Why Being Alone Might Be Exactly What You Need – Robert Coplan

 

Airdate: February 4, 2026

Robert Coplan: It should be okay to say to a friend or a family member or a romantic partner, "I love you. I love spending time with you, but I'm gonna spend some time alone right now, and it's gonna be good," and, in fact, there's research to suggest, somewhat paradoxically, that if you have some good quality me time, the next time you interact with someone, you experience it more positively.

Julie Rose: Hey, it's Julie. Welcome to Uncomfy. Staying open to other people is hard for a lot of us right now. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells in every interaction, always just a little, or sometimes a lot, uncomfortable, but I don't want to give up on connection or retreat into a bubble where everybody is just like me. I wanna stay curious, hopeful, and human, and that's what this show is about, so let's get Uncomfy.

Robert Coplan: I remember thinking, you know, "Nobody knows exactly where I am. No one knows what I'm doing right now. If something were to happen to me, I would just disappear and no one would know, and it, you know, felt like my skin was crawling. Like, it was really, it was a very visceral experience, both, like, from a physical standpoint and, and, of course, my brain was spinning around with all of the possibilities, so that, that's probably the, the apex of that experience for me.

Julie Rose: This is Robert Coplan. He's a professor of psychology at Carleton University, and he has a book called, "The Joy of Solitude: How to Reconnect with Yourself in an Overconnected World." He's with me today. Professor Coplan, Rob, welcome. It's great to have you.

Robert Coplan: Thanks, Julie. It's really great to be here.

Julie Rose: All right, so give us a little bit of the context. What was going on that dropped you into this intense moment of isolation?

Robert Coplan: Yeah, so this was quite a while ago. If I, I'll date myself now and say this was right when I finished university, pre-cell phone and, and uh, pre-internet in a lot of ways, and I had just finished my undergraduate degree in psychology, and I had the early twenties kind of, you know, fork in the road decision about what I wanted to be when I grew up, and on one side was, uh, graduate school and potentially a career, you know, as a psychologist, uh, and at the other side was, uh, potentially a career as a musician because I'd always been very active as a, as a musician, a songwriter, singer, I play piano, and I, you know, that was something I was super passionate about and, and really interested in, and I was trying to decide, "What do I want to do?" And it, I had a four month period in between my, uh, you know, my degree that I finished and that I was about to start graduate school in that September, so I spent the four summer months basically doing something that I think only a early twenties person would just decide to do on a whim, which is I hopped in my car, and I just drove south, and I spent four months driving around the southern US basically as an itinerant musician, stopping and, and, uh, you know, wherever I could find a gig in, in any little town or city that I went through, you know, piano bars or lounges of hotels or, you know, the Brandy Sniffer, and I, playing for tips, and I eventually ended up in Jacksonville, Florida, where I spent a month as a organ player for a minor league baseball team, so it, it was, I mean, a, a very formative experience, uh, but a lot of alone time, uh, and I, you know, for me that was, like, the best and the worst of alone time, right there in a single set of experiences 'cause you're lonely and you're cut off and you don't know anybody and you're really challenging yourself by disconnecting yourself from everything that you know, and, I mean, I, I was just a kid. I'm 21 years old, and I'm, you know, out on my own for really the first time, um, and so that was really difficult and really feeling very, you know, cut off and, and isolated and, you know, to me, that all really illustrates all of the bad stuff that solitude can, you know, put upon us, especially when it's kind of like an unwanted or an unchosen solitude.

Julie Rose: Right, and that's an important distinction that you make in the book, that, um, whether you've chosen, whether you've chosen solitude, and whether you're doing it in the right way or the right way for you, right? A lot of this is so individual, so sticking with your story for just a moment, young twenties, you're like out on the road looking for pianos that you can sit down. It's too bad you weren't a guitarist or a saxophonist.

Robert Coplan: Yeah. It would've been easier to have something to carry around, yeah.

Julie Rose: Carried your instrument, so, um, so, so drop us back into, you know, one of those moments. I imagine they were like those long stretches in the car by yourself, right? Like, stuck with your thoughts and before podcasts and you're like, just like trying to catch up with a radio station,

Robert Coplan: or even in between radio stations and just, there's just nothing coming through, and, and I'll tell you what I ended up doing, which is at the time was just, it just happened. It was kind of intuitive, and of course, you know, 35 years later, I've learned all the reasons why it worked, but what I did is I kind of tried to flip the, the script a little bit in my head, and, you know, I was thinking of this alone time as a punishment in some ways, right? Like, you know, I am being forced to do all this alone stuff to get something that I want, which is, you know, this, this opportunity, but, you know, this is the unintended bad stuff that I, that I get on my way to looking for gigs and, and trying to see if I can be a, you know, a musician, and then, you know, at some point I kind of flipped the script, and I said, "Maybe this could be an opportunity, right? Maybe this could be even a gift, right? The, the gift of the chance to have some alone time, a chance where I can, you know, I can write the script, and I can make the decisions, and, and I can, you know, be autonomous. I can choose what I wanna do and how I wanna do it," and, and there's so much freedom in that, and I don't know if it was any particular moment. It was so long ago, I can't give you like the specific, "I thought this and then it happened," but I will tell you now, with the, you know, with the advantage of hindsight and some scientific learning, that what, what I was doing, just changing the way I was thinking about it, actually turns out to be one of the simplest, and, I mean, it seems so simple, ways to enjoy our solitude more is just if, if people are instructed to literally think happy thoughts while they're in solitude, it improves their experiences of it. Uh, I, I mean, it sounds so, like, so simple that it can't possibly be true, but, and of course we can talk all about it, but, uh, yeah, so somehow I started thinking some happier thoughts and, and that's what made the difference for me.

Julie Rose: Right. You start your book with, uh, an invitation to the reader to, uh, set a timer and sit and do nothing alone for 15 minutes, and so I did it, and, um, I mean, what's the typical experience that people have when they do this?

Robert Coplan: Yeah, so that, that idea was based on a, a fairly famous experiment that was done, uh, about 10 years ago, uh, with college students where they were asked to do exactly that: sit alone in a room on a chair, 15 minutes, no technology, nothing to do, just sit alone with your thoughts. So, the vast majority of them, when they were, you know, asked about it afterwards and talked about their emotions and how they felt, like, they hated it. They, I mean, they were bored, they, you know, and they've even found it aversive, like, just like, you know, and then the, the fun kind of catch in one of the versions of those, uh, of those experiments, the participants were given the opportunity, if they wanted to, like, "While you're there, just, you know, hanging out, doing nothing for 15 minutes, press this button and it'll give you an electric shock, and, you know, not, like, you know, a dangerous electric shock, but a painful one," uh, and they got to try it out ahead of time, so it wasn't just that they were just trying something just to kind of see what it was like, you know? So, they tried it, they saw that it hurt, and they were told, "If you wanna do this, go ahead," and more than half of the participants self-administered a painful electric shock at least once, many more times than that, just to have something to do. That, like, it was so aversive to sit and do nothing for 15 minutes, that they would rather shock themselves than, than do that, which is, I mean, it's a, it's a, you know, it's, it's incredible to contemplate, but, uh, you know, that tells us, in general, a lot of people really just dislike solitude, right? They, well, at least they think that they do, because my argument would be like, "That's not, you don't have to do solitude like that." That's one way that you could do solitude, right, like, that, you know, and, and some people might love that, but it's certainly not for everybody.

Julie Rose: Yeah, I have so many questions because I am, I, I love solitude. Like, I love to go on big vacations by myself. I spend, I mean, I live alone. I spend a lot of time on my own, and I would say 90% of the time, it is the only state that I'd like. You know, it's not like I'm, I'm not like, "Oh, I'm so lonely," right? Like, I don't, I don't experience it that way, so maybe that's, I'm probably on the far spectrum of, like, introversion, people who are accustomed to, but when I did this, like, set a timer, sit and do nothing for 15 minutes, the first five minutes, 10 minutes, I was just kind of with my thoughts, I tried, and I was really trying not to look at the timer.

Robert Coplan: Mm-hmm.

Julie Rose: At about, probably, I don't know, but around the 10 minute point, I started to become sure that I had set the timer wrong, that, because it felt like I had been sitting there, I'm like, "Surely this is more than 15 minutes. Like, this must have been a half, I bet I've been sitting here for a half hour. Like, I better check," you know? And just when I got to the point where I was like, "I, truly, this is not, I can't do this anymore. Like, I'm bored outta my mind, and this can't be right. Like, this is way longer than 15 minutes," that's when the alarm went off, right, which was interesting to me, too, but the lesson for me was, "Okay, solitude and boredom, sitting alone doing nothing, that doesn't work for me," and I'm rarely doing that in my life. I'm—

Robert Coplan: And that's not the same thing though, right? That's why, that's, that's, that experiment is interesting, but it's more about boredom and being disconnected from technology than it is really about solitude, and I think it illustrates one of the myths that we have about solitude, which is that in order to get benefits from being alone, from solitude, we need to like, you know, put out a yoga mat and fold our legs and, and, meditate, right? Which, don't get me wrong, of course, meditation is awesome and there's a lot of very well proven,

Julie Rose: it's a really good skill. I've learned that, too, so that's what I was doing for the first 10 minutes.

Robert Coplan: Totally, and people should meditate. I absolutely advocate it, but it's, as you said, even for someone who enjoys spending time alone, sitting and doing nothing, or just thinking, whatever it is that you're doing for, you know, for your solitude time, that's not for you, and, it turns out, that's cool. Like, it's okay for it not to be for you. There's lots of different ways you can get benefits from solitude. The most important thing when you're deciding what to do is that you choose something that's meaningful for you, that's enjoyable, that you're engaged in, that is, you know, interesting, and if you're choosing an activity that is for you, you're gonna get those benefits. You know, it, it's kind of like the, "You do you," idea of solitude, right? Like, you find what you want to do and that's what's gonna work, and it doesn't have to be sitting alone with your thoughts.

Julie Rose: Like, you could be choosing to, uh, just unwind and, you know, maybe just listen to music or go for a walk and, you know, use it for restoration or, or to recharge your battery. You know, solitude takes the edges off negative emotions and, right, so it helps to calm us down and, and, you know, make us feel a little bit more centered.

Robert Coplan: It can also be a place where we get a lot of stuff done, uh, and we're uninterrupted and we can focus. Uh, it's also a great breeding ground for creativity. I, I call it an incubator for creativity because, you know, solitude is a great place for figuring out stuff and getting those kind of a-ha moments. It's a place where we can explore ourselves, learn about ourselves, you know, improve our relationship with ourself, which in turn improves our relationship with others. So, like, there's a lot of different good stuff that you can get out of solitude, and everyone's gonna kind of find their niche, I think, their, the activity that they're gonna want to do. Maybe they're knitting, you know, maybe they are exercising, maybe they are, you know, playing Candy Crush on their phone, like, whatever's going to, you know, help them in that moment to do what their, you know, personal goal is, that's what they should do.

Julie Rose: Okay, you mentioned phone. I'm glad you did because that's the thing that's, like, on the tip of my tongue here. So, am I, is it solitude if I am sitting alone in a room physically, but I'm texting or I'm interacting with people on social media somehow?

Robert Coplan: That's the big technological elephant in the room, right? Like, the, the, the, the advent of, you know, virtual social connection has really made us reexamine what solitude is, and I think it actually poses an existential threat to solitude because, you know, it used to be you, if you were physically separated from other people, you were in solitude, right, but now of course, as you've mentioned, you know, not only could you be texting, you could be physically alone, you could be FaceTiming with people, like, literally having a face-to-face conversation with lots of people on your phone, um, and so it really does make us have to kind of reexamine. So, I, I've a little bit of advice around that. So, I would say, generally speaking, when you are using your phone or if you're using your phone in solitude, like, use it for good reasons, not evil reasons, okay? So, evil reasons might be, you know, scrolling social media, and that's not good for you no matter what, but some people also use their phone to what I would call "social wash" their solitude. So, they don't like spending time alone, they always wanna be socially connected, so when they're alone, they virtually social connect, and it, to me, it kind of takes them, you know, out of some of the potential advantages. Like, for me, solitude is being off stage, right? It's being, a chance to have that step away, not be in the spotlight. You don't have to, you know, worry so much about your facial expression, what you're saying, you know, the audience that's evaluating you. You don't have to watch other people's posture, facial expression, the words, the tone of their voice. There's so much input that we get when we're around other people, right? So, solitude is like stepping off of that stage. It's the big whew, you know, you have a break. If your phone is, you know, is alerting you to a new text every 30 seconds while you're alone, that's not off stage. If you're FaceTiming with people, that's not off stage, right? So, yes, sometimes when you are alone and you're lonely and you want to connect with someone, absolutely use your phone to help you connect, but don't make all of your solitude, just, you know, virtual social connection. Use some of your alone time for actual solitude, which for some people might be putting their phone away completely. For others, it might be just turning off their notifications and then using their phone to help them in solitude, to listen to music, to read, there's meditation apps, right? Like, you can use your phone for positive purposes while you're alone, as long as you kind of put those social barriers in place so that it is actually that off stage experience.

Julie Rose: Yeah, I love that differentiation, the offstage thing, that's, like, that's really helpful because that's the, that's the sense that I crave, you know, or the sensation, like, the recharge as a true introvert that I need to sort of, like, fill my battery again. So, but you are differentiating, which is it really interesting, between "alone" and "lonely" or "solitude" and "lonely."

Robert Coplan: A very important distinction.

Julie Rose: Yeah, talk me through that.

Robert Coplan: So, loneliness is a, a, a really bad feeling that we get when there's a mismatch between the social life that we want, the quality and the quantity of our social relationships and our interactions, and what we actually have. So, if it's, if our need to be, need to belong, that's sort of the psychological term, if our need for social connection is not being met, that discrepancy makes us feel lonely, which is this awful feeling that is just so damaging for our, you know, our wellbeing, our, our mental health, even our physical health. There was a, a study by the surgeon general's office a few years ago suggesting that chronic loneliness and social isolation is as bad for our physical health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, so it, it's loneliness sucks. Like, it's really bad. You know, people try to get me to say, "Oh, loneliness is not such a big deal 'cause you talk about the positive side of solitude." I'm like, "No, loneliness is a big deal. We need to pay attention to it, but loneliness is not solitude," right? You can feel lonely even when you're surrounded by other people. A lot of us have the experience of, you know, you go to a party, maybe you don't know everybody there so well, you stand in the corner, you're sipping on your drink, you're watching everyone else engage in these, you know, heartfelt conversations. They seem to be really connected to each other, they're laughing, and they have inside jokes, and you're watching them, you know, be so intimate, and then you leave feeling more lonely than when you got there, right? So, it, it's not just about, you know, being around people, um, and at the same time, of course, you can be in solitude and not feel lonely at all, so if loneliness is a bad feeling, solitude is a place, and solitude is a place, particularly if you choose to go there, where as we've seen, there's a lot of potentially good things waiting there for you.

Julie Rose: Yeah. So, we're wired for social connection, sort of on this deep human kind of, there are adaptation reasons why over many millennia humans would sort of create, you know, like, that's, you've sort of alluded to that. I think we can all agree that, that, you know, obviously you need it for survival in some cases and also we're just kind of wired for it, so are we also wired to, like, physically and psychologically need solitude?

Robert Coplan: Yeah, so it's, it's less well established, I would say, from a sort of a scientific perspective, but people certainly have talked about the need for solitude. Um, I mean, you can see how even just the respite idea, the, the break from the constant input, a chance for that, that restoration, a chance for your nervous system and, and your, you know, your emotions, everything, to kind of have that reset. You can certainly see the evolutionary advantages of that, but one of the reasons why I know that we have a need for solitude is because if we don't meet that need, it causes trouble, okay? So, for example, uh, over the last few years we have been, you know, people have focused, for good reason, on what happens when you get too much solitude, and that's loneliness, particularly when it's unwanted, but we decided, just a few years before COVID started actually, to investigate what happens if you don't get enough solitude, and then when I went, set out to study this, not only had nobody studied it before, but there wasn't even really a name in the English language to, to sort of name the bad feelings that could arise if you don't have enough time alone, so we decided to kind of base it on the idea of loneliness, but make it the other side of the coin. So, if loneliness is what happens when there's a discrepancy between your wanted and your actual social life, we coined the new term, "aloneliness," to describe the bad feelings that happens if there's a discrepancy between your needed and actual solitary life. So, if you're not getting enough good quality me time, what's gonna happen to you? So, it turns out that what happens to you is you feel stressed, you feel grumpy, you're in a bad mood, and you, even can lead to symptoms of depression, so it's, it's a lot of the same kinds of outcomes that are associated with feeling lonely. Although, of course, we're just beginning to study this, this kind of new phenomena, but, to me, it, it's like a public service announcement. Like, this is a thing, okay? You might be feeling grumpy and in a bad mood and stressed out, and you don't know why, but the reason could be because you're not getting enough time alone.

Julie Rose: Yeah, that's, I'm not gonna stop thinking about "aloneliness" as a concept.

Robert Coplan: And so, like, we, and again, get the word out, right? Like, this is, and that, there's a message there that also says, "It should be okay to ask for alone time." You know, there is still a bit of a stigma around this, right? Like, there are still some, you know, in, in North America and a lot of Western cultures, there's still a stigma around going to a restaurant alone or going to see a movie by yourself or, right? So,

Julie Rose: or even like the words, you know? We have, like, "Social butterfly," and, like, there's,

Robert Coplan: there's "loner" and "hermit" and all these kind of negative terms for people, a "cat lady," right? Like, these, you know, these negatively tinged or, or overtly negative words that we use for people who enjoy spending time alone. It should be okay to say to, you know, a friend or a family member or a romantic partner, "I love you. I love spending time with you, but I'm gonna spend some time alone right now, and, uh, it's gonna be good," and, in fact, there's research to suggest, somewhat paradoxically, that if you have some good quality me time, the next time you interact with someone, you experience it more positively, it's gonna be, uh, better for your relationship, so you could say to that person, "Give me some me time. It's gonna be good for both of us. When I come back, we're gonna have a, you know, a more positive exchange, more positive interactions and a better relationship," and, you know, let's normalize that. Let's make it okay to say that.

Julie Rose: Robert Coplan is a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa. His new book is “The Joy of Solitude: How to Reconnect With Yourself in an Overconnected World." Rob, this has been really fun. Thanks so much for your time today.

Robert Coplan: Thank you, Julie. It was a great pleasure.

Julie Rose: And thank you for getting Uncomfy with us today. How do you do solitude? I'd love to hear your story. Email uncomfy@byu.edu or connect with us on social media; we are @uncomfy.podcast onInstagram. Let's keep the conversation going. Uncomfy is a BYUradio podcast. Samuel Benson produces it, and the team includes Hyobin Kim and Sam Payne. Our theme music was composed by Kelsey Nay. I'm Julie Rose. Can't wait to get Uncomfy with you again next week.​