Escaping the Noise: How Silence Restores the Mind and Soul

Silence can bring mental clarity and the opportunity for self-reflection that is difficult to find when surrounded by noise and technology.

In a world full of noise, silence can bring clarity, health, and peace. Biba Kayewich

Ding! Another text message. An incoming phone call. The blare of music over the radio. The roar of a jet passing overhead. A honking horn. An alarming headline.

This is how we experience a world full of constant noise—fast-paced, fragmented, broken, interrupted. We’re assaulted by sounds at all times of day, from the moment we wake to the shrill piping of the alarm clock until we drift off to sleep to the murmur and flicker of the TV. This perpetual hustle and bustle makes it hard to maintain inner tranquility.

Yet many wise people, from ancient Chinese philosophers to medieval monks to modern MIT professors, have preached the power and importance of silence. Even scientific studies back up the conclusions of the sages: Research shows that silence brings health benefits, including lower blood pressure, improved concentration, reduced cortisol, and better focus. It can even stimulate brain growth.

“A multitude of words is tiresome/ Unlike remaining centered,” Lao Tzu wrote in “Tao Te Ching” in about 400 B.C. Silence brings balance, equilibrium. A torrent of speech, sound, and thought can cause imbalance and disturbance that only quiet and calm can remedy.

In our digital age, we’re more in need of silence to recalibrate than when “Tao Te Ching” was composed 2,400 years ago. In an article for Plough magazine, Stephanie Bennett pointed out that the increase in information brought on by the era of big data strains our brain’s processing ability. This may be a factor in increasing levels of anxiety and stress in the world today.

A Monk’s Mantra Made Modern

Long before the invention of machines, the internet, and mass entertainment, medieval monks such as St. Benedict of Nursia knew that too much noise disturbs the soul. Silence is emphasized throughout “The Rule of St. Benedict,” which states, “Monks should diligently cultivate silence at all times, but especially at night.”

“Let us follow the Prophet’s counsel: I said, I have resolved to keep watch over my ways that I may never sin with my tongue,” St. Benedict writes. “I have put a guard on my mouth. I was silent and was humbled.”

The first word of “The Rule of St. Benedict” is “listen”—that is, be quiet, still, and receptive to what others, the world, and God offer to you. Silence and attentiveness allow creation to display the pageant of its beauty and mystery before our eyes.

Even today, many people in the Benedictine tradition testify to the way silence helps heighten their experience of the world. One becomes more in sync with the rhythms of life, the world, and existence itself. Jodi Blazek Gehr, a Benedictine oblate, wrote on her blog: “In silence, we can be transformed. ... We become more attentive. We notice the details around us, and we notice what is happening within us.”

Gehr recalled a visit to a monastery where even meals were held in silence. She described the surprising effects of this practice: “We sat in silence, which contributed to a heightening of my senses—the quiet and stillness provided a backdrop through which I appreciated the color and tastes of ordinary foods—lettuce, tomatoes, bread, pasta, butter, milk. It was pure ecstasy to look, touch, and taste—to interact with my food.

“This sentiment—the sensitivity to physical, tangible cues—carried over into watching fish swim in the pond, grasshoppers jump from one station of the cross to the next, a candle flickering. All things seemed to be created for me. Every movement, color, taste, and sensation seemed special, whereas just days before it was ordinary.”

A Scientific Perspective

Gehr isn’t the only contemporary thinker to notice unexpected consequences from a diet of silence. Bennett described the reactions of some of her students when they were assigned an electronic media fast (for a mere 24 hours) in her class. Many of them reported feelings of fear and depression, highlighting invisible chains of psychological dependence that linked them to their phones.

But some students persevered through the initial darkness when the blue light of screens receded from their lives. Bennett writes: “Some say they attain moments of great clarity and awareness; others find themselves gaining an almost ecstatic creativity. It’s not uncommon for students to feel the urge to pray.”

The mental clarity that comes through silence and solitude has been studied by MIT professor Sherry Turkle. She believes it’s an essential part of self-knowledge. In turn, this self-knowledge paves the way for deeper connections and relationships with others.

In her book “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age,” Turkle wrote: “Without solitude we can’t construct a stable sense of self. Yet children who grow up digital have always had something external to respond to.”

She lamented how the constant presence of digital media tends to fill any natural periods of silence in most people’s homes. Yet silence is golden—in this case, a golden opportunity for deeper connection among family members.

“The real emergency may be parents and children not having conversations or sharing a silence between them that gives each the time to bring up a funny story or a troubling thought,” she writes.

Bennett’s reflections echo Turkle’s thought: “Through [silence], we come to better understand our own thoughts and motivations. We find ourselves relating more cohesively to our world and to others. We can gain a stronger grasp of what it means to be human. ... Unceasing internal noise replaces the reflective space one needs to think, ponder, wonder, and pray.”

But it may be that the ceaseless noise in our society emanates from our desire to escape precisely those things: thinking, pondering, wondering, praying. Such activities look innocuous, yet they’re among the most formidable things we do. In self-reflection, in asking the big questions, we perform some of our hardest—and most essential—human tasks. We grapple with ourselves, our fears, our weakness, our own mortality, and the mystery of the universe.

Silence is scary; it makes you face yourself. And it makes you face realities bigger than yourself.

But as any two-bit motivational speaker will proclaim, it’s through facing our fears that we grow the most. Can interior troubles really be cured by running away? Can they be dealt with by drowning ourselves in noise?

Preoccupation with noise—both physical and mental—might seem the safer option. But there are risks to both silence and sound. Philosopher Blaise Pascal went so far as to assert that “all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

His words are worth considering. And with them, I will fall silent.