Published by Hubert Den Draak under Healthy Living

Enjoying the Sounds of Silence Again

Yesterday I was out on our property for a snow shoe hike (yes, there’s still about 3 feet of the white stuff up here) when I stopped for a moment to watch the sun set. It was quiet. It was so quiet, you could hear the silence. And it felt… gloriously soothing. Energizing. Restoring. So I asked myself: if my mind and body tell me this is good for me, then why can’t we stop filling our lives with noise?

We all know noise is a major cause of stress and stress-related disorders: high blood pressure, migraines, anxieties, shorter attention spans, increased aggression, even stunted growth (both mentally and physically) with small children – and that’s only for starters. Too much noise just isn’t healthy.

This morning I stepped into a store right after it had opened for the day; I was the first customer there, and all was calm. Until an employee remarked: “This is too quiet for me, it feels like a morgue!” and 5 seconds later the store was flooded with classic rock and radio commercials. I turned around and left.

What if no music blared from stores, bars, supermarkets, elevators or restaurants? Imagine being able to sit down in your neighborhood café and hear your friend talk without having to lean forward to catch the words or resort to lip reading? And wouldn’t it be great to be in a public space (anything from elevators to airports) and not stand/sit beside the tinny sounds emanating from someone else’s ear buds?

We can’t seem to deal with silence anymore. Silence makes us feel uncomfortable, vulnerable. Without noise, you suddenly have to exercise your rusty social skills and actually talk to someone. Or (even more frightening) you find yourself alone and suddenly hear yourself think.

And it’s not just music that causes noise pollution. It’s also TV, traffic, computers, cell phones, microwave ovens, heating systems, air conditioners, snow blowers, lawn mowers, copiers, trucks backing up, car stereos, kids’ toys, airplanes overhead, PA systems – you get the idea.

The really strange thing is, we don’t even notice it anymore. Until the power goes off, like during the big Blackout of summer ’03 that hit a huge part of Eastern Canada and the US. Our house sighed – and went quiet. Very quiet. For nearly 3 days. You have no idea how much noise a house makes until everything goes silent. Ahhh…

Noise is our new security blanket, it seems. So what are we afraid of? Oh, lots of stuff, but that’s neither here nor there. All I know is, it’s time to leave that over-used blanket behind and grow up. Decompress. Time to listen to the wind blow, the snow fall, the sun set. Time to center, focus on what counts in this life. It took me some getting used to, but it feels good. You should try it.