The Lost Art of Quieting

When was the last time you experienced 15, even 10 minutes of quiet? No, I don’t mean electronic devices on vibrate and the television on mute quiet. I mean real quiet. The kind of true quiet that comes when your phone is off, all other electronics too, and when no one is with you or in the house and you can hear your own heartbeat. If you can’t remember, you’re not alone.

It has become increasingly difficult to experience quiet in our modern world. Everything hums, bustles, moves and makes noise. Our own homes buzz with electricity and other wonderful amenities, even in the dead of night. As a Wyomingite, I’m fortunate enough to be removed from the overwhelming decibels of noise most of humanity endures around the globe. However, rural areas like my own are beginning to experience some of the noise problems urban areas have faced for years. Organizations such as the World Health Organization and The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have warned against the damaging effects of our loud lives to no avail^[1]. The problem of ‘noise pollution’ has steadily grown and now research into the psychological effects of our world’s alarming levels of noise reveals just how detrimental all this volume, distraction, and sound is to our bodies and minds.

Metropolitan areas have battled against noise pollution and studied its effects for decades. In articles articulating the painful reality of noise pollution in New York City, Carl Buckley writes, “though people may assume they have grown accustomed to noise, a constant din, even at low frequencies, often takes a heavy psychological toll. Noise can cause stress even when a person is sleeping.”^[2] The hum and low-frequency noise you encounter in your home at night has the ability to increase your body’s stress, even if you’re asleep. And these days people often add to the built-in noise with music or other forms of entertainment playing while they sleep. Buckley also explains that “hearing experts,” like Dr. Gordan Hughes, “say ears never get used to loud noise … ‘your ears don’t get more tolerant.’”^[3] Substantial research and evidence exists showing the damage of constant noise to our ears/hearing, but the strain on our psyche, as it attempts to filter and suppress, the noise is just as dangerous.

Beyond the loss to our hearing, which is irreversible, the constant bombardment of noise increases our stress, disrupts our ability to think and learn¹, and interferes with our body’s natural cycle of rest and recovery.³ Yet, in the midst of the chaos, irritability, overwhelm and distractedness, we can’t shut down – we can’t turn it off and sit quietly. We’ve trained our brains to expect constant input: some new image or sound with a quick swipe of the finger. We’re addicted to distraction and overstimulation. I recently read that our collective attention span is down to eight seconds. Eight seconds people! Sadly, a goldfish has a longer attention span with nine seconds.^[4] Our inability to quiet our minds, to find and allow silence to settle over us like a warm blanket – even if just for a few minutes – is a crisis, plain and simple. 

In their book, Building Bounce, Marcus Warner and Stefanie Hinman teach their readers the critical need of quieting for a healthy brain. The joy center of our brain is responsible for our emotional resilience and maturity. Joy, the emotional response to the activation of our joy center, gives us the emotional strength (and, as a result, energy and motivation) to overcome negative emotions and heal from trauma and abuse. The good news about our joy center is that it is a place in the brain that grows and is capable of growth our entire lives. But it grows in cycles of activation and rest. Warner and Hinman write, “Our need for joy and rest never ends. People who build strong habits around quieting and appreciation lay a strong foundation for emotional resilience”^[5] (67). Our ability to quiet ourselves is a crucial component to building emotional resilience. In fact, they go on to say that, “The ability to quiet may even be the most important skill we can master when it comes to long-term emotional health” (69). If quieting truly is one of the most useful tools we can have for long-term emotional health, is it any wonder that people are overwhelmed, depressed, addicted and unable to cope with life’s stressors in a world filled with relentless stimulation and noise? Our brains are like a toddler at Disneyland after lunch; it won’t matter if we keep getting what we think we want, we are still going to have a full-on melt-down because what we need is a nap.

So then, if quieting plays such vital role in our stability and maturity, what is it and how do we learn to do it? Simply put, quieting is the ability to rest, or the ability to still restlessness in our body and mind. Warner and Hinman make it clear that both the body and mind need quieting. Sometimes you have to quiet your mind and then your body will yield, and sometimes you have to quiet your body first to get your mind to engage in rest. If you need to begin with your body, they recommend activities such as breathing exercises, exercising to expend built-up energy, and singing, because “musical activities … can distract and refocus our attention. It can be quieting or energizing. There is a reason singing babies to sleep is such a worldwide practice” (75). Music can soothe our bodies and help us relax, and so can certain breathing practices.

A restless mind will require different approaches to quiet, based on the state of the mind. For example, a distraught mind, overwhelmed and flooded with negative emotion will take more investment and attention to quiet than a contented one. But the trick is to practice quieting in contentment, so that the activity is familiar and therefore easier to achieve when the mind is overwhelmed. Begin by removing noise and distraction as much as possible. This is no small feat, as we saw earlier, but at least shut your phone off (and your computer, and your tablet, and the TV … it won’t kill you, I promise.) Your mind may lack focus or be all over the place for a few minutes. It could be handy to keep a piece of paper and pencil next to you; that way, if you remember important details for your life you can write them down and move on. The goal is to bring your mind and thoughts to a place of peace and joy through appreciation. When you settle and focus your thoughts on gratitude, and allow your mind to think deeply on the things and people you are thankful for, you build joy in rest. Journaling your gratitude enhances your experience because it engages the body in the expression. Journaling also keeps a record you can reread during times of overwhelm or stress, when thankfulness alludes you. 

Let’s go back to the toddler at Disneyland. It’s afternoon, the day has been jam-packed with excitement and stimulation of the best kind. But irritation starts to show. It’s hot. Clothes are sticky and itchy from the heat. The hat protects from the sun, but the heat makes it unbearable to wear because of the sweat dripping down. Water doesn’t help. The droves of people are annoying. Food or sweets just turn the stomach at this point. Tears spill in response to every question of “what about this?” or “does this sound good?” Any parent who has pushed their small child to this level – albeit for the sake of fun – and then tried to coax that child to remain joyful at this stage of overwhelm knows, not only is it a lost cause, but the sleep this child so desperately needs will now be a hard sell. They will resist sleep with every ounce of stubbornness in them.

We do the same thing in adulthood.

When our brains are under duress – fear, pain, sadness, anxiety, shame – instead of quieting and using gratitude to calm our restlessness, we fuel the restless overthinking through more stimulation: social media, TV, movies, social events, etc. Noise. Noise that distracts from the inner reality. Even though its challenging (and, truly, if you’re new to this activity it will take practice) it is worth the benefits for your mind and emotions to practice quieting. The world’s frantic pace suggests that noise and distraction are the solution to inner struggle and tension, because the people around us are constantly indulging in it. But the evidence continues to mount against the overactive lifestyle. It just isn’t good for our mind, our emotions, or our bodies.

Personally, I have always been partial to quiet. I think it’s one of the driving forces behind my love of reading; reading afforded me the quiet my mind longed for, even in childhood. In my observations of people’s alarming aversion to quiet, a memory from my childhood reading has often come up, carrying with it both conviction and an awareness of the dramatic changes in our cultural volume. I was a stereotypical mid-western girl in my early reading: The Anne of Green Gables series, Nancy Drew books and the Little House on the Prairie books were gobbled up and treasured like candy. The memory I refer to was when I read Laura and Mary’s required Sunday rules in Little House in the Big Woods. Ms. Wilder writes, “On Sundays Mary and Laura must not run or shout or be noisy in their play … They must sit quietly and listen while Ma read … They might look at pictures, and they might hold their rag dolls nicely and talk to them. But there was nothing else they could do” (84-85).^[6] And for anyone who remembers the story, Laura gets in trouble later in the chapter when she disobeys the Sunday rules. I never forgot this section of the book, even though it’s been more than 30 years since I read it. There has always been a mixture of fear and curiosity, of disgust and jealousy at the idea of spending an entire day once a week doing little to nothing (the jealousy arousing predominately after having children). I appreciate Laura’s defiance because I know the frustration of pent-up energy. But I wonder…if families did this same thing today, even just once a week, what kinds of life-altering benefits would that change bring? Maybe God knew what He was doing after all, when He commanded a sabbath day.   

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^[1] Chepesuik, R. “Decibel Hell.” Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 113, no 1, 2005, pp.A34-A41

^[2] Buckley, Carol. “Behind City’s Painful Din, Culprits High and Low.” New York Times. July 12, 2013

^[3] Buckley Carol. “Working or Playing Indoors, New Yorkers Face an Unabated Roar.” New York Times. July 19, 2012

^[4] Comer, John Mark. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World. Hodder & Stoughton, 2019. 

^[5] Warner, Marcus and Stefanie Hinman. Building Bounce: How to Grow Emotional Resilience. Deeper Walk International, 2020 

^[6] Wilder, Laura Ingalls, and Garth Williams. Little House in the Big Woods. HarperTrophy, 1971.