How to Get Used to Being Alone – 5 Simple Tips

“I woke up, it was 2020 – I blinked my eyes and then it’s already the end of 2021”
– Random_redditor

This is how quickly the time has passed, it feels like a few seconds and it’s already been more than a year since the pandemic last started. By now almost everybody has gotten used to being alone. Heck, this time period may even be heaven for those who love nothing to be alone.

But despite that, there are a lot of people who find it hard to be alone. Humans are social creatures after all and we are built for socializing. So it can be a bit hard to get used to being alone.

1) Take a Step Back from Social Media

How to Get Used to Being Alone - 5 Simple But Hard Tips

Well, this is the first step of getting used to being alone. There is a saying that goes something like “it’s not the solitude that hurts but the pain of being alone and being compared”. Social media is the prime place for comparing yourself with the lifestyle of others. On social media, you see people enjoying their life, they post stuff that shows them enjoying their life. Meanwhile, all you can see is yourself working or going to school and going back home to play some game.

The only thing is – people’s lives are duller than what they show. Along with this, social media is the hub of “kandas”. So if you are someone who needs to get used to being alone, it is better to stay off social media till you stop comparing yourself with others and get used to ignoring worldly affairs – Kandas- for a while.

2) Take a Phone Break

Take a break from your phone – not just your social media. If you are in a situation where you need to be alone – maybe for your mental health or you just need to recover from a breakup – and need to get used to being alone, then it is a good idea to use your phone for nothing else than important calls and messages.

While using a phone but staying alone is technically being alone, the phone is a channel for social contacts. Besides this, you can remove the games, remove the apps and remove the social apps on your mobile and take a break from your phone if you need to. This will not only help you get used to being alone but also help with your mobile addiction as well. You can still listen to music though.

3) Let Your Mind Wander

This is a simple but painful process of getting used to being alone. In this process, you need to take a few minutes without any forms of technology besides you – including books. Take 5 to 10 minutes per day with no mobile, no laptop, no music, no books, no TV and no Radio. Let your mind wander during those 5/10 minutes without any guidance.

For most people, the chances are – you will begin to introspect, and this is the exact reason why this is a painful part of the “getting used to being alone”. You need to know yourself to feel comfortable being alone. Because the reality is, not everybody is going to be with us forever and at one point in our life, we will be utterly alone despite having many familiar faces.

The whole point of letting your mind wander is to be comfortable with your thoughts– regardless of how dark or degenerate, they may be.

4) Take yourself out on a date

While this may sound a bit cringy, this really is an effective way of getting used to being alone. By the age of 25, a lot of Nepali youths are alone. Their friends are busy with their own work and meeting them is hard, most of the youths are single and at this age, they are stuck between being kids and being adults. So getting used to being alone is a necessary part of their life at this point in time.

Why not make use of all this “you time” that you have got and treat yourself? You don’t have many people to spend your money on anyways and taking yourself out on dates and treating yourself is a great chance to explore your own taste and wants. Who knows, you may even fall in love with a dish you never tried before.

5) Do some Exercise

And this is another one of those tips for getting used to being alone that sounds cringe but is effective. The whole point of this tip is to start taking care of your physical self and start loving it, while not being a narcissist.

Besides you get comfortable in your body, exercising also helps in making you feel better by releasing “good mood hormones” as well. Also along with this, a fit body is home to a fit mind as well. So do some exercise, get fit, and feel comfortable in your own skin. What’s more is that once you are strong enough, you will be able to do things in a solo mode that you found hard to do in the past.

Why would people want to get used to being alone?

This is rather a subjective question and the answer defers from person to person. But some of the more common reasons are:

Break up with someone they loved romantically
Falling out of friends group
Bullying
Mental Health issues (like social anxiety)
Isolation from Family and friends
Lack of people to connect with (especially if you are in the early to mid ’20s)
Quarantine (the pandemic is still in effect and another one may hit anytime)
Relocation for education or employment

None of these reasons are happy. Besides that, these are not all of the reasons why people would want to or need to be alone and want to get used to being alone. But these things still do happen and are rather common. But regardless of the reason, you should know that the state of needing to get used to being alone is temporary as long as you take care of yourself and strive to move forward.

So,

The gist of all this is that “sometimes shit happens and it forces people to be alone during which they need to get used to being alone for a period of time”. To do this, the basics are “know yourself more and get used to your own company by treating yourself well and avoiding social temptations that will make you feel worse when it’s over – especially things like getting drunk with random strangers while clubbing”

Hope you found this helpful. If you have any suggestions for us, do let us know in the comments below. And as always, thank you for reading till the end.

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