Bill Gates is known for his solitary “think weeks” . The painter Georgia O’Keeffe often spent days alone walking and working at her ranch in New Mexico. And the poet Emily Dickinson wrote often about the revelations that can come from time spent in solitude.
Throughout history, artists, philosophers and other visionaries have had a penchant for solitude. But the rest of us can benefit from alone time, too. “Solitude gives your brain the chance to reset and restore,” says Robert Coplan, a developmental psychologist and professor in the psychology department at Carleton University in Ottawa.
“It’s a good place for creative endeavours because it lets our mind wander. Solitude tends to make us feel calmer because it takes the edge off of negative emotions. It’s freedom from all of that social input.
You’re free to do what you want, think what you want and be who you want.” Spending time alone can help our creative mind wander. Credit: Getty Images Solitude isn’t loneliness There’s a difference between loneliness and simply being by oneself.
“That’s a really important point: being alone is not being lonely,” says Kira Birditt, a research professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Loading That’s not to say loneliness isn’t a problem: last year, US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy issued an advisory on loneliness , suggesting that it posed a public health threat as significant as smoking and obesity.
But you can be .
