A quiet walk along the water might do more for loneliness than joining a group activity there. But the reason appears to be more personal than most people would expect.
That's one of the more thought-provoking takeaways from a large survey-based study out of Norway published in Health and Place, where researchers found that spending time on or along a lake was associated with lower loneliness. What drove that link wasn't bumping into neighbors or joining a group paddle. It appeared to flow through something more internal: a felt sense of oneness with nature and an emotional bond with a specific place. Doing those activities alone was associated with a stronger version of that effect, though the researchers are careful to note that solitude is not a simple fix.
Loneliness has been rising for years. According to the World Happiness Report cited in the study, 19 percent of young adults reported having no one they could count on for social support in 2023, a 39-percent increase from 2006. Health researchers have linked the condition to depression, premature death, dementia, and cardiovascular disease.
For years, the leading explanation for why outdoor activities help with loneliness centered on socializing. Get people outside, the thinking went, and they'd naturally cross paths with others, join walking groups, and rebuild fraying social ties. Programs designed to combat loneliness have leaned heavily on this model. But the evidence has always been surprisingly thin. Prior research has consistently found that interventions built around social interaction opportunities are not particularly effective at reducing loneliness.
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Volda University College designed this study to explore a different possibility: that the link between outdoor activities and reduced loneliness runs through a person's internal connection to nature and place.
They surveyed residents living near Mjøsa, Norway's largest lake, a region spanning 12 municipalities with forests, farmland, and freshwater. Mjøsa is widely seen as a defining part of local identity. In the fall of 2024, 15,000 people aged 18 and older received a text message inviting them to participate. The final sample included 2,544 respondents.
Participants reported how often they engaged in nine activities on or along the lake, including fishing, walking along the shore, exercising along the shore, enjoying life along the shore, summer and winter swimming, walking on the ice, paddling, and boating. They also reported how often they did those activities alone. Separate sections measured their sense of connection to nature, their emotional attachment to Mjøsa, and their loneliness levels.
Loneliness was assessed in multiple ways. One question asked people directly how lonely they'd felt in the past seven days. A separate six-item scale measured two distinct types of loneliness indirectly, without ever using the word "lonely," an important distinction, since stigma around loneliness can lead people to underreport it when asked outright. One type captures missing close, intimate relationships. The other reflects feeling disconnected from a broader social group.
More frequent activities on or along Mjøsa were linked to a stronger sense of connection to nature and a deeper attachment to the lake. Those feelings, in turn, were associated with lower loneliness scores.
Connectedness to nature, a sense of kinship with animals, plants, and the broader living world, showed the strongest association and was linked to reduced loneliness across all three measures the study used. Attachment to Mjøsa was also associated with reduced loneliness, but only for the type related to feeling disconnected from a social group or community.
Not every activity had the same effect. Enjoying life along the shore, walking along it, and walking on the ice showed the strongest ties to feeling connected to nature. For place attachment, the top three were enjoying life along the shore, walking, and summer swimming. Exercising along the shore stood out at the other end, with the weakest association with nature connection and the weakest with place attachment among all nine activities. Researchers attribute this to how attention is directed. Activities involving sensory noticing and aesthetic appreciation appear to deepen the bond with nature, while exercise-focused activity tends not to.
When people reported doing lake activities alone, the indirect link between those activities and reduced loneliness grew stronger. Solitude, the researchers suggest, gives people mental space to turn their attention outward toward the environment rather than inward toward conversation.
That said, the authors note that both too much and too little time alone can be harmful. The finding does not mean isolating oneself in nature is a reliable path to wellbeing. Worth noting as well: the study is cross-sectional and cannot establish cause and effect. Lonelier people may actively seek out nature to compensate for unmet social needs, which would partly reverse the assumed direction.