Why You Should Spend Time In Silence
The noise is driving you nuts
I recently spent more than a month in the Arctic reporting my new book, The Comfort Crisis. It investigates how our modern, comfortable, effortless environments are at the root of many of our common physical and mental health problems. This tip into comfort, convenience, and ease is all invasive—often in ways we don’t expect. Take how our soundscape has changed.
One morning in the Arctic I exited my tent and walked a few hundred yards out on to the tundra. The snowy peaks of the Brooks Range Mountains were illuminating to the north, and the eastern sky was cantaloupe and pocked with grey and shining white clouds. There was no wind.
I could hear only the muted churn of a distant river and my own breath. I stood there for a long time, listening to the nothing. Soon I was able to pick up another sound. It was my heart beating. It began to thump loudly in my ear. Then I could hear the inner workings of my lungs. This was, undoubtedly, the most quiet I’d ever experienced.
It occurred to me that I could have stood there all day and this quiet would have remained. It would stay unaltered by commuting times, airplanes, construction, the hum of mechanical devices, and all of the other noises of the modern world.
