Psychologists have noticed for years that spending time alone stirs up all kinds of conflicting results. Daily tracking studies often showed drops in positive mood, as if the energy just drains away and everything feels flatter. Some developmental work even linked a strong taste for solitude to shyness or problems connecting with others. At the same time, plenty of people describe real benefits quiet resets, clearer thinking, a chance to unwind so the data stayed messy. Much of it mixed solitude up with loneliness or rejection, and measurements varied wildly.
Nguyen, Ryan, and Deci wanted to cut through that. They realized earlier experiments rarely isolated the simple state of being alone, stripped of books, phones, or conversation. They also saw that emotion measures kept blending two separate things: how good or bad you feel, and how intensely activated you are. Excitement and anxiety both run hot. Calm and sadness sit lower. Previous scales blurred those lines.
So they ran a handful of experiments, mostly with university students. The setup was deliberate and bare: sit quietly in a room for ten or fifteen minutes, no devices, no reading in the main conditions, no talking. In one study they compared it directly to a light chat with a research assistant. Before and after, participants rated their emotions on scales that split high-energy feelings from low ones.
What emerged was a clear deactivation pattern. Solitude dialed down the intense stuff both the upbeat excitement and the edgy irritation or anxiety more than being with someone did. It wasn’t that people suddenly felt happier or sadder overall. The volume on high-arousal emotions simply dropped. Even when they let some participants read a mildly interesting article, the effect held, so it wasn’t just boredom from empty hands. When people could choose their thoughts or direct them toward positive topics, the drop in positive high-arousal feelings softened, which makes sense. Pure, undirected alone time did the full deactivation.
A daily diary piece added an important layer. When people sought solitude on their own terms, they reported more relaxation and less stress. When it felt forced or like a leftover from failed plans, the upside faded or flipped negative. Autonomy changed the flavor of the experience.
In the end, this work positions solitude as a basic emotional regulation tool. It quiets the nervous system’s louder signals and creates a kind of neutral space. That helps explain why past studies sometimes found lower “positive affect”—they were mostly catching the loss of excitement, not a slide into misery. The benefits show up more reliably when the alone time feels chosen rather than imposed.
Of course the studies have limits. Most participants were young undergraduates, the lab sessions were short, and real life throws in far more variables. We don’t know how this plays out over hours or days, across ages or cultures, or whether people who get good at chosen solitude end up relating better to others in the long run. Still, the core finding feels useful. Ten or fifteen quiet minutes on purpose can take the edge off emotional intensity, and whether you picked it matters a lot. It’s a reminder that solitude and loneliness live in different neighborhoods. One can be practiced like a skill. The other aches because connection is missing.
References
Nguyen, T. T., Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2018). Solitude as an approach to affective self-regulation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(1), 92–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217733073
Weinstein, N., Nguyen, T. T., & Ryan, R. M. (2023). Everyday solitude time both benefits and harms well-being: A registered report on the role of autonomy and other factors. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44507-7
Nguyen, T. T. (2022). Who enjoys solitude? Autonomous functioning (but not introversion) predicts self-determined motivation for solitude. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267185
