I opened the door to a white blanket of deep snow that lay on the tree limbs in my back yard and stretched across the lawn and over the neighboring house roofs. What hit me was the quiet! So still and noiseless in the white beauty. Ah, what peace. There was a sacredness I didn’t want to break with my voice. I whispered to my wife: “look at this.” And afterwards I thought no, “listen to this”. Listen to what? The stillness, the quiet. Yes, it drew me in.
Have you ever experienced silence? When you come home to a house absent of others and feel the quiet do you turn on the radio or music just to introduce noise? Some folks actually consider quiet boring, an intrusion to avoid or cover up with noise. The industrial revolution introduced noise. Because of this many think of noise as progress. Is the quiet too much to bear?
It may take a while to get used to quiet. But when you do, you can enjoy listening to the sounds of birds singing in the distance as the day awakens. And a passing jet or car can feel like an intrusion. Or have we gotten so used to intrusions we don’t notice the interruption to the quiet? Road traffic. Airplane noise. Construction banging. Lawn mowers and leaf blowers. What is it all doing to us?
Now we know. The research is in. The din takes a toll on us physically and psychologically. Chronic excessive noise has been linked to cardiovascular disease, anxiety, depression, hearing loss, and impaired cognitive development in school children.
Do you struggle with spending time in quiet and contemplation? Thinking you are wasting time?
There is actually benefit to quiet! It helps you consider your thoughts, feelings, memories and opinions and gain more clarity and thus become more productive in some ways. You become more contemplative and not so quick to make decisions or draw conclusions. Religions of the world have known these benefits and pursued them for thousands of years.
What can you do to beat back the noise around you? You can’t turn it all off, but you can go to places with less noise or spend time outside when there is less noise. Take a walk after rush hour, late evenings or real early morning.
Or if you want to find the quietest place near you, here is my suggestion. Look up state land (New York State Land) or state parks (New York State Parks) or county land in your area. Use the air photo and terrain portion of an online map (Google Maps or Bing Maps) to scope out these areas. Find the flattest (this doesn’t work well in an area with steeper hills and valleys) wooded portions away from Interstates and main roads and walk back into them and sit and listen.
After 6 pm or before 7 am is often quieter. Stick to marked trails (more trails) unless you are familiar with bushwacking. Make sure you know your way back out to your car so you don’t get lost.
New things can lead to positive change so I invite you to try silence and see what it holds for you.
Here is the article I got the information for this blog from.
