Consider, for a moment, the thought of sitting and listening to the sound of silence \u2014 perhaps in a mountainside cave or in an empty house. Unless you\u2019re one of the relatively few people in the Western world whose days aren\u2019t punctuated by sounds of traffic, sirens, radios, TVs and phone alerts, this thought is probably either fear-inducing or enticing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, noise has always been a component of human life, but never in the history of humanity has silence been so hard to come by. With the advent of certain technologies, busier lives and the fact that there are literally more people walking on the planet than ever before, moments of silence are becoming more and more elusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps it\u2019s precisely because of the uncommonness of silence that we resist it. As a species we\u2019ve become adept at obliterating opportunities for quiet time: for lone car rides there is a podcast; for nature walks, Spotify; for the spare moments that we might spend communicating with our loves ones, Netflix. In psychology, the word for this fear of silence is sedatephobia, and it\u2019s on the rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is it that we\u2019re afraid of? Perhaps what frightens us most is a sense that silence represents nothingness, rather than its own entity. In the art world, the term for the fear of negative space is horror vacui. We can observe, in an arabesque painting, for instance, that every empty corner of the canvas is filled \u2014 in the same way that we fill silences in a conversation. Some of us are afraid to be quiet because the sound of silence brings the confronting sound of our own hearts and mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The irony of silence is that it\u2019s actually full of information \u2014 a quieter kind of information. It\u2019s full of everything we can\u2019t hear when we\u2019re making or seeking noise, such as our intuition and deepest wisdom. And, as Thich Nhat Hahn points out in his 2015 book Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise, the absence of sound allows us to respond from a more authentic place. \u201cWhat you need, what we all need, is silence,\u201d he writes. \u201cStop the noise in your mind in order for the wondrous sounds of life to be heard. Then you can begin to live your life authentically and deeply.\u201d It is space that gives meaning to form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scientists, too, have explored the benefits of the sound of silence. Those who live in particularly noisy locations \u2014 for example by a freeway or on the corner of a busy intersection \u2014 have been shown to experience consistently higher levels of stress hormones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a 2006 study, doctor Luciano Bernardi accidentally discovered, while trying to research the effects of different musical styles on the brain, that participants were more calmed by the pauses between musical tracks than by the music itself. During the silent intervals he observed a drop in heart rate, respiration and blood pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to this, biologist Imke Kirste found in 2013 that two hours of enjoying the sound of silence a day helps stimulate cell development in the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory and spatial processing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Intermittent silence has been observed in India for centuries. Known as mauna in Hinduism, the practice of remaining silent for one day per week is thought to preserve energy \u2014 specifically the energy that is lost when we talk. Mahatma Gandhi was a dedicated practitioner of mauna. Author and philosopher Prema Pandurang, who has been observing silence every Tuesday for years, told Hunduism Today in 1997 that, \u201cThere is so much stress and tension today that everyone must observe silence \u2014 some time away from mother, father, child and wife, friends and everyone \u2014 at least a half-hour every day with no telephone calls in some corner of the house where one can see nature. Just sit and silently think about what you are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instinctively, we know that we need silence. This is why more of us are beginning to seek it out. Finland\u2019s tourism board was all too aware of this in 2011, when their marketing team capitalised on the country\u2019s abundance of wide open, quiet spaces. The resulting tourism campaign promoted scenes of people alone in the wilderness with the caption, \u201cSilence, Please.\u201d In today\u2019s day and age, silence is a commodity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, any methods for finding silence really offer a path to the silence \u2014 and sounds \u2014 within. To avoid silence is to be in the habit of reaching outwards instead of inwards, and methods that help us cultivate silence ultimately help us reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Words JANE HONE<\/p>\n\n\n\n