• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Opinion Front

Opinion Front

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Articles

3 Overlooked Benefits of Solitude

Home / Uncategorized / 3 Overlooked Benefits of Solitude

Spending time with other people is important. That’s not merely a blanket statement with no substance to support it. Studies routinely confirm that an active social life plays a crucial role in a person’s mental and physical health.

That said, it’s also important to not disregard the benefits of solitude. While people shouldn’t spend all their time away from others, a little bit of isolation can be a good thing. The following are key reasons why:

3 Benefits of Solitude (Backed by Research)

Learning About Yourself

This is a difficult concept to explain, but it’s one that many researchers have focused on in recent years. Quite simply, when you’re in any sort of social setting, you aren’t strictly yourself. You’re instead whoever you are in that context. For example, if you’re a mother spending time with her children, you’re a parent in that situation. If you’re hanging out with coworkers, you’re a fellow employee.

When you’re by yourself, you’re just you. This gives you an opportunity to learn how the various social contexts of your life shape your behavior and self-perception. In some instances, that can help a person make life changes. Solitude could teach you that a particular social context is limiting your potential.

Helping with Self-Regulation

It’s worth noting that spending time alone doesn’t have to have a harmful impact on your social life. On the contrary, some researchers have found that spending more time by yourself can actually improve your social interactions over time.

This is because spending time in solitude helps people develop the skills they need to regulate their own emotions. When you’re alone with your thoughts and feelings, you’re more aware of them. That means you have more opportunities to exercise a degree of control over how you think or feel about particular situations.

This helps later on. When you’re socializing with others, your self-regulation skills will help you determine if you’re talking too much (or not enough), overreacting to perceived slights, making insensitive comments, and much more. Once again, when you spend time with yourself, you learn about yourself. That’s key to making lasting changes.

Developing Skills

Some of the greatest benefits of solitude are practical in nature. For instance, researchers have often found that, all other factors being equal, people who spend time alone are often more likely to develop certain strong talents than their peers. These talents can include playing an instrument, painting, cooking, or doing anything else that requires practice.

It’s easy to understand why this is the case. Although some skills are easier to develop with help from others, there are also many abilities that a person is more likely to cultivate when they have the opportunity to devote alone time to them. 

Of course, that highlights an important point. Solitude isn’t inherently positive by itself. To reap the benefits of solitude, you need to use the time wisely. Whether you’re developing a skill or taking time to reflect on who you are and how you behave, if you value your alone time, you’ll likely experience major rewards.

Like it? Share it!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
« Previous Post
Next Post »

Category iconUncategorized Tag iconsocialization,  solitude

Get Updates Right to Your Inbox

Sign up to receive the latest and greatest articles from our site automatically each week (give or take)...right to your inbox.
Blog Updates

Further Insights

Woman relaxing
Essential Benefits of a Digital Detox
May 15, 2020
Artistic woman using computer
Why Non-STEM Degrees Are Still Valuable
May 15, 2020
Woman relaxing on beach
3 Reasons Doing Nothing Can Actually be Productive
May 3, 2020

Primary Sidebar

Search

Latest Articles

Woman relaxing

Essential Benefits of a Digital Detox

Artistic woman using computer

Why Non-STEM Degrees Are Still Valuable

Woman relaxing on beach

3 Reasons Doing Nothing Can Actually be Productive

Men reading screen and laughing

3 Myths Far Too Many People Believe About the Past

Exploring the website?

Our site includes quite a bit of content, so if you're having an issue finding what you're looking for, go on ahead and use that search feature there!

Footer

We hope you enjoy this website. We've created informative articles that you can come back to again and again when you have questions or want to learn more!
  • Facebook
  • RSS

Copyright © Opinion Front & Buzzle.com, Inc.
6789 Quail Hill Pkwy, Suite 211 Irvine CA 92603

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact Us
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsAccept
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.