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Ready for some peace and quiet? Some time alone focusing on you? Good because this post is all about spending time alone… consider it your ultimate guide!

Be prepared to learn about the difference between loneliness and being alone, the importance of alone time, and what happens when you don’t get enough alone time. Also why it might be so difficult for you to spend time alone and finally how to be happy alone. 

So what are you waiting for, make yourself comfy, curl up somewhere nice with your favourite drink, and dive right in!

What is the Difference Between Feeling Lonely and Being Alone?

Being alone and feeling lonely are often intertwined but at the core of it, they are quite different. Yes, you can be alone and feel lonely, but also you can feel lonely when you are surrounded by others. Let’s explore some of these key differences:

1. They are different states of existence- physical vs emotional

Being alone simply refers to you being by yourself without someone to keep you company, or when there is physically nobody else around you. Being alone does not necessarily mean you will be feeling negative emotions (you can absolutely feel content being physically alone). When you do start to feel these negative feelings and start to “feel alone”, this is when you cross into the territory of loneliness. Unlike being alone, loneliness is an emotional state. Experiencing feelings of loneliness could be caused by a sense of isolation, feeling disconnected, or feeling a lack of meaningful relationships or connections to people around you. It’s also not tied to your physical environment. You can definitely feel lonely when you are by yourself, but you can also feel lonely when you are with other people. 

To put it simply: Being alone is a physical state, while feeling lonely is an emotional response to that state.

2. Whether it is considered to be a positive, neutral, or negative experience: 

Being alone can be seen as a neutral, positive, or negative experience depending on your personal needs and your circumstances. It can be the difference between being alone when you need company or support and getting some alone time after having a very busy, tiring, and stressful day. In comparison, the feeling of loneliness is generally seen as negative because of the emotional distress it causes. 

3. How long it lasts for:

Being alone, 9 times out of 10 is a choice. You can choose to be alone. You might be like those people that love to be alone. You might cherish this alone time as your time to recharge, focus, or spend time doing the things that you enjoy. In this case, you get to determine how long your alone time lasts (well, at least you get some say in the matter). In other cases, being alone is due to your circumstances. Maybe you have moved to a new place, maybe your besties have gone on holiday or maybe you’re sick and have to stay at home and rest. Regardless, this state of being alone is temporary. Loneliness on the other can be far more persistent – especially because exists even in the presence of others. It only really goes away when you start to take serious action and do things to help lessen these feelings. Things like, trying to create new or deeper connections, figuring out the reason behind your feelings of loneliness, or going and seeking professional help. 

The Importance of Alone Time 

The importance of alone time lies in the significant effect it has on our personal growth and well-being. As much as humans are naturally social creatures that crave connection, we do need space from time to time. It’s important to find a healthy balance between the two. The amount of time you need will vary depending on who you are, your needs, personality, circumstances, etc. Regardless, having some amount of alone time is essential. This section is all about the importance of alone time and what happens when you don’t get enough of it. 

1. It helps you rest and reset 

Having time to yourself allows you to have time to rest and recharge. Being constantly social can seriously drain your social battery. Having time alone allows you to recharge your battery by doing things that rejuvenate you. Another reason for the importance of alone time is that it gives you a chance to relax and reset. You are not designed to be constantly busy, your body needs time to not be on the go. When you get time to yourself, you can reduce the business, slow down for a moment, and let your body have a chance to stop and relax. Doing this has an incredible effect on your mental, emotional, and physical well-being, as you’ll see in the next few points. 

When you don’t get enough alone time, it can lead to stress, overwhelm, and eventually burnout. This is because social environments can be highly stimulating. If you are constantly being stimulated, without the opportunity to unwind or decompress it can leave you feeling overstimulated – which can lead to the perception of being overwhelmed or stressed. When you push through and continue to operate in a highly stressed state with minimal energy reserves, it will eventually lead to burnout. If you want to learn more about burnout check out this post from Healthline.

2. It helps you be more emotionally stable: 

Having alone time is very effective in helping you regulate your emotions. This is because it provides a space for you to properly process your emotions without the interference of others. It also gives you the space to destress and reduce any feelings of overwhelm. By doing all of this, you are bringing yourself into a calmer, more balanced headspace, which helps you foster greater emotional resilience.  

When you don’t get enough alone time and you’re constantly interacting with others, it can lead to emotional exhaustion. This is because your schedule is interfering with your ability to stop and process your stress and emotions and so they start to build up and become chronic. This can really wear you thin and limit your patience, likely increasing your irritability and causing you to have a shorter temper than you normally would. 

3. It allows space for self-discovery, personal development, and proper decision-making:

Part of discovering yourself comes from a bit of self-reflection and analysing yourself- both of which are far easier to do when you are not being distracted by others. Having alone time gives you the space to be able to look inward and discover your wants, goals, values, needs, feelings, etc, without being influenced by anyone or anything else. Having this clarity can help with your decision-making. It can help you make clearer, uninfluenced, and more rational decisions that align with who you are, especially because you have the time and space to carefully consider the decision. These moments of self-discovery, also provide an opportunity for personal development because you can channel this self-knowledge into creating and reflecting on goals that are actually meaningful to you. 

When you don’t get enough alone time it can really leave you feeling out of touch with yourself. It can make you forget what you enjoy doing and what is important to you- leaving you more impressionable and more easily influenced by others. It may also make you feel like you are getting into a bit of a rut or feel like you are a bit lost in life. This is because you haven’t taken the time to reflect on yourself and become clear on who you are or to work on your personal development and your goals. As another result, you may find it difficult to make decisions, because you don’t know what you truly want or need. Or, the decisions you make become influenced by others, or are made irrationally without consideration about how they align with you. 

4. It allows you to practice setting boundaries and prioritising self-care: 

To actually get yourself some alone time requires you to say no to others and to start putting some boundaries in place to protect that time. Having these boundaries around your time is healthy. It says to yourself that you are important and you are worth your time. It’s your chance to put yourself first and focus on properly caring for yourself. Having more alone time leaves greater room for you to practice self-care – helping you to attend to all the aspects of true self-care that help you live a healthy more fulfilling life. 

Without having proper alone time, you are constantly giving and giving to others, while taking away from yourself. Over time, the stress and emotional strain caused by this insufficient alone time can have physical effects such as impacting your sleep, your immune function, and your overall health. Plus, less time alone, means less time for self-care- which will eventually affect your social, emotional, spiritual, and mental health too. 

5. It can help improve your relationships: 

As mentioned above, alone time allows you to rest, recharge, destress, and have space to work on yourself. This has a positive impact on your relationships because it allows you to be in a better headspace to interact with others- allowing you and the other person to get the most out of the interaction. Also having a clearer headspace allows you to be a better listener because you are less likely to be distracted by your own thoughts and have the mental capacity to take on information. With better emotional stability you are less likely to dramatise small inconveniences and are more likely to reflect positively on your social interactions.

Basically, when you don’t get enough alone time and you’re stressed, run-down, and emotionally exhausted it is really difficult to give your best self to others. This can harm the quality of your relationships and mean that you stop enjoying the time you spend with others. 

Why Is So Hard To Spend Time Alone?

Before you can start successfully spending time alone, it is important to understand the reasons behind why you might struggle to be by yourself. Once you have this understanding, you become better equipped to face your discomfort with solitude and slowly learn to enjoy and value your own company. 

Spending time alone can be challenging for several reasons:

1. Your view of being alone has been influenced by society: 

Society generally tends to put a lot of emphasis on being super social and being constantly surrounded by others. Whether that’s through others physically telling you that you need to be more social (when you are an introvert) or telling you that being around others is good for you. Or whether it’s more implicit pressures, like the social pressure to spend time with people after a long day at work having to be pleasant and interact with others. These pressures and expectations can lead you to believe that being alone is somehow undesirable or a sign of loneliness. This can lead to you feeling forced to spend time with others and slowly spend less and less time alone- even though you may really need it.  

Your culture has also influenced this view:

In some cultures around the world, spending time alone is encouraged, whereas in others this is viewed in a more negative light. Introverted qualities like being quiet and analytical are highly valued in some cultures, while in other cultures more extroverted qualities like being outspoken and highly social are valued and encouraged. So your view of spending time alone might have strong ties to how you were brought up and what kind of social society you live in. 

2. You’re afraid you’ll miss out:

FOMO is real for sure. We live in a world run by social media. Everyone is constantly connected and showcasing all the great things they are doing and showing off all the friends they have. This can seriously lead you to subconsciously start comparing your life to everyone else’s and start to get sucked into the pressure of trying to keep up with it all (trust me, it’s very easy to get sucked in if you’re not careful). Once, you start going about your life with this subconscious mindset, it can be realllllly difficult to take time out for yourself because that’s when FOMO hits hard. You start to not want to spend crucial time alone for fear of missing out on social events, experiences with others, or important information.

3. When the distractions are gone, your emotions can hit hard:

Life is full of distractions – other people make especially fantastic distractions. You might use these distractions as a way to not focus on what’s going on with you and to not attend to your emotions. However, these emotions and needs don’t go away, so when you finally do find a moment alone they may come forth with an overwhelming force. 

Some people don’t like spending time alone for this reason. Being alone often leads to self-reflection, which some people might find uncomfortable. When you remove all the distractions, suddenly you come face-to-face with all your thoughts, feelings, insecurities, and personal issues you’ve been avoiding by keeping busy or being around others. This can be super confronting and lead you to feel uncomfortable or apprehensive about spending time by yourself.

4. You depend on others:

You might be a person who finds it difficult to be alone because you rely on other people for validation, reassurance, and for creating your sense of self-worth. Therefore, being alone can be quite challenging because the reliance that you get from being around others suddenly isn’t there. Alternatively, being around others might actually be your comfort zone. So, having to spend time alone might mean you have to step outside of your comfort zone and confront the discomfort of the unknown.

5. You have linked the feeling of loneliness with being alone:

Sometimes, being alone can lead to feelings of loneliness, even if you aren’t truly isolated. If you have linked these two things together it can be easy to form the idea that every time you are by yourself, you are going to feel lonely (even when this might not be the case). This perception of being lonely can make spending time alone difficult and stop you from wanting to have time alone. It’s important to remember that while loneliness can occur at the same time as being alone they are two different things. 

6. You don’t know how to spend time by yourself:

You might have become so used to being around others that you forget how to spend time with yourself. If this is the case, your reasoning for not wanting to spend time alone might simply be that you don’t what to do with yourself and get confronted by feeling lost and helpless when you are alone. For you, constant social interaction might have become a habit. A habit that might have taken over some of your hobbies and passions. Breaking this habit and starting to feel comfortable with some ‘you time’ can take time and effort- but it is worth it. 

How To Be Happy Alone

If you have got to this point, you now understand the importance of time alone and you understand the difficulties that may be preventing you from engaging in alone time. With that in mind, it is time to learn some strategies to help you learn to be happy when you are on your own. Learning how to do this will help make spending time by yourself a rewarding and fulfilling experience. 

1. Recognise how much time you need alone:

Everyone will need different amounts of time alone depending on who you are. If you are more introverted, you naturally may need more time alone to recharge your social battery than someone who is more extroverted. Similarly, if you have a hectic schedule or live a busy life, you may need more time to decompress. It’s time to start with some reflection and figure out how much time you need in your day-to-day to relax, unwind, and work on your self-care. 

2. Find a hobby: 

Find something that you enjoy doing by yourself because pursuing your interests can be a source of happiness and fulfillment, even when alone. When you’re alone, you have the chance to do the things you enjoy doing without the fear of judgment. So it doesn’t matter how good you are at your hobby or how weird others may thing your hobby is, the key is that you enjoy it and that it brings you happiness. 

3. Affirm yourself: 

Intertwine some positive affirmations into your next spell of alone time to help get you in the right headspace. Start your alone time with positive affirmations like: “I deserve this time to myself”, “I am worthy of the effort I put into myself”, “I take pleasure in my own company”, “I am worthy of my undivided attention.”

4. Work on some goals:

Use your uninterrupted time and undivided attention to focus on some personal goals and projects that you are super passionate about (but normally wouldn’t get time to do). These goals could be to do with improving yourself, making progress with a hobby or even doing something that you have been putting off. Regardless, working toward and achieving goals can bring a sense of purpose and accomplishment. This helps you to start feeling a sense of fulfillment without relying on the presence of others. 

5. Have a moment of mindfulness and gratitude:

At some point during your you moment, take a second to practice being mindful and showing some gratitude. It doesn’t have to be for very long, even 5 minutes in duration will be sufficient. Take a second to stop. Close your eyes. Focus on your breath- breathing deeply. Then take a few moments to think about 5 things that you have been grateful for in this last week. Doing this can help you stay present, appreciate the moment, and flood your mind with some positivity. 

6. Get Active!

Go for a stroll in the sunshine or go for a swim. Put on your favourite music and just dance. Sprint down the road, running as fast as you can until you can’t run anymore, and then lie down and let your breath settle. Getting active can seriously boost your mood and give you the endorphin release to help you set a great tone for your alone time. 

7. Give yourself some much-needed self-care: 

Now’s the perfect time to start prioritising all aspects of your health. Give yourself some much-needed TLC by engaging in some self-care activities. Better yet, treat yourself to a self-care day, where you can have a whole day’s worth of attending to your needs. Alternatively, invest some of your time into developing a self-care routine so that you can make sure you prioritise it in your week. 

8. Read a book or learn something new: 

Teach yourself a new skill or take a chance to relax and lose yourself between the pages of a good book. Or better yet, read a book that will teach you something new. Reading and learning new things can be intellectually stimulating and provide a sense of personal growth and satisfaction.

9. Plan yourself some solo adventures: 

Just because you are alone doesn’t mean you have to be alone at home. Try getting out and about rather. Plan yourself some outings, trips, or activities that you can enjoy by yourself. If you’re smart about it, you can even strategically plan them to give yourself a rest during busy periods in your life. Also, by planning things in advance you have something you can look forward to. Going out and doing things by yourself can be nerve-wracking in concept and may push you outside of your comfort zone. However, exploring new places or trying new things on your own can be incredibly empowering – so don’t knock it till you try it.

10. Seek professional help: 

If have made some considerable effort to have some alone time and are finding it challenging to be happy alone, it may be wise to consider seeking some support. A therapist or counselor can help you explore some of the reasons you are finding it difficult to be alone and give you tailored strategies for how to address this challenge. This can be very beneficial in helping you overcome your difficulty with spending time by yourself and get you back to enjoying your own company. 

11. Savor the small pleasures of being alone:

When you find yourself with some alone time, why not really embrace it? Embrace the fact that you can indulge in your favourite foods and not have to share with anyone. The fact that you can listen to your favourite music however loud you like and dance like nobody is watching (because nobody will be). Really lean into your creature comforts in these moments. Take up as much space as you like, spread out, make a mess (or tidy one up if that’s more satisfying to you). You have the perfect time to just be unashamedly YOU – enjoy it!

Bonus: If you’re looking for some fun and unique activities to fill in your time alone, check out this post.

Phew, that was a lot! Hopefully you are still nice and comfy and have been inspired to lock in some alone time for yourself! After reading this post, you will hopefully no longer underestimate the importance of alone time – it seriously is essential to your well-being. Yes, being by yourself can be a difficult journey at times and it’s perfectly normal to experience moments of loneliness or unhappiness. However, finding happiness when alone can ultimately lead to a greater sense of self-fulfillment and independence – so it is definitely something worth pursuing and working towards. 

Remember that being happy alone is a personal journey so don’t expect it to look like anyone else’s and be sure to show yourself some patience and kindness along the way. Now go and enjoy some you time!