- When it comes to our relationship with being alone,
let's just say it's complicated.
Ever since the early 1950s
when television entered half of all American homes,
there's been an ongoing conversation
around the impact of technology on our relationships.
- [Newton] I invite each of you to sit down
in front of your own television set
when your station goes on the air.
I can assure you that what you will observe
is a vast wasteland.
- Fast-forward to the present day
and things have only gotten more complicated.
Many have argued that regardless of their benefits,
technology has negatively impacted our relationships,
making us more siloed and disconnected.
And that part is true.
Most of us spend more time
flicking through Instagram each day
than talking with our family.
We might be lonelier now
than at any other point in human history,
but that's not the full story.
If there's one thing that I've learned from moving in
with my wife years ago,
my amazing, beautiful, and talented wife,
it's that sometimes you just can't get a moment to yourself.
And so if you've ever felt happier alone, you aren't alone.
There's been a ton of research
over the past couple of years that's shown
that if you increase the amount of time you spend alone,
it'll improve your mood, increase your productivity,
and even strengthen your relationships.
This is the case for being alone, sometimes.
This video is brought to you by my friends at Squarespace.
I'll talk more about them later in the video.
So one of the biggest benefits
of spending time alone each day
is that it helps regulate your mood.
But before you pack up your bags
and head for a remote cabin in the middle of the woods,
you should know that it doesn't take much
to reap the rewards.
In a small study from the UK,
researcher Thuy-vy Nguyen found that spending
as little as 15 minutes alone in a room
can help to balance our moods
because of a deactivation effect.
Her research found that this is enough time
to lower high arousal moods,
which is a lot less dirty than it sounds.
These are basically moods
when you're in a mentally charged or stimulated state,
and they can range from good to bad,
from excitement to fear.
In this study, 75 students were left alone
with their thoughts, with no digital devices for 15 minutes.
And the control group spent the same amount of time
chatting with a research assistant.
Before and after, the students filled out a questionnaire,
evaluating those high arousal moods like excitement,
interest, fear, or distress.
The results were clear.
The subjects in the solitude group
found that they had much less high arousal states,
both negative and positive.
The control group didn't.
And this shows that we really don't need to go
this all or nothing approach when it comes to solitude.
We don't need to get away for the entire weekend.
We don't need to take an entire day off
to see some of the benefits of being alone.
Sometimes it just takes 15 minutes.
Now, while activities like meditation
have their own benefits,
sometimes they're a little intimidating
and overwhelming to get into.
Instead, you could go for a walk by yourself
around your block, listen to music in your room,
or spend some extra time in the bathroom
until your legs fall asleep.
Consider it an investment in your mental health.
It turns out that spending time alone
can also be one of the keys to building strong
and long lasting relationships.
Now, I know this sounds a little bit counter-intuitive,
so hear me out.
We all know the phrase, absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Well, there's now research that actually backs it up.
New neuroscience studies into prairie voles,
who, like us, are in the three to 5% of mammals
that mate for life,
have a cluster of cells in their brains
specifically linked to intimacy and connection
that light up when reunited with their partners
after being apart.
But don't worry, you don't need to make the theoretical leap
from rodents to humans,
because there are plenty of studies on humans
that back this up,
that show that when people in relationships
spend more time apart,
they have more admiration for their partners,
and they also have lengthier, more deep conversations
when they come back together and reunite.
Spending time apart has a bunch of other benefits
for your relationship too,
like building resilience and developing separate interests
that make your conversations more interesting.
Simply put, if you're not spending every day together,
you have a lot more to talk about when you reconnect.
Even the best relationships have conflicts and problems.
Personally speaking,
Natalie and I have a great relationship,
but we do have arguments and fights every once in a while.
We don't always see eye to eye.
And so when I find myself in these states,
sometimes I can sense that I'm getting a little bit angry.
Sometimes I might want to shout
because who in their right mind would leave a shampoo bottle
in the shower when it's empty?
I mean, who does that?
But I just, I tell myself, okay, Matt,
you just need to take a few minutes.
And so I often do, I take, I say,
nah, I just need 15 minutes to cool down,
just give me a minute to clear my head.
I take 15 minutes by myself,
and all of a sudden, like we said previously,
my mood starts to regulate,
I start to realize that this time away
is actually getting me to realize
that maybe I shouldn't be so worked up
over a bottle of shampoo.
Time alone also seems to be key to our creativity.
Brain scans have shown that when we're alone,
a part of the brain lights up
called the default mode network.
It's an interconnected part of the brain
responsible for self referential processes,
like evaluating information, recalling memories,
processing emotions, and planning for the future.
It's no coincidence that your best ideas come
when you're in the shower.
That's your default mode network at work.
Without the usual distractions of day to day life,
your brain actually has the space to think outside the box,
and to make unique connections between ideas and memories
to create something new.
It's no wonder why some of the world's best entrepreneurs,
artists, athletes, and creatives
recommend that you take space and time alone,
because that's when you're most likely
to have your creative breakthroughs.
Dr. Misha Myers is a senior lecturer of Creative Arts
at Deakin University, points out,
"To find an original expression,
"you need to develop a relationship with yourself,
"and to have a relationship with yourself,
"you need alone time or solitude."
Myers says that she often calls upon the work
of poet and writer Rainer Maria Rilke.
In his book, "Letters to a Young Poet",
he mentions that in order to access inner wisdom,
you must issue the critics, avoid excessive self-criticism,
connect to the natural world, and freely plumb the self.
And this advice from 1929 holds up to this day,
except maybe we would use a different word than plum,
because the word plumb sounds kind of weird.
Like you could have used the word discover or investigate,
basically anything but plumb.
Solitude creates the space where we can create work
that is truly original and impactful,
like a beautifully designed website.
As you know, my sponsor for this week's video
is Squarespace.
I've been partnering with them all year,
and I recommend Squarespace all the time,
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Earlier this year,
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I'd been putting it off for years,
but I found some alone time to dig in
and start to re-imagine what it could be.
And Squarespace made the process effortless.
I easily drag and drop photos onto my homepage.
Now, that one's adorable.
I added an email sign up form for my newsletter,
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If you have a minute to check out Squarespace,
when you do that, it helps to support my channel.
So thanks so much to Squarespace for sponsoring this video,
and thank you for keeping them in mind.
And the last benefit that you'll find
from increasing your time alone, you're more productive.
The modern employee is bombarded
with distractions every day,
from Zoom calls, to incoming emails,
to useless meetings, and nonstop notifications.
It seems like everyone from your boss to your coworker
is trying to find a way to eat up your time.
Whether you work at home or in the office,
you can find yourself
in a perpetual state of task switching.
In the office, you have open floor office plans,
which were designed to increase collaboration and morale,
but often make it difficult to find time alone
to get your actual work done.
And when you're working from home,
there's no shortage of interruption there,
from your spouse to your kids.
It seems like if somebody is in a room with you,
they will try to get in between you and your work.
When you're alone,
it's much less likely that you'll get distracted,
and so you can get to work more quickly,
enter a flow state and stay there.
Now, when it comes to your productivity shortcomings,
the only thing you can blame
is your addiction to Animal Crossing.
And when it comes to the actual work we do,
on a neurological level,
spending time alone is one of the most effective ways
for people to solve complex problems.
While brainstorming in groups
can be a great way to come up with interesting ideas,
the best way to solve those problems
is to sit down in a room by yourself and get to work.
And there's a few reasons for this.
We get access to that default mode network
that I mentioned earlier,
where we can think more laterally.
We can better evaluate information,
recall memories, and plan for the future.
We're actually more likely to work harder
when we work alone.
Back in 1913, agricultural engineer, Maximilien Ringelmann
coined the term social loafing to describe the fact
that people were more likely to put in more effort
when tackling tasks like rope pulling alone
versus with others.
So when you're trying to solve a problem,
like fulfill a seemingly impossible
creative brief for a client,
or coming up with a thumbnail for a video about loneliness,
the best thing you can do is lock yourself in a room
and do the work.
Nagging your wife might not be the best way to go,
speaking from experience.
Our relationship with loneliness is messy.
Lots of us are craving real in-person connection,
and others just want to create a new identity,
enter the witness protection program,
and fall off the face of the earth.
As with most good things in life,
like beer and reality television, the danger is in the dose.
And the prescription might be different
from one person to the next.
And so you need to really think through
how you're gonna be able to implement some alone time
into your daily routines.
If you have a young family,
a 30 day expedition to Nepal to hike through the wilderness
might not be in the cards just yet.
But maybe you can carve out 15 minutes a day to read a book,
to go for a walk, or to sit in a room and watch paint dry.
I personally found that it could be helpful
to have these conversations with our roommates
or our significant others well in advance.
And so we've been conditioned as a society
to feel rude for asking for time alone.
And we ourselves can feel guilty when we bring it up.
And so you might even mention that in the conversation
that you have with them.
You might tell them,
"Hey, look, I feel uncomfortable asking for this.
"I know it feels a little bit rude to say,
"but every day I like to have 15 or 20 minutes by myself
"to cool off, to let off some steam,
"and to not always feel like I have to be on.
"Also, I forgive you for the whole shampoo thing."
I hope that you have enjoyed this video.
And I hope you've been inspired to carve out
a little bit of me time each day.
Now, if you don't mind,
I'd actually like a little bit of alone time myself.
See ya.
(upbeat music)