A method, system and computer program product for disassociating and freeing managed connection objects. Managed connections are dissociated from their connection handles based on their usage patterns, determined by various connection parameters, which more effectively reduces the idle time of the managed connections. The managed connections whose cost of disassociating and reassociating is less than the cost of keeping the managed connections idle are targeted and released to the free pool of managed connections via the dissociation from its connection handles.