Is a lake of solitude making you sick? Tania Ahsan goes looking for some peace.

How often are you by yourself on a typical day? Shared housing, packed commuter trains, open-plan offices and busy social lives mean that the toilet or bath is perhaps the only time that you're ever alone. Is this lack of solitude in life affecting your health? The late psychologist Ester Buchholz wrote: 'Both the need to be alone and to engage others are essential to human happiness and survival...Mother Nature gives aloneness a high priority: sleep is nature's way of ensuring solitude.' However, with insomnia and other sleep disorders on the rise, is it enough for us to just get our 'alone time' in bed asleep? Buchholz championed solitude as a means of preserving good relationships and achieving good mental health.

Need for privacy
Psychologist and stress expert, Felex Economakis also believes in the benefits of being alone at times. 'The need for solitude is linked to a need for privacy and this need, if not met, can be a major cause of stress,' he says. Interrogators have known this for centuries. It is also why we find open-plan offices so stressful. On crowded public transport, people tend to have a fixed middle-distance gaze as way of establishing one's privacy needs.

Space Invaders
'Those who don't ever get any privacy tend to exhibit normal stress symptoms such as aggressive behaviour, a sense of irritability and a bad temper,' adds Economakis. 'This is because they're fighting to defend their space. It's a message to others to "get out".'

Solitude isn't easy and many of us find it near impossible just to be alone for even five minutes. Try it yourself at home. Sit comfortably in a room without distraction and try to just 'be' for five minutes. Invariably, your mind will rush ahead to your 'to do' list, the compulsion to turn on the TV will be very strong and above all, you'll feel guilt at 'wasting time'.

Solitude for health isn't about being left alone to watch your favourite programme uninterrupted, as this is just again a passive interaction with the world; it is being able to rest our overactive brains and bodies.

Venus and Mars
Men and women also seem to have differences in how much solitude they need. Anecdotally, the popularity of activities such as fishing among men appears to suggest that the need to withdraw is stronger in males. People in relationships are often afraid of hearing sentences like: 'I need some space.' It seems to imply rejection but Economakis counsels against seeing it like that. 'Space is important in a relationship because you need to kick-start your attraction again through missing your partner,' he says. 'You can build up a tolerance to them if they're around all the time.'

While no conclusive studies have been done on the subject, the evidence suggests that getting away from everyone and everything for a short period of time is conducive to good health. Doctors and psychologists don't give guidelines on how much 'alone time' you should have as each person is different. However, as little as ten minutes a day could be enough to refresh you. 'You get to the process the demands of the day,' explains Economakis. 'If you don't have time for that, then you don't quite catch up with yourself.'

THE PAIN OF ONE
Solitude is not always a good thing. Psychiatrist Dr Stephen Lawrie says: 'Involuntary solitude is a bad thing. It can lead to anxiety, depression and psychosis.' Despite this, we still routinely use solitude as a punishment in society.

• Solitary confinement is used in prisons.
• Children are sent to their rooms as a punishment.
• Many societies use 'shunning' in order to punish individuals who transgress social rules. The old British equivalent was being 'sent to Coventry'. The trade union movement used to use this method of punishment for strike breakers.
• The sofa. Being banished to sleep in the living room by your partner is another way solitude has been used to punish people.

TIPS FOR 'ME TIME
• Wake up ten minutes earlier than your usual waking time and have morning coffee alone.
• Arrive 15min early for work and just sit at your desk, savouring the silence before the rush of colleagues.
• If the open-plan office gets too much during the day, go for a short walk.
• At weekends, put half an hour of 'me time' in your diary. Then take off to a park and just sit by yourself for that time. Don't let anyone or anything allow you to break that date with yourself - housework and shopping can wait a while.

This article first appeared in Metro newspaper in August 2005. If you'd like to read more articles by Tania, visit www.taniaahsan.com