Embracing Solitude with Dr. Robert Coplan

Is being alone a punishment or a gift? Priyanka and Hari discuss the difference between loneliness and solitude with psychologist and researcher Dr. Robert Coplan, author of The Joy of Solitude. They explore why time alone can feel terrifying or deeply nourishing, how social media has changed our ability to truly be alone, and why solitude is essential for creativity, emotional regulation, and mental health. From “a-loneliness” to flow states to the Surgeon General’s warning about chronic loneliness, this thoughtful conversation explains why alone time is a vital human need in an overconnected world.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is for information purposes only and should not
be considered professional medical advice.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Solitude is so often seen as something that happens to
you when you do something wrong and you're being punished,
But we can flip the script and see solitude as
an opportunity.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
I don't understand people who really enjoy being alone.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Okay, like me, Are you ever really alone? If you've
got your phone with you and the alerts are turned
on and notifications are coming through, and at any minute
someone is demanding your attention.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Sounds like a really good setup for a midlife crisis.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
I suppose I'm very excited for this podcast to be
over so I can sit alone somewhere. I'm Hurrycandibolu, I'm
doctor preuncle Wally, and this is health stuff. He Prianca. Hey, Hey,
how's it going good? Good? At a lovely weekend? I'm

(01:01):
super charge? Do I sound super charged?

Speaker 1 (01:03):
I like I just you do have a little pep
in your voice today, that is, I would say, more
charge than usual.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Well, I didn't spend the weekend alone, which that sounds
so sad, But I feel like I spend a lot
of weekends, either when I'm traveling or when I don't
have my kid kind of alone and trying to figure
out what to do with that time. And this weekend
I was with family, I was with my kid. It
was like a really like nice weekend filled with things happening,

(01:35):
and I feel like a little bit more whole as
a result. There are days where I got to be like,
I got to interact with other human beings. It's been days.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
It sounds like you were very nourished this weekend.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Like, yes, I feel neished. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
So then you don't like spending time alone? Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
I don't love it.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
No.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
I have tried in the past to intensionally spend time alone.
I've gone to other countries by myself, paid it. Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Do not like it?

Speaker 3 (02:07):
A strong dislike for having to be by myself, especially
when I'm traveling. I live alone in my apartment. Just
even that. As much as I like living alone and
I love the freedom that gives you, it's there are
times where I'm like, yeah, it'd be nice to have
someone to talk to, you know what I mean? Yeah, Look,
I just I don't understand people who really enjoy being alone.

(02:32):
I don't understand it.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Okay, Like me, do you.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Like being alone.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
I like being alone when it's by my choice, when
I choose to do it. One of my favorite activities
is to go out in nature alone and spend time there,
and I find that to be very nourishing. But I
have to choose it. Like if someone was like, You're

(02:57):
gonna spend three days in a forest by yourself, and
it was forced upon me, I think I would have
some issues with that, for sure. But I've had so
many moments where I've been in a crowd and I've
found myself feeling really lonely in a crowd because it's
not intentional. So it just depends. But there has to

(03:20):
be choice. There has to be choice. That's the key.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
I mean, that's part of a larger phenomenon. I think
like living in New York City, it's like it's gigantic,
but you can feel so alone in a city this big, Right,
It's just because it's like I'm surrounded by strangers and
it almost feels like there aren't people there at all.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean I will go out in
nature by myself, but if I really like a person,
I'll then invite them to come with me. So then
you're doing something that's involving not a lot of stuff
or people or crowds or anything like that. It's funny

(04:02):
because back when I used to perform stand up comedy, right,
it wasn't performing the show that would exhaust me. It
was after the show, the meet and greet, Yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
Talking to people. God, yes, yes, what exhaust me.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
I could just feel my energy just draining. And then
after that I would need to like go back to
the hotel or back to my apartment and just recharge.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Especially when everyone has a story to tell you.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, they want to tell you their life story, and.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
You're just like, I'm very, very tied pernect it.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
That reminds me when we were creating the podcast art
and we were like sending the producer's photos of ourselves
and stuff. At one point I found these old photos
back from twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen of you and me
when I came to one of your shows in San Francisco.
I came to a couple of your shows, so at
some point I need to send you those photos. We

(05:00):
look really we look really young and in.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, oh twenty sixteen, that was a different time.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, life was so different back then, life was different
but I'm really excited about our guest today because he's
a researcher on loneliness, and he specifically talks about the
difference between solitude and loneliness. Whereas solitude is where you
choose to be by yourself, loneliness is where there's a

(05:33):
discrepancy between how much you want to be social and
what the reality is of what your social experience is.
You can actually have lots of friends and still experience
loneliness because there's a discrepancy between like your emotional state
and the unmet social needs. So yeah, I can't wait

(05:54):
to talk to him about this.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
I mean, it's also interesting to imagine what loneliness is
solide dude looks in an era of social media.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Oh my god, Yes.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Because sometimes I feel like the Internet and social media
makes you feel more connected to other people, But more
times than none, it just feels like, look at all
these people having fun, a lot of people doing things
that I'm not doing. Look at their perfect lives.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
I mean, most of the time that I spend in
therapy is talking about things that I saw on social
media that really upset me. I can't tell you how
much energy of minor traits and I have such a
love hate relationship, Like I'll delete it off my phone
and then I'll put it back on and I'll delete
it in. But I overall find social media to constantly

(06:42):
trigger for me that sense of oh, you're missing out.
Oh look at all these amazing things that people are
doing and these countries that people are visiting, and this
and that, and it just creates this sense of disconnect
that keeps saying the same message like oh, you don't
have enough, not enough, and unless you follow like all

(07:04):
therapists on social media are people just putting out positive
things all the time, But the algorithm seems to constantly
remind you like, oh, here's an insecurity of yours that
you don't want to deal with. But now we're going
to face without consent. So back to the same idea
of like consenting to be alone, choosing to be alone
versus without. So yeah, I want to backtrack a little bit.

(07:27):
Because you've traveled to other countries intentionally by yourself and
hated it. How do you know it wasn't the country
you visited as opposed to you being alone.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Well, there is something about traveling, walking around by yourself
and not having anyone to turn to to describe what
you're feeling, or what you're viewing, or how you're interpreting
the world around you. That is hard for me. And
maybe part of it was growing up, you know, very
close with my younger brother, always having this feedback, always

(07:58):
having this partnership, you know, there's always the two of
us together. Maybe that's part of it, But I've never
liked being alone and not being able to immediately share
what I'm experiencing with other people.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
I mean, that's such a human need, right I've been
signed to connect with each other and want to share
these experiences.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
I'm really excited about our guests, doctor Robert Copeland. I
think you know someone to talk about the difference between
solitude and loneliness and what those look like, because to me,
they seem like the same thing. But maybe I am mistaken.
Maybe I need to hear what he has to say.
So I'm excited about that.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah. Yeah, he's definitely going to kind of break it
down for us. I think it's really important that we
talk about this as a health stuff issue. The Surgeon
General actually talked about how chronic loneliness is literally as
harmful as smoking fifteen cigarettes A day, or drinking six
alcoholic drinks a day, So it's actually for our health

(09:01):
to be lonely. And there's so many I think cultural
aspects about it too, Like I wonder, is this is
this like a Western problem versus other cultures. I also
love the idea of someone normalizing solitude as someone who
engages in intentional solitude. I've known for a really long

(09:22):
time like, oh, when I take time for myself, I
just feel better about myself and I'm just like a
kinder person. I'm easier to deal with. And that's sort
of always been like that for me. And so I
feel like our culture is so much about crowds and

(09:42):
parties and all of that stuff, which is great. But
then I think for people like myself, where oh, solitude
actually feels really nice from time to time, I think
we have to like bring that back. So I really
appreciate the message. Potentially, I agree, even though you don't
like being alone.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
No, even though I don't like being alone, I'm glad
that we can at least have a discussion about it.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
So one of the things he talks about is how
solitude can bring a person into like more of a
flow state, which can enhance creativity. And so one of
the questions I have for you when you get into
a creative flow, are you alone when that happens, or is.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
That that's very interesting? Or are you with people that's
very interesting. I've had both happen. I've had writing partnerships
where I feel like the person I'm talking to is
almost a reflection of myself, and our brains are sharing
the exact same space, like we're feeding off each other,
and there's a flow state in just that partnership. Me

(10:45):
and my brother definitely have had that at times, where
we can go back and forth and create something really
funny out of nothing. I also think about all the
thoughts I've lost because I was about to go to
sleep and didn't write them down, or I've been in
the shower and I had no place to write them down.
Those are the big ones for me. Those three moments
are when I feel like I come up with ideas
and there's nothing else to distract me.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
I think those would be examples of solitude that are chosen, intentional,
positive and they lead to creativity for me personally. Like, yeah,
shower moments are critical, Although I too have had like
collaborative meetings with other individuals where you're just like in
the flow and it feels really good with another person.
There's credit to that as well. But yeah, should we

(11:28):
get to our guest.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, more to come on health stuff.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Our guest is doctor Robert Copeland. He's a psychologist, researcher, educator,
and author who's been studying solitude for more than thirty years.
His new book is called The Joy of Solitude, How
to Reconnect with Yourself in an overconnected World. Doctor Copeland,
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. Thanks for
joining us. Your research primarily focused on experiences of solitude,
including the implications of shyness, social withdrawal, and preference for solitude.
What drew you to studying solitude?

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Well, I mean I have been studying it for quite
a long time, but I must say my interest started
when I was in one of my first jobs as
a camp counselor, and I spent lots of time in
tracking with kids. I eventually trained as a developmental psychologist,
and I just got interested in the kids that were
kind of off by themselves and who weren't initiating with
the groups, and it seemed like they were kind of
interested in playing, but maybe a little bit nervous, and
that just drew my attention. And then when I started

(12:33):
studying this phenomena, I spent a lot of time just
watching kids at school and in a schoolyard or at recess,
and again really focused on the kids who, despite the
opportunity to hang out with other kids, were off by themselves.
And I was most interested in the shy kids at
the time, like you mentioned, but at the same time,
I'd noticed these other kids that seemed to be just
quite happy playing by themselves. And you know, other kids

(12:54):
would come and invite them to do something fun, and
they'd be like, sure, I'll go do something fun. And
then when something fun was over, they'd go back and have, believe,
build with blocks or draw picture or something like that.
And then I thought like, wow, we don't know that
much about kids who just like spending time by themselves.
And over the course of my career that has just
expanded outward into looking at all different ages and across
cultures and just being really being interested in kind of

(13:14):
the costs and benefits of experiences of solitude.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
As one of those kids that you were probably studying
I want to just thank you because I definitely was
a shy kid growing up and enjoyed playing by myself,
but then also would accept invitations like if I got
to play with other kids too, So I think that's
really wonderful. And you know, in your book you break
down these really important definitions that I would love for

(13:41):
the listeners to understand, that difference between loneliness and solitude.
So can you just break down for us what makes
loneliness fundamentally different from solitude.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, I'm so glad you asked me that, because it
is really such an important distinction. And of course we've
been paying a lot of attention to loneliness over the
last few years, and for really good reason. Right people
talk about the epidemic of loneliness and all the damage
that loneliness can do for our well being and our
health and our mental health. And I always want to
be clear at the outset when we have these kinds
of discussions, because I do, of course talk about the
positive aspects of solitude, but that doesn't mean that I

(14:15):
don't think that loneliness is a bad thing, and there's
not something you know, it's something that deserves our attention.
You know, loneliness is I mean, lollness is awful.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Right.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
It's a terrible, bad, very uncomfortable, painful feeling that we
get when our social desires don't meet up and match
with our social lives.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
So it's a mismatch between what we would like to
be doing socially sort of how often we see people,
the quality of that interaction, the intimacy that we share
with our social networks. Right, that's our need for social connection.
And if that need is not satisfied, loneliness is like
an alarm bill. It goes off inside us and says,
go hang out with some people. Go spend some time
with people, because humans need social connection. And if we

(14:52):
don't get it and we are you know, prolonged experiences
of loneliness and social isolation, it sucks. It's just really
bad for us, right, It damages our well being. There
was a report out of the US Surgeon General's Office
a few years ago that equated the damages of loneliness
to our physical health is about as bad for you
as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. I mean, it's mind boggling,

(15:13):
you know. And so yes, we definitely need to pay
attention to loneliness. It's a terrible thing that we have
to try to combat with all the tools that we have.
But as you said, loneliness is not solitude. So loneliness
is this bad feeling that we get. Solitude is a place,
and solitude is a place that if we choose to
go there, it has a lot of good stuffs, you know,
waiting for us, and we can feel lonely even when

(15:34):
we're surrounded by people. Right, you might have had the
experience where you go to a party and maybe you
know it's close to the holidays, and you're sipping eggnog
and standing in the corner, and you're watching everyone else
seemingly having this really great time. They're laughing and they're
patting each other on the back, and they have all
the intimate moments, and despite the fact that you're right
in it, you're surrounded by people, you might leave an
experience like that feeling even more lonely than when you

(15:54):
got there. And of course you can be in solitude
and not feel lonely at all.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
Can you talk about the kinds of needs that need
to be met that distinguishes loneliness from solitude?

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Sure? So I mean a very well discussed topic is
the need to belong, Right, that's our need for social connection,
and you know, humans need others. We all need other people. Historically,
if from an evolutionary perspective, it was a matter of survival,
you had to be around other people if you wanted food,
if you wanted protection, you want you have to share resources,
and so it's built into us that we need to
be around other people. And being around other people is

(16:27):
just fundamentally good for us. It raises our mood, you know,
it helps us feel better. It gives us that feeling
of connection that is such a fundamental part of our
well being. And when we don't meet our need to
belong that's when we feel lonely. So that's sort of
a primary social need. It's less discussed, but would make
a strong argument that there's also a need for solitude
and that we need that time off stage. That's how
I kind of like to think about it. Right, So,

(16:48):
being around other people, it's like being in the spotlight.
You are paying attention to everything that you say and do,
your facial expression, the tone of your voice, the words
that you're choosing. It's a lot of effort on your behalf.
When you know that other people are out there watching
you and evaluating you, and of course you have to
pay attention to what everyone else is doing right their
facial expression and their posture, and the tone of their
voice and the words that they're using. It could be exhausting.

(17:09):
It's so much input, so much processing that we have
to do, and so for me, solitude is what happens
when we step off of that stage, out of the spotlight.
It's just a relief from all of that input. It's
a break. That's why solitude is such a good place
to restore your battery right to recharge. It takes the
edge off of your negative emotions. There's so many opportunities
to reflect and have an opportunity to take a break

(17:30):
from everything else that's going on. And I think, as
we've seen in some of my research, which I'm quite
happy to talk about, there's consequences for not having your
need for solitude met, just like there's consequences for not
meeting your need to belong.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Can you be in solitude and still feel lonely? Because
I have definitely chosen solitude before, mainly to force myself
to be in that space, just because it's not something
I've particularly loved historically, and I've gone on trips by
myself and have felt like a deep loneliness I've gotten
there even though the choice was to be alone. How

(18:03):
does that work?

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, that's interesting because I would say most typically, we're
most likely to feel lonely when we're kind of an
unchosen solitude. Right, So, when we're in a circumstance where,
you know, maybe something as simple as your plans get
canceled and you feel like you know everyone else is
out having a good time, but you're home by yourself,
Or you move to a new state and you don't
know a lot of people, or you're an older adult
and your spouse passes away after years of marriage and

(18:25):
suddenly you're living by yourself. I mean, there's all of
these circumstances. When you're a child and you get rejected
by your peers and victimized and can't play with anyone
because nobody wants to play with you, Like, these are
painful experiences, pushing us into this unwonted experience of solitude
that is most likely to make us feel lonely and
make us feel bad. Solitude is most likely to be
experienced positively and get benefits when we choose to do it.

(18:46):
And I was fascinated by hearing you say like you
kind of forced yourself into solitude because you kind of
thought it would be good for you. And I praise
that because I think more people need to do that.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
Right.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
For some people, solitude is just a natural experience for them.
They love spending time alone. They probably spend even too
much time alone, and they need a little push to
go out and socially interact a little bit more to
find their balance. But I would say more people are
uncomfortable being alone. There's a classic experiment from about ten
years ago where college students were asked to sit alone
in a room for fifteen minutes. The instructions were you're

(19:16):
sitting alone with your thoughts. Okay, so fifteen minutes in
a small room, sitting on a chair, no tech, nothing
to do alone with your thoughts. Now. Needless to say,
they hated this experience overall, and they talked about being
bored and typically unhappy. But in one of the versions
of the experiment, just before they went into the room,
they got to self administer, just to try it out
on electric shocks. So they pressed the button and they
were hooked up and they gave themselves an electric shock,

(19:36):
so they knew what it felt like, so they wasn't
sort of a case that they were trying something for
new when they were in the room. And then they
went into the room and they said, sit alone for
fifteen minutes, but if you want, go ahead and press
that button again and give yourself some electric shocks if
you're just like looking for something to do. And more
than half of the participants gave themselves shocks, like it
was so boring and aversive that they would rather give
themselves pain than sit alone for fifteen minutes and you know,

(19:58):
be alone with their thoughts. But kind of illustrate the
fact that a lot of people are uncomfortable in solitude.
They don't like being by themselves, they feel bored, maybe
they feel their mind races with thoughts that they don't
want to think about. But it's the kind of thing
that it's worth that effort. So I was so glad
to hear you say that you kind of forced yourself
to do it. And just in terms of some simple advice,
there's actually some pretty straightforward techniques that we can use

(20:19):
to help make those experiences of solitude feel better and
the simplest one, and it sounds sort of silly, is
you think happy thoughts. So in one of these experiments,
they gave the participants instructions when you go in the room,
sit by sitting for a fteen minutes, just think happy thoughts,
think good things about being there, and that actually improved
the experience. So it's kind of about flipping the script.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
Right.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
So if you're seeing solitude as a punishment, which it's
often portrayed as a punishment, right, we give toddlers who
are misbehaving a timeout, We give prisoners who are misbehaving
solitary confinement.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Right.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Solitude is so often seen as something that happens to
you when you do something wrong and you're being punished.
But we can flip the script and see solitude as
an opportunity, as a as a gift, right, the gift
of me time, the chance to do things that you
want to do, the chance to reconnect with yourself and
do a little bit of self exploration that will pay
off later on when you're interacting with others, and so

(21:11):
just looking at it as an opportunity, flipping your beliefs
over to the positive side can have a really positive effect.
And another one of these studies, they just had people
read a short paragraph about benefits of solitude and then
sit in the room and that helped. So your listeners
just from you know, listening to us talk about the
benefits of solitude today, the next time they go to
spend by themselves, hopefully that will help them experience it
more positively.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
So what about the fact that the sort of life
that we are living is unprecedented in terms of our
access to social media and the impact of social media,
Like we know, there's a lot of research out there
that's saying when people use social media, their self esteem
gets worse, they experience more loneliness. How is a person

(21:55):
supposed to navigate that? Is social media good for solitude
or is it detrimental for solitude? Where do we balance that?
Keeping in mind that these are also like very addictive
devices as well. So how is a person supposed to
navigate life in this time with this technology?

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, that's the virtual elephant in the room, I think, right.
You know, technology has really it's made us fundamentally have
to re examine even what we mean by solitude because historically,
if you were physically alone, then the odds are you
were in solitude, because how could you be interacting with anybody?
But now you can be physically alone in your room
with the door closed, like my teenage son does all
the time, with your headset on playing video games and

(22:40):
literally facetiming with friends while you're supposedly in solitude, right,
and so this has huge implications, right for even what
we mean, is it even possible? I mean, this is
an existential threat to solitude. Are you ever really alone?
If you've got your phone with you and the alerts
are turned on and notifications are coming through, and at
any minute you're pulled right back onto that stage because
someone demanding your attention, and so that you're right, that

(23:03):
is a real issue to be dealt with when it
comes to solitude. Okay, So that's the scary part. The
more friendly part is that it doesn't have to be
so bad, right, And my advice to people about how
to use technology in solitude is use it for good
and not for evil. So using solitude for evil when
you are alone is doom scrolling and going on social media,
and that makes us feel bad about ourselves alone or
with other people. We should try to do less of that.

(23:24):
Period full stop in solitude or with other people. But
your phone can also be helpful when you are alone,
because there's a bit of a myth that says, in
order to get the benefits of solitude, you need to
fold your legs and sit on a yoga mat and meditate,
and that's how you get benefits from solitude. And don't
get me wrong, meditation is awesome and it has a
lot of well established benefits for our health and our
well being. But that's only one way to get benefits

(23:46):
from solitude. And so it turns out that as long
as you're doing an activity that you find meaningful, that
you find engaging, that you find enjoyable, that's where the
good stuff is. So maybe you want to go for
a walk, or maybe you want to read, or maybe
you want to play candy Crush on your phone. Sometimes
that's what we need to unwind and to give ourselves
a little bit of a break, and our phone can
actually be helpful. There's meditation apps on your phone. You

(24:08):
can listen to music, you can read right, you can
play mindless games, which sometimes just what you need in
order to relax, you know, when you have a short break,
and so that's Okay, it's fine to use your phone
in good ways, as I would say, while you're alone.
The only sort of caveat besides keep off of social
media if you can, is to consider turning off your
notifications and don't what I would call social wash your solitude. Right, So,

(24:29):
people who don't enjoy spending time alone, who find it boring,
they will socially tinge their solitude by texting with people,
FaceTime with people, commenting on social media, engaging in virtual
social interactions that put a social coloring on their solitude,
and then they're missing out on some of the good
stuff because again they're not really off stage. And so
of course, sometimes if you're feeling lonely and you are
by yourself, technology is a great way to connect with people.

(24:52):
But don't spend all of your solitude engaging with others
on your phone because the thing, you know, you need
a little bit of that disconnection, that off stage experience
to really reap some of these benefits.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
What are the benefits of solitude when you choose time alone? Like,
what are the tangible benefits?

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, so people have talked about the benefits for such
long time, you know, poets and philosophers have written all
these great essays about how wonderful it is to spend
time alone. But it's really only in the last few
years that the research has actually started to catch up
and show us some scientific evidence to establish the concrete
benefits of solitude. So it's in a few different domains.
Solitude takes the edge off of our intense emotions, so

(25:28):
it has a calming effect, and you don't need a
huge amount of it for this to work. Even fifteen
minutes a day actually can show kind of lasting effects
in terms of taking the edge off negative moods and
making you feel calmer. So that's a very well demonstrated
effect that's called the deactivation effect. There's some researchers in
the UK who sort of named it that because it
deactivates your high energy kinds of emotions. For many people
it's a place to restore their social batteries, or restore

(25:50):
their batteries in general. And we know that when we
get out of that input right, it gives us a
chance to restore and relax and gain energy. I talked
about being off stage as the metaphor. The other way
to think about it is when you're just bombarded by input,
when you're around people. It's kind of like driving down
the highway with the windows a little bit open in
your car, right, you got that pressure and the air's
coming in and there's a noise in the background. And

(26:11):
then for me, solitude is what happens when you suddenly
do up those windows right, and suddenly it's like, ah, right,
there's this mediate chance to catch your breath and recharge.
And of course that's what solitude offers. But there's even
some unexpected benefits. So one of them is a little
bit of a paradox. It turns out that if you
are choosing to spend good time alone, it actually helps
your social interaction with with other people. So on days

(26:32):
when we have positive experiences of me time good solitude,
the next time we interact with someone, we experience it
more positively and we find it more intimate and it
makes us feel better. And so for people who maybe
you have a romantic partner who's a you know, a
raging extrovert and always wants to be around people and
always want to spend time together, here's a message I'd
love to get out. It's okay to say I would
like to have a little bit of a loone time.

(26:53):
I need a little bit of time just for me.
That should be absolutely perfectly socially acceptable.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Right.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
You shouldn't have to lie on a Friday night and
say you want to walk your hair because you don't
want to go out with friends. You should be able
to say, I'd like to put on my fuzzy socks
and a blanket and get a book and just curl
up them on my couch and read tonight. And that
should be okay. But now you can tell your very gregarious, sociable,
you know, romantic partner, just give me a little bit
of alone time, and it's going to be good for
both of us because when I'm done, I'm going to
feel better about our social interactions. We're going to have

(27:19):
a better connection, and it's actually going to help our relationship.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
So the research showing that as little as fifteen minutes
of alone time can lead to tangible physical and psychological benefits,
you know, that's really encouraging because that's seems very doable.
One of the things that you hit in your book
that I'd like to sort of touch on is is
families like parents taking care of kids. Right, I see

(27:46):
so much over the years like the mother who's the
giver and is just pouring herself out to her family
has trouble, you know, creating boundaries. How would you advise
those types of adults about how they could get time
for solitude when they're like busy raising the family and

(28:08):
doing all the adulting things.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, that's such a good question, and it's a huge
issue because everybody lives busy lives, and you've described young parents,
young moms of young families who are also working or
raising their family. I mean, that's one of the busiest
times of life, right, and so it's always going to
be hard, but you've described a particularly hard time to
do it, So you're right, it is encouraging to think
that even fifteen minutes can be helpful. But again, I
think we have to take away the guilt associated with

(28:34):
asking for that. Right, A lot of young parents and
a lot of young moms will feel like they don't
deserve they shouldn't take that little bit of time for
themselves because they really should be, you know, doing this,
or engaged in caregiving or doing something around the house.
And as I said, you really need to make it
okay not only to ask for that, but for it
to be part of your regular routine, and even just
in terms of a return on investment, right at fifteen

(28:55):
minutes again, I mean that's not a magic number. And
if you can get some more and for some people
they might like have some and that would be great,
but no good quality solitude. It's going to make the
rest of your day like, You're going to feel better,
You're going to have more energy, you're going to be
able to concentrate more, you're going to be more efficient
in what you do. And you know, if you've got
a busy day at work, if you've got a busy
day at home, whatever it is, you're going to be
better at doing that and you're going to feel better

(29:16):
and you're ultimately going to be more productive if you
give yourself those breaks. And fifteen minutes is not a
huge ask. Right again, I would never minimize how busy
it is to be a parent of a young family.
I've been there. It's not always going to be possible.
Life can be busy, but these are things that we
are trying to make a part of our regular routine
across our lifespan. And there's going to be more times
when it's going to be you know, it's doable versus

(29:36):
less doable. But it's a practice that we're trying to
encourage people to just make part of the regular routine,
and of course sometimes it's going to be easier than
others to do it.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
What I'm hearing is that you would eventually be a
better partner, parent, friends if you took that time for yourself.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yes, I agree, and that's what I mean, like a
concrete return on investment, and the science is finally catching
up to demonstrate that. But I guess I could preface
that by saying, there's another myth that you need two
hours of a long walk in the woods to benefit
from solitudes, And of course that's notcture. As we said,
it's a little of fifteen minutes. But fifteen minutes may
not be enough for everybody, right, And so what we're
all really trying to do, and I think this is
a really important message, is everyone has to find their

(30:13):
own kind of right balance between time that they're spending
socializing with others and time that they're spending alone, because
humans need both, right, Humans need social connection, and I've
always tried to argue they also need solitude, and most
people could probably push themselves a little bit more in
one direction or the other. Right, So the people who
are more outgoing and sociable and extroverted, they need to
do what we heard before, force yourself maybe a little bit,
to spend some time alone and build up your solitude muscle, right,

(30:35):
like build up your capacity for solitude. Start off with
just a few minutes a day, and gradually increase it.
Like you're training for a race. You know, you don't
run the full twenty six miles at the beginning. You
run around the block first, and then you make it
a little bit longer, so you can gradually make your
solitude muscles go up. And for the people who love
spending time alone, they can probably use a little push
to go out and be around other people. So everyone's
got to push themselves in the right direction. We all

(30:55):
have that just right combination of socializing and time alone.
And that's why I'm always so wary when people give
prescriptive advice. You need six hours of socializing today and
you need four hours of solid today. That might be
true for one person, but it's for sure not true
for everybody, And so we all need to figure out
what our just right balance is. And the research is
now becoming pretty clear that's the best way to optimize

(31:16):
well being and good feelings and happiness and life satisfaction
is you have to find that right combination between spending
time alone and spending time with others. And it's different
for everybody, and that should be okay.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
We will see you right after this break.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
You talk about experiencing flow, which is a state of intense,
focused enjoyment you get when you're engaging in a solo activity.
There are definitely times where I've been in a flow state.
Both Prianca and I are stand up comedians. Both of
us have, I'm sure at a certain point felt that
connection and flow. And it is a solo activity with
an audience, but it is a solo activity. But I'm

(31:57):
really curious what you mean by a flow state.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, so interesting. Flow, I mean doesn't have to occur
when you're alone. There are certainly opportunities for group flow states,
Like musicians in a band. If there's five musicians on
a band, they might connect it in a certain way
while they're in the middle of playing a song where
just everything is happening and they are locked in and
almost know what the next person is going to do
before they do it. So it's not just about solitude,
but solitude is a great place for flow and other
kinds of creative endeavors. I like to think of solitude

(32:23):
as an incubation place, an incubator for creativity because when
we are alone, it allows us to put ourselves in
the state that's going to encourage creativity, going to encourage
us to solve problems. One of the best ways to
solve a problem that's stuck in your head that you
need to deal with is go off by yourself and
do something else. Right, you need to disconnect your brain
from focusing on the problem and then it works it
in the background, and when you're in solitude is a

(32:45):
great way to give it that space. Right, you can't
have constant input. You need to give it the opportunity
to bounce around those ideas. And that's when those ideas
are bouncing around in the background, almost subconsciously, that's when
you get these aha moments, right when you come up
with a new novel solution for something. That's why solitude
is often a place where people go like, oh, I
just figured something out, even if they're not focusing on it.
So in some ways that's actually the opposite of flow, right,

(33:07):
because flow you're locked in and you're doing that specific
thing until to the point where it's like you're almost
side your body, looking down and watching yourself do it.
So that's a wonderful experience. Not everybody gets a chance
to experience that. You have to have a certain degree
of competence in what you're doing. You have to have
done it enough that it's a comfortable thing that you
can focus in on, and it's a wonderful, if sometimes
fleeting experience that you can get. Professional athletes talk about

(33:29):
experiencing flow and rock climbers, and I've heard since her
video game players describe flow kind of experiences. It's often
associated with creative endeavors, but it doesn't have to be.
But not everybody gets to experience that because you have
to sort of reach a certain level of ability and
competence in a particular activity in order to get it
locked in like that. That's why this other extreme is
also sort of interesting because there you just have to

(33:50):
let your mind wander, and everybody can do that. And
when you let your mind water, it'll wander to places
that will let you solve problems that you might not
have thought you would have been able to solve.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Which is really helpful when you're dealing with a lot
of problems. Right, So just take a step back. So
it sounds like we all need solitude in order to
be well, but when we don't have enough solitude, then
negative feelings can arise, and that's called a loneliness. And
so you right also that people can feel both lonely

(34:22):
and a lonely at the same time. So can you
just break down, like, how does that paradox work? Exactly? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Sure, well, and probably the reason why you hadn't heard
it is because it's only recently that we literally made
up that name. It comes from the idea that I mean,
people talk We talked about, you know, loneliness before. Is
this discrepancy between the social life that you want and
the social life that you're actually getting. A dissatisfaction with
your social life and that makes you feel bad. But
when I started studying this a few years ago, we

(34:50):
quickly realized that not only have people not really studied it,
but there wasn't even a name in the English language
for the negative feelings that arise when you feel like
you're not getting enough solitude. Right, If you negative feelings
from getting too much solitude. That's loneliness, and so we
decided to kind of call it the mirror image. Right,
So we made up this new term called a loneliness,
which is the negative feelings that arise when you feel

(35:10):
like you would like to have more good quality time alone.
And it turns out in some of our studies that
the kinds of negative outcomes associated with loneliness, at least
some of them, like feeling stressful, feeling angry, feeling anxious,
those same kinds of negative outcomes also tend to arise
from a loneliness. And I think it's helpful for people
to have a name to note this is a thing. Right,
Sometimes people will be feeling grumpy and they won't be

(35:32):
feeling themselves and they don't even realize why. And often
I would say it's because they haven't had enough time
by themselves to reset, to recharge, to take the edge
off of their emotions. And hopefully with a name for
it now, it at least allow people to identify it
that would allow them to maybe alter their routine or
do something about it. And you mentioned something really interesting
is that it is possible to be lonely and lonely
at the same time. And here's how that could work.

(35:54):
It's really all about choice, right, So you can be
around people and still feel lonely because it's not a
high quality social interaction. You can also be spending time alone.
And so let's imagine the young parent that you are
talking about before, the young mom, you know, parents of
a young families. So off, she goes to work every
day and she's surrounded by people, but she's stressed and
she's tired, and so she's lonely because she's not getting

(36:15):
a lot of high quality social interaction. And then she
gets home and kids are demanding and the house is demanding,
and if she has any time by herself, she's either
falling asleep or she's you know, doing chores that she hates.
And so she has time alone, but it's not satisfying
her needs. So she's dissatisfied with both of those components
of her life. She's dissatisfied with her social life and
she's dissatisfied with her solitary life because again, she doesn't

(36:37):
have that much control over how she can choose to
spend that time. So it's not just spending time with
others and it's not just spending time alone, but it's
the quality of that experience that we need to satisfy
our need to belong and our need for solitude. And
if we're getting neither, then we can feel both.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, that sounds like a really good setup for a
midlife crisis.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
You're not wrong. I mean, there's been actually been fastening
to see since we introduced this term, you know, maybe
five or six years ago. It's gotten out into the
world now and other researchers are starting to use it
in different domains that we hadn't expected. And by the way,
super high levels of a loneliness. People have studied moms
of young families not surprisingly that's right, that's a primary
source of their stress. But they've also studied it in
different domains. So in romantic couples, if one of the

(37:20):
members of the couple is feeling lonely, feeling like they
want more alone time, they get angry with their partner, right,
they are more likely to put virtual pins in a
virtual voodoo doll to indicate that they are feeling upset
with their partner. This is how the study work because
I think even subconsciously, they probably blame their partner for
not giving them the time that they need to spend
time blown. So again that's how it could damage a relationship.

(37:42):
And then there's some recent research that just came out
of Japan where they measured a loneliness in managers and
they found that managers who were feeling lonely, like they
wanted more long time, they had harsher interactions with their employees,
so they were the worst bosses. Right. So for me personally,
it's just so fascinating to see how this idea has
kind of spread its wings and gone out into the
world and people are applying it to these areas that

(38:04):
it didn't even occur to me that we could look
at it, but it seems to be a pretty pervasive phenomena.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
You know, when you were describing a loneliness, I thought
about my dad, because he would come home and you
would always be in a bad mood, and I wonder
if it was that it was like, I've been around
people for eight hours with no breaks, and I come
home and I want to break, and yet there are
people here, my children.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
And demanding your attention, right, like demanding your attention right? Yeah,
it is tough. I mean again, we're honing in on
this very specific set of life circumstances. But it is
among the most stressful time in lives when you are
working and your work drains you, and if you're working
with people and they're demanding your attention, and all you're
thinking when I want to get home is I just
got to close the door and put my feet up,

(38:47):
And then suddenly all the people are demanding your attention.
It can be really difficult if there's a parent at
home who's waiting for you to get home because they've
been with the kids all day and they want to
break and then you come home, but you want to
break right of course that it can lead to stresses, right.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, I'm just thinking of how much money couples, romantic
couples have spent on therapy, couples therapy if they just
had been familiar with a loneliness what we're talking about.
Is this really a problem that is specific to Western cultures?
Like is this an American sort of problem? Because in

(39:24):
other cultures, I'm curious if their views on solitude are different.
I mean, you know, speaking from my experience, like Indian background,
like culturally, the village is together, the societies together. If
someone wanted to experience solitude. My kind of understanding of
solitude was like they would go to the Himalayas to meditate.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, you have these extreme examples.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yes, I understand, you're not going to get it in
the house, so you're going to have to go to
the Hippalayas.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
It's fair. I must say. I've been extremely fortunate that
I've had the chance to collaborate with some brilliant researchers
in different parts of the world to explore some of
these questions. And so, for example, I've worked with some
people in Scandinavian countries. I work with researchers in Norway,
for example, and in Northern European countries there's more of
a culture of silence, where silence is viewed as a
positive trait, and so solitude seems to be more normative

(40:16):
and more accepted, which is sometimes a good thing, but
also sometimes not a good thing, because sometimes people are
suffering in solitude and it's not the cultural norm to
express your emotions or to ask for help, and so
that could lead to kind of problems. So it's a
bit of a double edged sword there. I've also done
a lot of work with researchers in mainland China, and
that's a fascinating culture to look at solitude and in
some ways, as you just describe, there's definitely a focus

(40:38):
on family and a focus on the group and being
a member and contributing member to society. And if you
are not a contributing member to society, if you are
choosing to remove yourself from the collective. Because of the
collectivistic values and the focus on being part of the group,
kids who decide to play by themselves at school, they're
viewed as deviant and selfish because they are not prioritizing

(41:00):
the group over their own needs. It was so interesting
for me to listen to my colleagues explain sort of
the mechanics behind it. Right, So from a very young age,
children are socialized to contribute towards the group, to be
part of the collective, to be an active member of society,
particularly from a social component. And if you off by yourself,
that means you are being selfish because you're not prioritizing
the needs of the group. And it's the same kind

(41:21):
of behavior that would be viewed relatively positively. You go
to kindergarten classroom, when you watch a child playing by themselves.
It's not really a big deal, right, It's seen as
a kind of a normative thing to do. There's a
value for independence, there's a value for choosing your thing
to do. I would still say there's a bit of
a stigma against choosing to spend time alone, even in
North American cultures, right. That's why we have names like
hermits and loaners and cat ladies, and you know, we

(41:44):
don't have a lot of positive names for people who
choose to spend time alone. I think we've got work
to do there. But it's even more so in Chinese culture,
where I've had the experience to listen to some very
smart people. Explain that to me more after this break.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
How do modern cities and technology make solitude feel maladaptive?

Speaker 2 (42:09):
Well, I mean, cities are basically designed to make a
whole bunch of people in close quarters feel like they're alone.
That's kind of a sociological perspective that I've read about before,
and technology, I guess, can do that too. Right. If
it's a lot of anonymous interactions and there's not a
high level of intimacy in the connection, again, you could
be interacting, so to speak, or virtual interacting with all
these people, but you're not getting you don't get to

(42:31):
sink your teeth into the meat, right, you don't get
the intimacy, you don't get the connection, and it could
lely wanting a lot more.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
So Let's say there are people that are listening to
this and this is sort of a new concept for
them that like, hey, actually carving out a little time
for solitude might actually be really beneficial for you. But
they don't know where to start. And you mentioned like
you can start just by faking it till you're making it,
like just having some positive thoughts. But what would be

(42:57):
some like really practical skills that someone could implement in
their life to figure out Number one? Do I need
more solitude? If so, how do I go about creating
more solitude in a healthy way?

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah, that's a great question. So the starting point I
think would be to answer your first questions do I
need more solitude? And the way that I would suggest
for people to start going about answering that question is
to keep what I would call a solitude diary for
a couple of weeks. Okay, so at the end of
the day, think back about how you spent your day
and make a record of how many hours you spent
alone what you were doing, and how many hours you
spent with other people and what you were doing, and

(43:32):
just keep track of your mood and over a period
of a couple of weeks. What you're looking for our
patterns between the proportion of time that you spent alone
in the proportion of time you spent with others, and
whether or not that seems to impact your mood at
the end of the day or the next day. And
again if you can make small variations. So now I'm
going to try adding a little bit of this alone
time at this point, do I notice a change in
the pattern, I'm going to try being around people a

(43:52):
little bit more at this point, right, So, again, it's
about finding that personal balance, and the only way to
do it really it's I mean, nobody knows but you.
So you need to do it by trial and error,
and the Solitude Diary is just kind of like a quick,
easy way to at least just track your your routine
and then you can make adjustments to help yourself do it.
And then if you decide that you need some more solitude,
then you don't have to put pressure on yourself about

(44:13):
what you need to do in your solitude. Just choose
to do something that you like. Again, you don't have
to meditate, you don't have to go for a two
hour walk in the woods, even if it's reading a book.
So I'll read a book, Go listen to some music,
you know, do a crossword puzzle, net play video games
on your phone if that's what you would like to do.
Don't put so much pressure that you have to do
like the quote unquote right thing when you're alone. The
right thing for people to do when they're alone is

(44:34):
what feels good to them, what makes them feel relaxed,
what's leisure for them, what is meaningful for them, And
don't get so hung up in what it's supposed to
be that it becomes a barrier from just doing it.
Just try stuff, you know, try a bunch of different
things and see, you know, how it impacts your mood,
and see how you know how you feel at the
end of the day. It's hard for me to say
you should do this, and in fact, nobody should be
telling you you should do this. The onus is a
little bit on you to kind of figure it out.

(44:56):
But just try some stuff and see how it goes
and don't put so much pressure to get it right
on the tempt.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
You cite studies showing that lonely people have more idiosyncratic
neural responses when viewing the same social content. What does
this teach us about the brain's experience of disconnection.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Yeah, so loneliness is so insidious, right, It's just it
messes with us in ways to perpetuate itself. It's like
a virus like it just it doesn't want to go away.
And this kind of studies that you're talking about is
if you actually look at brain activity or emotional responses
or cognitive you know, the thinking patterns of lonely individuals.
They will respond to positive interactions more negatively. If someone

(45:34):
that tries to help them, they'll perceive it as less helpful.
If someone is reaching out of being empathetic to them,
they will perceive it as being less empathetic, and they
don't get the same pleasure out of social experiences. That's
the brain research you were talking about demonstrates. That's why
chronic loneliness is so difficult to overcome because it's almost
like it rewires your brain. Right, It's like you are
settled into this routine where everything sucks and no matter

(45:55):
what you experience, you are seeing it filtered through this
lens of everything sucks. And that's one of the reasons
why this loneliness can be so hard to combat.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
When you describe it like that. The way I think
about it, like from a physician perspective, is that if
a person is suffering from a mental health issue, let's
say depression, for example, like the loneliness is actually an
exacerbating factor for the depression because if they're experiencing loneliness,
they're probably going to be more depressed because it's affecting

(46:28):
their perception. Is that a fair assessment.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Yeah, I think that's fair. Well, I mean, as you know,
a common feature of depression is called antedonia, which is
the reducing of our ability to derive pleasure for things
that used to make us happy. Right, So if for
you waking up in the morning and that first cup
of coffee is like, I feel great, if you're depressed,
it's not going to taste so good. It's not going
to make you feel good, and the stuff that used
to make you feel better suddenly doesn't. Okay, And then

(46:51):
it could also apply to social context, right, you can
have social anedonia, which is the lack of the ability
to derive pleasure from being around other people. And when
you're depressed, you don't want to do anything. You don't
want to get out of bed sometimes when it's so bad,
and so of course you're not going to want to
go out and structure social activity. You're not going to
want to make plans. I'm not going to want to
respond to plans. And you're right, it's like a negative
degenerative cycle where you're depressed and then it cuts you

(47:13):
off from your social support, and then the lack of
social support makes you feel lonely, which makes you feel
more depressed, which cuts you off anymore. It's a very
very vicious negative cycle, hard to break.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Just like you described, we experienced fomo so much fear
of missing out, especially you know, you see on social
media someone's having a great life and traveling into all
these places and you're experiencing fomo. Do you believe, given
your research background, that if someone is practicing the right
amounts of solitude for themselves, they can switch the fomo

(47:44):
to jomo the joy of missing out, Yes, one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
And that is something that I think we should really
try to encourage and that that's the goal, right, like,
instead of worrying about what you're missing, enjoy the opportunity
to gift of what you have. You get to miss that, right,
you get to not be involved in all those things,
get to have a chance to catch your breath. And
so you're right, that's exactly should be our goal is
flip the fear of missing out to the joy of
missing out and view your time alone as that opportunity,

(48:09):
as that gift that you can find joy. And I
think that's a great point to make about how we
should try to eventually come to think about our time alone.
I really like that.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
That's great. How much solitude do you need in order
to be you? As a solitude researcher.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
That's a great question. I you know what, that's the
first time I've been asked that to that degree, so
well down, that's an interesting question for me. My go
to solitude is I'm a walker. Especially these days, so
many meetings are virtual. But now I've gone off zoom
and unless I need my camera to talk to someone,
I bring my headphones and I go for a walk
and I take my meetings on my phone, and so
I will get out and walk around and be alone.

(48:49):
Part of the time it's work, so I'll do that,
but the rest of the time, I walk a good
hour and a half sometimes up to two hours throughout
the day, and I do some of it very early
in the morning so I can kind of get it done,
and I do some at the end of the day
to help me unwind. And for me, that's like it's
a big breathing for me. I need to do that
every day in order to feel myself. And when schedules
get busy and I get out of that routine, it's
like my skin cross, like can feel how much I

(49:10):
missed that. It was that feeling on a walk when
I hadn't been able to take a walk in a
few days. That that's what led me to study a loneliness.
I was like, how am I feeling? And what is
that called? Makaka? We don't study this And that was
my AHA moment for me that I was like, Oh,
this is the thing I should study. And it was
experiencing it to myself that really led to it.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
Does solitude have a bad reputation?

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Oh? Yes, Historically I think it has a very bad reputation.
Some of it is earned right, because unwanted solitude loneliness,
as we've established, is bad for us. But I think
historically we've kind of let that bad reputation overwhelm our
understanding of what solitude can be. And I mentioned before
there's not even good positive adjectives or labels for someone

(49:53):
who enjoys spending time alone. There's only the tinged negative
ones like loan or hermit. Right, and there's still stigmas
about going to eat alone at a restaurant or going
to a movie by yourself or living by yourself. Right,
there's still a hangover effect. I think of that negative reputation,
I think we're getting better. People are understanding that solitude

(50:13):
can be a good thing, especially when it's chosen and
it's done, you know, in combination with social interaction. And
again no one is saying that we don't need to
also hang out with people. But I still think we
have some work to do to push back against that decades,
hundreds of years of negative ideas about what solitude is,
just so we can again balance it with some of
the positive aspects.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Right to sort of finish out, what is the best
piece of advice that you have for listeners who are
or listening to this well.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
If I had to try to sum it all up,
I would say, as always, humans need social connection, but
humans also need solitude. We need to make it okay
to ask for that solitude, and we need to make
it okay for everyone to find their own just personal,
just right combination of time spent alone and time spent
with others, and that is what is going to up
demise everyone's well being.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Thank you so much, doctor Coplan. That was really a
wonderful interview.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yeah, it was amazing. That was awesome that I really
enjoyed talking to him. It was very validating as someone
who enjoys solitude in order to be okay. I'm just
so grateful that he did all this research. It puts

(51:26):
my whole life into a different context that like, I'm
not some alien, you know.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it was funny because, you know,
I went into this interview very much thinking I don't
think solitude is for me, and I need to be
around other people to gain a flow state in order
to function at my peak, and just having the conversation
and thinking about it. There are lots of moments where
I'm by myself and I need to be by myself

(51:52):
to achieve something like when you're writing. There are times
where I have a flow state when I write, and
that's because I'm completely in the zone. I'm not being
stirred by anybody. I'm just going and all the pieces
that are coming together just right, and that's a good thing.
And there are tons of times when I'm on stage.
It was funny that I use the example of interacting
with people like being on stage. It's like there is

(52:14):
a feeling of once I get off stage, I want
to be left alone. I need a second to collect
my breath. I need a moment by myself because you're
up there, and even though you're by yourself, you're actually
dealing with the expectations of hundreds of people, and that
after a while can be overwhelming. So I really appreciate
because it actually makes me think about the times where

(52:35):
I have needed solitude.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Yeah, And you know, for me personally, I suffer from
fomo often, and so the idea of having a tool
in my toolkit that can switch from fomo to jomo
by working more on keeping myself satisfied and using solitude
as a tool to do that, so that the next
time I am on social media and seeing someone traveling

(53:01):
to some amazing place. If I'm okay with who I
am and where i am and like the way my
life is, then you don't get that fomo. And so
to me, that's exciting to be able to implement solitude
as a tool to just also make the quality of
my life better.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
Yeah. Well, I'm really glad we did this interview, and
I'm very excited for this podcast to be over so
i can sit alone somewhere. Health Stuff is a production
of iHeart Podcasts. The show is hosted by me Harikon
Debolu and doctor Prianco Wally. Producers are Rebecca Eisenberg, Jenna Cagel,

(53:44):
Christina Loranger, Maya Howard, and Katrina Norville. Our researcher is
Maria Tremarki and our intern is katyas obolde Ayala. To
send us a question, you can email us at voicemail
at health Stuff podcast at gmail dot com. Thank you
for listening.