a greater contribution to relationships (i.e., interpersonal connection , 20.0%) and also were less likely to describe alienation as a theme of solitude (2.4%). In summary, older adults focused heavily on autonomy themes and were least likely to discuss relationship themes (either in a positive or negative light).

Self-Reported Well-Being in Solitude as a Function of Age

Table 2 summarizes patterns for the two self-reported indicators of well-being in solitude which differed across the three age groups ( Table 2 ). Adolescents reported the least self-determined motivation , followed by older adults. However, although adults reported the highest levels of self-determined motivation as compared to the other two age groups, they also reported the least peaceful mood . Despite concerns about solitude in older adulthood (e.g., Rokach, 2015 ), older adults reported the most relaxed, least lonely mood, when alone.

Self-reported well-being for each of the three age groups.

Motivation=self-determined motivation. ABC letters denote statistical significance when different (e.g., A vs. B ) and no differences when the same. Letters down the alphabet ( A, B, C ) represent progressively higher means.

Primary Quantitative Models

Hierarchical linear regression models predicted the three self-report composites concerning motivation and mood in solitude from coded narratives. Step 1 included main effect predictors across the lifespan, and Step 2 included age groups as a separate dummy-coded predictor. In line with the pre-registered analytic plan set before the start of the study: Dummy code 1 contrasting adolescents to adults: adolescents ( 1 ) vs. adults ( 0 ) and older adults ( 0 ): Dummy code 2 contrasting older adults to adults: older adults ( 1 ) vs. adults ( 0 ) and younger adults ( 0 ). In a final set of regression models, interaction effects of age group X narrative code were tested predicting the self-reported well-being. 8 Summarizing these findings, Table 3 presents main effects across all age groups, Table 4 presents interaction effects by age group, and Table 5 presents the simple effects within each age group. To illustrate these interactions, Figure 2 also presents the means of peaceful mood as a function of age and theme (present or absent) for four themes: autonomy, growth, connection, and alienation.

Main effects predicting well-being in solitude indicators: peaceful mood and self-determination motivation.

Statistically significant main effects are bolded. Disrupted WB=Disrupted well-being. App. Environ.=appreciating the environment.

Interaction effects predicting self-reports of solitude from coded narrative themes. Motivation and mood are defined as outcomes in the model.

Narratives codes (left panel) were defined as simultaneous predictors in the model, and dummy codes were used to compare adults to adolescents and older adults. Statistically significant interaction effects are bolded. Disrupted WB=Disrupted well-being. App. Environ.=appreciating the environment.

Simple slopes contrasting each pair of age groups (adults vs. adolescents and adults vs. older adults) predicting well-being in solitude: peaceful mood and self-determination motivation.

Adoles=adolescents; older=older adults. Interaction effects from Table 4 are summarized on the left-hand columns, separately comparing adults to adolescents and adults to older adults. ns=not significant at p <0.05. NA=the interaction could not be tested because themes were not identified in adolescents. Bolded simple slopes represent statistically significant simple slopes at p <0.05. Disrupted WB=disrupted well-being. App. Environ.=appreciating the environment.

Interaction effects: means of peaceful mood (y axis) as a function of each theme [absent (white) or present (gray)], and separately adolescents, adults, and older adults (x axis). Means were derived from PROCESS moderation analyses for illustration purposes and may slightly differ from simultaneous regression models.

Across all age groups (when examining main effects across the lifespan; Table 3 ), the most robust relation across the lifespan involved autonomy themes. Those who described autonomy as a benefit of solitude also reported more peaceful mood during solitude ( β =0.17) and more self-determined motivation for solitude ( β =0.26).

Examining moderation effects, the links between autonomy narratives and self-reported well-being in solitude interacted with age in the “older adult” versus “adult” comparison only (interaction effects in Table 4 ; simple effects in Table 5 ). In other words, interaction effects showed that autonomy themes were more strongly correlated with well-being for older adults as compared to adults across both self-reported well-being measures; The difference was not statistically significant when comparing adolescents to adults.

A second significant pattern across the lifespan was observed for the narrative code “disrupted well-being,” which involved loss of routine, missing the familiar, missing human contact, and inactivity. Across the lifespan, disrupted well-being was related to lower well-being ( Table 3 ): less peaceful mood during solitude ( β =−0.17) and less self-determined motivation for solitude ( β =−0.13). The links between disrupted well-being narratives and more detrimental self-reported outcomes in solitude were stronger for older adults than adults (interaction effects in Table 4 ; simple effects Table 5 ).

Relationships with others were reflected in seeking positive interpersonal connection and, also, felt alienation. Alienation correlated with less peaceful mood across the lifespan ( β =−0.07), but the strongest negative relations between alienation and mood were found for adults. Across the lifespan, connection correlated with more self-determined motivation ( β =0.06). Further examining simple slopes, adolescents who described connection reported consistent and robust wellness benefits during solitude. Only adolescents benefited when discussing connection themes, and they drove the main effect observed across the lifespan.

Growth, involving self-reflection, developing coping, and spirituality, showed intriguing inconsistencies. Across the lifespan, growth correlated with more self-determined motivation ( β =0.05), yet it was linked to less peaceful mood during solitude ( β =−0.05). The adolescent versus adult code moderated the relation between growth themes and self-reported well-being. Examining this further, adolescents showed a significant positive link between growth themes and self-determined motivation, and a positive trend between growth and peaceful mood. On the other hand, adults reported negative trends on both measures.

Finally, no main effects were observed for self-care, appreciating the environment, or competence, although in older adults self-care was related to more self-reported well-being in solitude. For the first two of these constructs, this may be due to the very low rates (around 5–7%) of these narratives with that code. The lack of relations with competence was surprising, because it was reported at relatively high rates (around 40%) across the lifespan. Thus, it was a commonly reported benefit of solitude, but not one that translated to more self-reported well-being.

This mixed-method research was designed to define the salience (qualitatively) and significance (quantitatively) of benefits and costs of solitude in order to build a richer understanding of how solitude is experienced across the lifespan. Over 2,000 individuals in their adolescence, adulthood, or older adulthood described the gains, losses, and lessons learned from solitude. To define the salience of specific experiences in solitude, the frequencies by which themes were reported in the narratives of individuals from these different age groups were tested, as were convergences between extracted themes and self-reported well-being (self-determined motivation and peaceful mood) in solitude.

Differences among age groups were evident in survey responses. Adults reported the most self-determined motivation for solitude, but the least peaceful mood. Older adults reported the least self-determined motivation for solitude when compared to adults, but the most peaceful mood when alone. This finding stands in contrast with qualitative work showing older adults are likely to choose solitude ( Ost Mor et al., 2020 ), but the difference likely lies in the timing of this study, the COVID-19 outbreak, which limited choice and opportunities for many older adults who were self-shielding ( Robb et al., 2020 ). It is noteworthy that despite their lower self-determined motivation, older adults still reported their time alone as more peaceful than adults or adolescents. The latter finding aligns well with a body of work suggesting older adults are better at enjoying time alone ( Larson, 1990 ; Lay et al., 2019 ; Ost Mor et al., 2020 ). Solitude is often viewed as a positive state ( Long et al., 2003 ; Ost Mor et al., 2020 ), and it is also noteworthy that consistent with this view all three age groups – adolescents to older adults – generally reported above-mean (at approximately 5 on a 7-point scale) levels of self-determined motivation and peaceful mood. Though instructions carefully avoided biasing participants toward expressing solitude as a positive phenomenon in their lives, on the whole, most expressed that it is. In sum, solitude was, on the whole, reported to be a positive experience across the lifespan but was most peaceful for older adults, despite reduced self-determined motivation likely due to COVID-19 restricting social interactions.

Through the process of coding narratives, overarching themes were identified that characterized gains, losses, and lessons learned. Three prominent themes extracted were consistent with views of self-determination theory ( Ryan and Deci, 2000a , b ), a guiding framework for the lead researcher but one to which coders was intentionally naïve. SDT posits that three basic psychological needs shape well-being and flourishing: competence – feeling effective in the things one does; autonomy – feeling that one is volitional and choiceful in one’s actions and congruent with oneself; and relatedness – experiencing a sense of closeness and connection with others ( Deci and Ryan, 2008b ; Church et al., 2013 ; Milyavskaya et al., 2013 ). To the extent that those needs are met, individuals experience higher well-being; and to the extent they are thwarted, individuals’ well-being is undermined ( Ryan and Deci, 2017 ).

Although psychological need satisfaction has not been studied in the context of solitude, it is reasonable to assume that one could feel more or less psychologically need-satisfied when alone. For example, when alone one may feel free to be oneself and undertake tasks deemed interesting or important. This autonomy satisfaction in solitude can be distinguished from self-determined motivation for solitude, which concerns one’s choice to volitionally enter into solitude; arguably, both are important (Weinstein et al., in press).

Previous research ( Ammaniti et al., 1988 ) and theorizing ( Larson, 1997 ) suggest that solitude is important for experiencing autonomy in adolescence. The SDT literature also posits that feeling choiceful and free from pressure is important for well-being across the lifespan ( Ryan et al., 1995 ). In the current study, autonomy was identified to be an affordance of solitude by around 20% of adolescents but was more frequently described by around 50% of adults and older adults. Thus, across the adult lifespan, autonomy was seen as a salient affordance of time spent alone. Consistent with previous theorizing (e.g., Ryan et al., 1995 ), autonomy was also a significant predictor of well-being. Those who described autonomy as an affordance, regardless of their age, also reported higher well-being in solitude, though the relation between autonomy themes and self-reported well-being in solitude was stronger in older adults than it was for adolescents.

While this was the case in the current study, autonomy seemed to play a particularly important and beneficial role for older adults that shaped how they felt when alone and was partly responsible for a “peaceful mood” during their solitude. One explanation for increasing associations between the autonomy theme and well-being across the lifespan is that, since self-connection and self-initiation are still naturally developing at different rates in young people from age 13 to 20 years ( Collins et al., 1997 ), the successful resolution of this process may play a more central role in determining well-being in solitude for adults.

Alongside experiencing autonomy, even when individuals are alone, they may still seek and value connection to others since relatedness is a fundamental human need ( Baumeister and Leary, 1995 ; Ryan and Deci, 2000a ), and because interpersonal connections are carried through memories and residual impressions of social experiences ( Weinstein, 2014 ). In this work, individuals describing solitude expressed a desire to connect with others. Narratives discussed seeking connections, or feeling alienated, from others. The theme of alienation speaks to the extant literature that views solitude in terms of social withdrawal or otherwise disrupted relationships ( Rubin et al., 2014 ). However, it is worth bearing in mind that during the pandemic, participants may have been experiencing non-typical solitude that disrupted the balance between social and alone time ( Robb et al., 2020 ). Also noteworthy, themes of connection and alienation differed across the lifespan. Of the three age groups, older adults were least likely to describe desire for connection or alienation themes. Therefore, for older adults, solitude was generally most divorced from social interactions, a view which is aligned with previous research showing that older adults are less reliant on others’ presence ( Carstensen, 1992 ; Palmonari, 2011 ; Lay et al., 2019 ).

Although adolescents did not differ from adults in terms of the salience of connecting to others when alone (both reported interpersonal connection at relatively high rates), they were more likely than adults to spontaneously discuss feeling alienated in solitude. It may be that adolescents are finding time alone particularly disruptive to their relationships, a developmentally appropriate reaction given that a primary task of adolescent development is constructing and understanding themselves in their friendships ( Hartup, 1989 ). Further, adolescents benefited, reporting more self-determined motivation and peaceful mood, when they perceived connections to others.

The final of the three psychological needs, competence, can be readily experienced in solitude when individuals undertake activities and tasks that are challenging but achievable ( Ryan and Deci, 2000a ). Indeed, competence was identified with some frequency (app. 40% of respondents) across age groups. SDT argues that competence is an important precursor of well-being ( Deci and Ryan, 2008b ); however, there was no evidence linking competence themes with well-being at any age group. This divergence from expectation may be due to the source of competence themes; namely, some described school or work activities during COVID-19 lockdowns that were perhaps better completed with others. Thus, task-focused activities and even efficacy perceived during those activities may not necessarily have been experienced as satisfying the need for competence in the same way that self-directed competence activities are experienced ( Baard et al., 2004 ).

Adults appeared to describe the most intrapersonal movement and upheaval during their solitude time. Compared to both adolescents and older adults, adults described more frequent growth themes: They engaged in more self-reflection, and they developed more patience and engaged spirituality. At the same time, adults also reported more disrupted well-being: They felt aimless and without structure, and they described the sense that familiarity was disrupted by their time spent alone. While growth has the potential for long-term benefits through learning about the self, emotions, and goals ( Ardelt and Grunwald, 2018 ), it often comes at a cost for well-being in the short-term ( Weinstein and Hodgins, 2009 ). For example, thinking about oneself can bring up painful thoughts that must be processed or may be ruminative, with mixed or no relations with well-being ( Harrington and Loffredo, 2010 ). In line with this view, adults who described growth in solitude had lower self-determined motivation to be alone.

Finally, although self-care and appreciating the environment were two themes that emerged for adults and older adults, they were not as highly represented as one might expect. This may be because the study questions prompted reflection of what is gained and learned from solitude, rather than delving into the context that gives rise to positive solitude, where, for example, appreciating the environment may be more salient. Specifically, when individuals have nature around them, they report their time to be more peaceful and rewarding ( Borrie and Roggenbuck, 2001 ; Long and Averill, 2003 ). Similarly, self-compassion and self-care are important indicators of well-being outside the context of solitude ( Zessin et al., 2015 ). Arguably, neither of these experiences may be unique to solitude, and future research may explore the role of both self-care and the environment in social relationships and when alone.

Limitations

These set of findings should be viewed in light of several limitations of the research. First, data were collected over a single time point and participants were asked to reflect back to solitude over a period of time. While this narrative approach is not particularly problematic in light of the current focus on identifying the most salient recollections of solitude, this research would be well suited to ecological momentary assessments (daily diary studies) that ask participants to reflect back to recent solitude and describe it soon after the alone event took place. Such an approach would pick up on more nuanced benefits and costs that may be forgotten over the course of time. It would allow for more time-specific correlations between themes and affect as a function of a specific occurrence of solitude rather than across time, correlations which will likely be stronger as they capture a specific and well-defined experience.

Second, though the study used a mixed-methods approach that reduced common method variance ( Podsakoff et al., 2003 ), the correlational nature of the data precluded casual interpretations regarding themes that emerged. As such, future research should consider experimental interventions to change participants’ framing for solitude in light of the themes that emerged here. For example, Nguyen et al. (2021) have done similar work manipulating motivational framing of solitude in terms of self-determined or non-self-determined motivation. It may be that making certain affordances of solitude salient – such as autonomy across the lifespan, or growth in a sample of adolescents – could serve as an experimental manipulation that might shape consequent well-being in solitude. This approach would help to address potential alternative explanations for the effects identified in this study.

Further, this research involved young- to mid- adolescents aged 13–16 years, but evidence suggests that the capacity to enjoy solitude develops throughout adolescence, and older adolescents are more like to benefit from time spent alone ( Larson, 1990 ; Coplan et al., 2019 ). Older adolescents – a sample not tested in this study – may have demonstrated benefits similar to those reported by the adult sample. Finally, because this study was conducted during the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak, it is unclear the extent to which results would generalize beyond this period to everyday solitude. However, the benefits described by participants despite lockdowns during this time are particularly informative for understanding the potential gains from time spent alone.

This study highlighted potential benefits, as well as costs, of solitude and how they vary over three age groups. Alongside understanding findings in light of self-determination theory, the study findings converged with the affordances described by Long et al.’s (2003) study with college students. Specifically, Long’s distinction between inward-focused affordances (e.g., autonomy) and outward-focused affordances (e.g., connection) continued to be a useful framework aligned with these findings. Furthermore, many of the themes Long identified were evident in the current research: “solitude as anonymity” – acting without concern for social niceties – mapped closely onto the theme of “freedom from pressure”; “solitude as intimacy” corresponded with “connection”; “solitude as creativity” corresponded with some aspects of the competence theme; and “solitude as problem-solving and self-discovery” mapped well onto the personal growth themes. Diverging from Long et al. (2003) , who described all affordances as benefiting college students’ well-being, they were observed at different rates and correlated differently with well-being across the lifespan, and as a function of age groups.

In short, adolescents (age 13–16 years) had little interest in the autonomy offered by solitude but were interested in its opportunities to feel competent and to experience self-growth . They were also less likely to feel disrupted well-being in solitude, and more likely to experience a feeling of interpersonal connections during that time. Adults (age 25–51) were invested in solitude primarily as a place of self-growth and competence where they could focus on skill-building and feel effective and engaged. Unlike adolescents, but similar to their elders, adults were particularly invested in reaping the benefits of autonomy in solitude. Many felt connected to others but are also the most likely of the three groups to experience disrupted well-being in solitude. Finally, older adults (age 59–85) were slightly less interested in competence and much less interested in self-growth possible in solitude. But they were invested in autonomy – a space in which they could feel self-reliant and connect with themselves, free from the pressure of others.

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the University of Reading School of Psychology Ethics Committee (no 2020-080-NW). Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

Author Contributions

NW, HH, and T-VN conceptualized the project and developed the methodology. NW conducted data collection, organized coders, led data analysis, and led manuscript preparation with active contributions from HH and T-VN. HH and T-VN supported data analysis and interpretation. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This research was funded by the ERC grant SOAR-859810 awarded to the NW.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

1 Doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/B2AMQ

The only notable deviation from registered plans is that we do not discuss results with self-reported need satisfaction. Their findings were consistent with peaceful mood. However, self-reported need satisfaction was redundant with the themes that emerged from narrative coding and had an unclear position in the model.

2 Exploratory question, as it was not registered prior to data collection.

3 We had set an inclusion criterion for participants to be between the ages of 30–50 years, but six participants outside this (25–29 or 31 years) age signed up for the study.

4 We had set an inclusion criterion that participants are aged 60+ years, but received one respondent of age 59.

5 https://www.icmunlimited.com

6 As a note, reliability for this measure was lower in adolescents and adults as compared to adults, suggesting variance across age groups. Correlations with this measure should be interpreted with caution and alongside results for affect.

7 Doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/B2AMQ.

8 Self-care and appreciating the environment were tested in a separate model including all predictors but no dummy codes for adolescents.

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We Need to Understand the Difference Between Isolation and Loneliness

Both can pose distinct dangers to our mental and physical health.

By Kim Tingley

How many close friends and relatives do you have with whom you feel at ease and can discuss private matters? How many of them do you see at least once a month? Do you participate in any groups? These are among the questions on a survey called the Berkman-Syme Social Network Index, which physicians use to determine whether someone is “socially isolated.” People are considered isolated if they have fewer than six confidants, no spouse and no group affiliations. Those conditions make them less likely to report that they have someone they can count on to listen if they need to talk, give advice about a problem or show them love and affection.

But you can have plenty of connections, even close connections, and still feel lonely. To assess that subjective state, clinicians may use the three-item U.C.L.A. Loneliness Scale, which asks: How often do you feel you lack companionship? How often do you feel left out? How often do you feel isolated?

Social isolation and loneliness tend to go together. Researchers have become increasingly aware, though, that you can experience one but not the other. That means these states of being may have different causes, different impacts on health and different potential solutions. In February 2020, a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine noted that a third of Americans over 45 feel lonely; a quarter of those over 65 are socially isolated. Each condition increases a person’s risk of premature death from any cause — as much as or more than smoking or a lack of physical activity do — as well as the risk of heart disease and stroke. Social isolation increased the risk of dementia 50 percent, and loneliness correlated with higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicide. Older adults, along with people in marginalized groups, are at heightened risk of both isolation and loneliness.

And that was the situation before the pandemic forced so many people to remain physically distant from others, which almost certainly exacerbated both isolation and loneliness in unpredictable ways. “The reality is that to some extent we are in a data-free zone,” Carla Perissinotto, one of the report’s authors and a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told the Senate Special Committee on Aging in June 2020. “We do not know how long we have to be lonely or isolated, or how severe this must be for us to have lasting negative consequences.”

More than a year later, a complicated picture has begun to emerge. In July, researchers at Northeastern University and elsewhere reported the results of an ongoing national survey that started in April 2020. They asked respondents how many people they had in their social circle whom they could depend on to care for them if they fell ill; to lend them money; to talk to them if they had a problem or felt depressed; or to help them find a job. The number of people who reported having one person or no one in each group tended to be highest last fall, a period when participants also reported decreases in the amount of time spent with nonhousehold members in person. Support and proximity with others increased roughly in tandem between December and April, as vaccines were rolled out and restrictions began to be lifted. But at that point, respondents increasingly began to say that they again lacked all four kinds of support, even though their amount of in-person contact continued to grow. Seeing other people again can be “a bit of a reality check,” says Louise Hawkley, a principal research scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago. You might discover that someone you thought could support you can’t — perhaps because of that person’s own pandemic struggles. Katherine Ognyanova, an associate professor of communication and information at Rutgers University and an author of the study, says: “There isn’t research on an event of that magnitude before. We’re just learning about what happened and how to deal with it.”

Before the pandemic, few studies tried to assess both social isolation and loneliness in the same group of participants to directly compare their effects. (Researchers also often use conflicting definitions of, and metrics to measure, concepts like “support,” “isolation” and “loneliness.”) In 2015, an analysis of existing studies published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, and her colleagues found that social isolation increased the risk of mortality by 29 percent on average ; loneliness increased it by 26 percent and living alone by 32 percent. In 2018, a report in the journal Health Psychology saw evidence that social isolation exacerbated the impact of loneliness on mortality and vice versa. Holt-Lunstad says we tend to imagine that being isolated by choice is fine if you’re happy. “But what the evidence suggests is that might be a faulty assumption,” she adds. “We shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss isolation alone.”

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Social Isolation

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

Though our need to connect is innate, many of us frequently feel alone. Loneliness is the state of distress or discomfort that results when one perceives a gap between one’s desires for social connection and actual experiences of it. Even some people who are surrounded by others throughout the day—or are in a long-lasting marriage —still experience a deep and pervasive loneliness. Research suggests that loneliness poses serious threats to well-being as well as long-term physical health.

• Identifying and Fighting Loneliness
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Whether a person lives in isolation or not, feeling a lack of social connectedness can be painful. Loneliness can be described in different ways; a commonly used measure of loneliness, the UCLA Loneliness Scale, asks individuals about a range of feelings or deficits of connection, including how often they:

feel they lack companionship

feel left out

feel “in tune” with people around them

feel outgoing and friendly

feel there are people they can turn to

Given the potential health consequences for those who feel like they have few or no supportive social connections, widespread loneliness poses a major societal challenge. But it underscores a demand for increased outreach and connection on a personal level, too.

Loneliness is as tied to the quality of one's relationships as it is to the number of connections one has. And it doesn’t only stem from heartache or isolation.  A  lack of authenticity in relationships  can result in feelings of loneliness. For some, not having a coveted animal companion, or the absence of a quiet presence in the home (even if one has plenty of social contacts in the wider world), can trigger loneliness. 

There's evidence that lonely individuals have a sort of negativity bias in evaluating social interactions. Lonely people pick up on  signs of potential rejection more quickly than do others, perhaps better to avoid it and protect themselves. People who feel lonely need to be aware of this bias so as to override it in seeking out companionship.

Solitude, or time spent alone, is not inherently negative and can even be restorative or advantageous in other ways. Research suggests the reasons young people choose to be alone matter—they may do so to relax, create, or reflect, rather than to avoid other people.

Loneliness researcher John Cacioppo argues that just as you can start an exercise regimen to gain strength and improve your health, you can combat loneliness through small moves that build emotional strength and resilience . He has devised techniques for people at particularly high risk for chronic loneliness, such as soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. They may be useful to anyone. 

A number of unfavorable outcomes have been linked to loneliness. In addition to its association with depressive symptoms and other forms of mental illness, loneliness is a risk factor for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and arthritis, among other diseases. Lonely people are also twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease, research suggests. The state of chronic loneliness may trigger adverse physiological responses such as the increased production of stress hormones , hinder sleep, and result in weakened immunity.

While a person can’t die simply from feeling too lonely, findings that lonely people have higher rates of mortality and certain diseases supports the idea that, over time, chronic loneliness can play a role in increasing the risk of dying.

Feelings of loneliness and isolation affect people of all ages, although adolescents and the elderly  may be especially likely to be impacted.

About 40 percent of Americans reported regularly feeling lonely in 2010, and other reports affirm that it is common for people to feel lonely at least some of the time. The high rates of reported loneliness have led some to declare an “epidemic,” though it is not clear that loneliness is increasing in younger generations.

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Loneliness is on the rise, and for many people, turning to social media for connection has become a daily habit. Author Richard Deming explores loneliness and social media use.

Feeling sad and lonely is natural from time to time. But if you can't muster up the energy to take steps to conquer your loneliness, chances are depression may be at play.

Some people hate spending time alone. Other people find solitude therapeutic and essential. What makes the difference?

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Many of us feel rootless and disconnected. Imaginative and playful spiritual-ish practices can help change that.

Personal Perspective: Having to recuperate from surgery alone compounds recovery physically, emotionally, and socially.

The growing pandemic of loneliness might not be completely rooted in our isolation from others but may also be a result of our relationship with ourselves when we are alone.

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