The world is a loud place … can we ever truly escape noise and should we even try?

Silence is golden, or at least in certain circumstances it is certainly preferable. There are very few moments in our lives when there is true silence, with the buzz of electricity, ping of phones, roar of engines, and blurring of conversations affecting how well we can process the sensory overload of consistent noise.

The world is a loud place.

How exactly is that affecting us and can we ever truly escape noise?

“The Franciscan monk, Thomas Merton, said that places of silence were places where ‘love can blossom’ and I think that is a lovely way of thinking about silence,” says Brendan Clarke, senior cognitive behavioural therapist at Evidence-Based Therapy Centre in Galway. “The word noise itself is revealing in that it seems to come from one of three places, either the words nausea, noxious, or noise [an old word for quarrel], none of which are good for our health. It’s interesting that whoever coined the word hundreds of years ago had an innate sense that noise was inherently linked to something that was stressful or could have a negative effect on your body.”

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When asked what the benefits of silence are on the health of the human mind and body, Clarke answers this from the opposite direction by considering the negative impact noise has on us and how noise evokes psychological stress.

He explains that the immediate physical response we have to excessive, repetitive, or overwhelming noise, reinforces the stress response we may experience. The brain’s amygdala kicks into action and sounds the alarm that we are in danger. “The body starts to mobilise,” says Clarke. “Stress hormones are secreted, blood pressure increases and immune cells activate to prepare for work. The end result of these processes can be glucose resistance, increased inflammation, and stress on your heart. Over the long run, this will also likely affect your sleep, exacerbating the impact. The more often this happens, the greater the risk of developing issues like diabetes, cardiovascular disease and eventually conditions like dementia. This is called the direct pathway because it seems to be something that just happens, regardless of our mindset.”

When in silence, our brain can adequately process information and our emotional experiences in the right way

Indirectly, noise evokes psychological stress by how we respond to certain sounds. Clarke identifies these responses as being focused on our thoughts about the noises we hear rather than how we react to noise. “If you hear builders outside your window at 8am and you think, “God, they’ve started really early. I wish they were more considerate” and you get angry at them, that would be stressful,” says Clarke. “Or if a noise you really don’t like gets under your skin. This might not even be that loud. It could be a clock ticking or the sound of water dripping. In these cases, it would be our attention to or our interpretation of the sound which is most stressful.”

Interestingly, Clarke highlights that natural noise does not have the same impact as man-made noise. “There’s an American sound recording artist called Gordon Hempton who has dedicated years to recording nature,” he says. “He defines silence as the absence of man-made noise, and I think that’s a useful distinction because there’s lots of evidence that the sounds of the natural world can have a positive effect on our health. Research tells us that man-made noises, particularly the loud sounds of things like traffic, industrial machinery, construction, and aeroplanes can do the opposite.”

Clarke points out that it is not just our physical health that is impacted by noise, but includes the stress caused to our mental health and cognitive abilities which when affected we are more likely to become depressed or anxious as a result of ongoing noise exposure. “As with physical health, the effects are worse the louder the noise is and the longer we are exposed to it,” he says. “In terms of cognition, studies have found that reading ability, concentration and executive function all suffer as a result of noise pollution. The lower our cognitive capacities, the more that stress will tend to bother us, so it can be a bit of a vicious cycle.”

Added to this, when in silence, our brain can adequately process information and our emotional experiences in the right way. Clarke suggests that “this processing takes different forms with distressing emotions versus positive emotions, but silence is a key aspect for both. A relatively recent and influential theory in the field of psychotherapy is what’s called “Adaptive Information Processing” or AIP. What is meant by this is that in the right conditions, we can effectively process emotions. So if something frightening happens to us, we can digest it, understand it and put it in the past. Or in the case of something positive, we can really absorb that positivity, take it in and get the benefit of it, which doesn’t always, or even usually happen.”

While research has found that silence creates a better environment to concentrate and absorb our experiences, the complete or substantial absence of noise can also have an unsettling effect on some people who may feel frightened by the empty space of no sound. Clarke suggests in these instances, concentrating may be more difficult. “Sometimes when there are no distractions left, all you have to focus on are your thoughts,” he says. “And for a lot of people that can be uncomfortable. One of the things I aim to do in an eight-week mindfulness course is to help people get more familiar and more comfortable with that. Once you have that ability to be in silence, some powerful things can happen.”

Including mindfulness, Clarke suggests a number of practices we can use to bring more silence into our daily living to help navigate the stress and overwhelm of our lives.

The gentle sounds of the natural world have a powerful effect on our ability to relax

—  Brendan Clarke

“Practice noticing sounds in terms of their direct sensory qualities and try to let go of interpretations,” he says. “This would mean, if you sit and notice the sounds around you, you really try to tune into features like where they are in relation to you — are they above, below, to your left or right? What is the tone, is it smooth or jagged? Are the sounds constant or intermittent, high pitched or low pitched?”

Clarke also suggests spending time in nature. “The gentle sounds of the natural world have a powerful effect on our ability to relax,” he says. “And can be an easier entry point for people who find silence uncomfortable. If you can’t get to a quiet natural space where you live, then go to Spotify and play some nature sounds.”

Finally, Clarke recommends the soothing calm that can be created using a white noise machine. “The heightening of our stress response is greatest in the presence of noise that is continually changing,” he says. “If you live in a city and can’t escape the sound of the street below your window, the constant sound of a white-noise machine is the next best thing to silence.”