Overview
- New coverage explains that voluntarily spending time alone can foster calm, self-knowledge and emotional recovery without signaling a disorder.
- Psychologists cite drivers such as introversion, high sensory processing sensitivity, a need for introspection and protection after difficult relationships.
- Guidance stresses separating elective solitude from avoidance, with red flags including social withdrawal from anxiety, unresolved conflicts, persistent emptiness and being unable to connect when one wants to.
- Referenced research includes a University of Rochester study linking regular solitude to clearer personal goals and John Cacioppo’s distinction between nurturing solitude and health‑damaging chronic loneliness.
- Public‑health advisories, including from the WHO, warn that prolonged unwanted loneliness is a growing global problem intensified by technology, urban life and pandemic aftereffects.