Learn how to be alone with your thoughts to gain peace

As phone and social media use increases, hundreds of distractions are at your fingertips. If you wanted, you could always avoid your thoughts.

You may have felt the implications of this when the COVID-19 pandemic forced people worldwide to isolate. If you think back, you might remember hours of scrolling through social media or binge-watching old TV shows to pass the time. 

But learning how to be alone with your thoughts to make the most of solitary moments has immense benefits, like better relationships with others and increased self-awareness.

A healthy amount of mindful solitude helps you understand yourself well enough to make better decisions about your life, which is essential to your personal and professional development. 

What’s solitude?

Researchers define solitude as an absence of human interaction. This doesn’t necessitate being physically alone: you can be solitary in a park, store, or any other public space if you consciously decide not to interact with anyone or distract yourself.

You can also think of solitude as cultivating a relationship with yourself. You’re not worrying about what other people think of you or trying to entertain or help them. Instead, you’re looking inward to learn more about yourself and spend time with yourself.

You might hesitate toward building this relationship because you’ve connected solitude with loneliness. But solitude isn’t inherently positive or negative, while loneliness is often understood as a negative disconnect between the connections one wants to have and those they’re experiencing.

This isn’t necessarily negative, either, as this feeling can prompt you to change something about your life and pursue deeper connections. And spending time in solitude can help you notice when you’re feeling lonely and in need of a change.

Why’s it difficult to be alone with your thoughts?

If you don’t enjoy spending distraction-free time alone, you’re in good company.

Researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia who conducted a series of studies in 2014 found that, regardless of age, income, or level of smartphone and social media use, people typically disliked sitting by themselves with nothing to do but think, even if it was only for a short period (6–15 minutes). 

The most startling finding of the studies came when they gave people the option to self-administer electric shocks instead of doing nothing for 15 minutes. Participants had previously found these shocks so unpleasant they said they’d pay to avoid them.

But when faced with the choice of shocking themselves or being alone with their thoughts, an astonishing 25% of the women and 67% of the men opted to shock themselves at least once.

Several reasons contribute to why you might want to avoid alone time. Maybe you struggle when losing the quick dopamine hits that come from external stimulation. Or you might be afraid of genuinely unpleasant thoughts — perhaps future-oriented worrying or negative overthinking.

Unpleasant thoughts can even trigger a full-blown fight or flight response. To avoid this, you might feel incentivized to busy your mind with people and distractions. 

While these are worthwhile reasons to avoid alone time, conquering this uncomfortable activity means taking control over negative thought patterns and your happiness. 

The benefits of solitude

Even if you don’t find solitude enjoyable, making time for it has long-term benefits. For example, while most people don’t like being alone in the moment, they report feeling better afterward (one researcher calls it a “bitter medicine”). 

Spending time alone can also improve your creativity, mental focus, and emotional regulation. It can even enhance your spiritual life and make you a better leader.

Alone time also benefits your close relationships. Being alone teaches you not to reach out to people solely to fill your time or avoid your thoughts. Once you stop doing that, you can start to appreciate people for who they are rather than what you want from them.

You can also only meet someone where you’re at, so if you haven’t developed the self-awareness necessary to sit comfortably with your thoughts, you might not be able to enjoy as much depth in your relationships.

Importantly, these benefits are only valuable if you’ve made a positive, conscious decision to spend time with yourself. If you’re avoiding interacting with others, be it online or in-person, because of social anxiety, you could consider speaking with a trusted friend or mental health professional about the issue. 

6 tips for being alone with your thoughts

Given the benefits, who wouldn’t want to develop the skill of enjoying solitude? Here are six tips for learning to be alone — and enjoying it. 

1. Use thinking aids

Make a list of topics to think about in your free time. Instead of reaching for your phone when you’re alone next, reach for the list.

You could write down an intellectual or creative problem you’re grappling with, ways to strengthen an important relationship, or what you’ll do on your next vacation. The content is less important than learning to consciously direct your thoughts to where you want them to go.

Different types of thoughts have different results. Thinking about things you’re grateful for, for example, makes you happier. Thinking about stressful relationships or past events negatively affects your mood, but focusing on yourself and the future can improve your mood, so consider putting long-term goals on the list.

2. Train your mind like a muscle

You don’t have to sit in perfect stillness and ponder your life for an hour the first time you try being alone with your thoughts. Instead, start by setting aside five minutes and build from there.

If the experience gets too intense or feels overwhelming, don’t push. Just stop and go back to it later. Build your willpower a little bit at a time.

While you need to listen carefully to yourself and not overdo it, you also need to be disciplined and consistent. One five-minute solo thinking period every day for a week is better than 30 minutes one day and then nothing. Like any exercise, you need to practice regularly to see results.

3. Choose how to respond to your thoughts

Spending time alone can teach you to put distance between yourself and your thoughts. Maintaining this space empowers you to decide for yourself how you’ll react rather than being swept up in a habitual current of thoughts that feed emotions that feed yet more thoughts.

Remember that, in most cases, thoughts are just thoughts, nothing more. Learn to gently control your mind: experiment with simply observing your thoughts, befriending them, and consciously letting them go.

Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal points out that letting go can be scary, as you might feel like you’ll be left not holding onto anything. He recommends that instead of just letting go of something, you let go into something deeper. Let go of thoughts of the past and relax into the present moment. Let go of resentment and relax into compassion. Let go of fear and relax into calm.

4. Be curious

Try to harness curiosity. Examine your mind and ask yourself where your thoughts are coming from, why you think you might be having them, and whether they serve a positive function. 

If you’re dealing with a strong emotion, consider what the emotion would say if it could talk. Anger, for example, often arises as a response to feelings of guilt, hurt, or fear that we don’t want to acknowledge. If you’re feeling shame, there might be a deeper fear causing that reaction.

5. Write down your thoughts

Journaling about what passes through your mind can help you “hear” your thoughts more clearly. Writing forces you to label your emotions, which reduces their intensity and helps you manage them. 

Scientists have found, for example, that students who write about their anxiety before a big exam perform better on the test, and that writing reduces the severity of depression symptoms, among other mental health benefits.

6. Go on a silent retreat

If small pockets of time alone aren’t working or you’d like to jump in with both feet, consider a silent retreat. Spending a week — or even a weekend — in planned silence and solitude will jump-start your journey toward inner peace.

Approaching yourself with curiosity

Your brain has so much to tell you about your mental health and physical well-being. Some of this information is useful, like understanding what you truly want and making better decisions because of it. And some of it isn’t, like your inner critic telling you you’re not good enough for a promotion.

The only way to differentiate between this information and make thoughtful decisions about what to care about is to listen in. By learning how to be alone with your thoughts, you’ll eventually find a healthy balance that brings you inner peace.