The Sound Of Silence

Silence is not something we are used to anymore these days. With all the events everywhere, the sounds of the streets, the music, people talking, workplaces running, cars driving and all the noise we also hear from the internet all the time, the social media short videos, long videos, the streamers, even the ancient forgotten television and radio, since the rise of technology, our lives have not been given a strand of silence. A calm moment. All of our time is filled by some form of sound, not natural sound waves from distant objects and situations but things we seek, almost as if we cannot bare standing with ourselves for a moment. Let’s take a look at this.

Staying quiet is a practice in almost all religions and spiritual practices in the world. It is well know the practice of monastic silence recommended for purposes of either becoming closer to God or achieving elevated states of spiritual purity, it may also be in accordance with monk’s formal vow of silence, or people preparing to take these vows. Similarly, some religious practices outside monastic life, as in some forms of paganism or even catholic rites, also incorporate moments of solitude and quiet into their spiritual practice to either perform a ritual, prayer, listen or show respect and humility. Now, aside from the magical matters of shutting up.

Humans have different considerations on what silence towards their pears exactly means, for instance, in the West, we are louder, value verbal communication, thus being able to socially express yourself with your voice may drive good attention to you, on the other hand, in the East, silence is generally seen as form of respect, humility, and sometimes even professionalism and elegance. Being too verbal here is not well seen, - or at least that’s what I’ve heard online. Take this with a grain of salt. – all of this also differs from generations and cultures worldwide, having different meaning that go so far from using silence strategically and sounding manipulative to being silent in a way to allow the other person to express themselves or rely on you, it highly depends on the context you’re in and the confidence between the peers at the conversation. Regardless of the words uses and interpretations from others, what does silence mean to you? Why can’t you be quiet?

It wasn’t so long ago that we had long periods of boredom, loneliness and quiet, we didn’t have a drive for noise all the time as strong as we have now, to always have information, to always listen to someone else, instead of quietly sitting down to your own internal voice, and the mere act of shutting up can do wonders to you, as seen in this article from the Newsnation in 2025 regarding a study that shows how much silence can be beneficial for your memory, concentration and focus, allowing your brain to better process and retain information, but also handle emotional stress better from simple 2 hours of silence a day to have good results. If that’s not enough proof, a study done by the Cambridge University shows that the intentional practice of silence even in the workspace environments can boost workers performance by preventing lost hours of work due to high noises in the workplace disturbing them.

I must say, staying quiet for a day or two, has been very therapeutic to me, I hope you can try the experience as well. Personal recommendation.

The links are down bellow:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastic_silence

https://www.newsnationnow.com/health/silence-rewire-brain-three-days/

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/industrial-and-organizational-psychology/article/quiet-environments-and-the-intentional-practice-of-silence-toward-a-new-perspective-in-the-analysis-of-silence-in-organizations/4E5A8DBC143D56955BA2E69B79B2686B

And to begin your practice, if you want to try it out:

https://www.iaminsilence.com/practicing-silence/

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