Being alone and feeling bored deactivates the areas in your brain that promote heightened awareness, which can help lower stress levels. Boredom helps calm your brain down and can help you regulate your emotions a lot better.
2. It Helps You Unwind
Spending time alone is a brilliant way to recharge your mind and body. A massive survey with 18,000 participants from 134 different countries found that 'spending time alone' was the way most people felt the most relaxed. 'Reading' came in 2nd place and 'being in nature' came 3rd.
It may seem counterintuitive, but spending time alone has actually been found to tackle depression. Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign revealed that the risk of depression is significantly decreased for those who enjoy spending time alone. Additionally, they also found that people who enjoy being alone are far less likely to suffer from depression at any point in their lives.
4. It Boosts Your Mental Strength
Plenty of people get nervous or antsy when they have to be alone for a long time. However, we really should start to do it more often, since studies have shown that forcing yourself to sit through extended periods of solitude will fortify your mental strength.
Harvard University found that being isolated can help you build a stronger and more empathetic character. According to Harvard researchers, sessions in solitude help people gain a better understanding of the struggles and experiences of others, which can help them become more sincerely compassionate throughout their lives.
6. It Makes You More Creative
If you want to become more creative, then there's no better way than spending time alone. The more bored you get, the more creative you'll become, since the human mind will start coming up with loads of different ways of keeping yourself entertained, and since you're alone there will be nobody around to distract you.
If you always rely on others for assistance, opinions, and advice, then you might end up becoming partially-dependent on others, which won't allow you to become self-reliant. If you want to feel a sense of independence, you'll need to start making decisions on your own, which is something that spending time alone forces you to do.
8. It Improves Concentration
Interruptions and distractions are an inevitable part of day-to-day life, from the daily barrage of emails to friends and family messaging you to see when you're free to meet up. Setting aside some proper alone time will allow you to cut out most of these disturbances, letting you get on with the task at hand. You can also improve your memory and concentration by means of these pressure points.
Spending time alone has also been found to boost your memory. In fact, research from Harvard has shown that people remember the key details of tasks they completed by themselves in far more detail than those they completed with the help of others.
10. It Strengthens Your Relationships
Being alone has been shown to help you gain a better understanding of who you are. Such self-knowledge is absolutely essential if you want any of your long-term relationships to work out. After all, if you don't even understand yourself, how can you expect to truly understand the needs and desires of another person?
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