“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom” – Francis Bacon
How does a prolonged period of total silence whilst you’re awake feel like to you? Would you come out feeling bored or lonely or would it be completely unbearable?
Life is noisy. We live in a world full of noise and chatter. The modern world is filled with our daily routines that are inundated with distractions and responsibilities. There seems to be something going on in every moment of life. There’s always some form of noise. What noise can you hear right now? Take a moment and listen. Is it TV or radio? Could it be children playing? Is it people having a chat in the background or an air conditioner humming? Or a dog backing? I can hear one right now.
However it isn’t just sounds that I am referring to as noise. Noise is all of the meaningless hullabaloo going on around you at any given time. Today life has just become constantly filled up with sounds, smells, lights and business that leads to sensory overstimulation. Which is further exacerbated by the presence of smart phones, social media and notification. Many people abhor silence, just the way nature abhors vacuum by filling it up. The ran away from silence and occupy themselves with something even if it means scrolling the phone. One must however have a base line as the noise generated from the external environment finally comes into your internal world and takes over your inner voice. Yet your inner voice is what enhances you to creativity, problem-solving, and decision-making, and ultimately draws you to the things that matter most in life.
This constant noise is not only a distraction in your life but can also inhibit your sense of self-awareness and distract your focus. If the space in your brain is completely taken up by external noise, it becomes incredibly difficult to think creatively, solve conflicts, problems and make decisions.
It is thus crucial to take the time to counteract the noise with silence. So what is this silence and what is its role in life?
Silence, its role and how to introduce it
Silence is that which blossoms in between the presence of sound, language, movement and noise. It is not exactly pure emptiness or pure absence or pause, It is a room of the possible. Lehmann, The cultural psychology of silence affirms that silence can be experienced in between one musical note and another, in between the words, in between the unexpected noise from the environment, it is a space and a time for being and becoming.
Important to note is that silence isn’t limited to the lack of noise. It is broader and can engulf other elements like absence of speech, or even reflected in the environment like the forest and a busy shopping mall or even a home. Also that this isn’t about the external silence but the silence within.
It embodies stillness.
Role of Silence in a Meaningful Life
Silence plays several roles in our personal and business lives as we shall explore below
Silence for connection with higher intelligence – God or the Universe. We’re able to find God and relate with Him better. Since is an essential condition for prayer.
I was personally introduced to silence through reading the bible. As a child I noticed that silence was always connected to wisdom. I completely believed this. When you’re silent, you connect with wisdom. Although it was hard to touch and feel wisdom. Silence can help us avoid sinning (Proverb 10:19), gain respect (Prov. 11:12) and is deemed wise and intelligent (Proverb 17:28). Since then I started to cultivate this. I believe I gained a lot from it. It could have suited my personality as an introverted and reserved person. However later in life (about 4 years ago), I started to notice that although I could keep my house quiet which is something I do often, I found out that I remained intensely engage in thoughts (negative thoughts) and at times this would result into uneasiness, worry and anxiety. I didn’t like these feelings and I had to find ways to deal with them. Interruptions with music, calling friends and family members or turning on television could help but not in a way I at times wanted. Sometimes I just wanted to continue to be in a quiet mood. I was mainly concerned by the about the fact that I couldn’t trace how the spiral of thoughts started and why at times, I didn’t feel like I could control them. This is when I investigated ways to help bring awareness, peace and a bit of control to my thinking process especially negative thinking. I found mindfulness. I realised that with mindfulness practice, I can bring awareness in any aspect of my life and at any time without any dependance on anything outside of me. Mindfulness has enabled me to come back home to who I am, and back to silence within – a very comforting and peaceful state that helps me to connect with God better. It also allows me to know how to navigate through noise, set my intentions, develop foresight and cultivate pathways to better conversations with my self and those that I relate with and to enjoy the present moment. I am able to extract myself from my thinking and observe my thoughts as well as my feelings so that I can manage actions, my relationships and enjoy life.
Silence may enhance the sense of self
Silence helps in the growth of the sense of self, which can improve the capacity to unlocking one’s full potential. Did you know that when you go to sleep, the brain uses the moment of silence and lack of mental activity to clean up and restore itself? Silence is known to be essential to the brain’s restorative process. Thus, the act of bringing stillness through contemplation, prayer, meditation or mindfulness can mimic the brain’s cleansing activity during sleep. This explains why such practices bring a feeling of being restfulness.
Also, when in the silent mode, we are left with inner dialogue which allows us to deeply reflect and contemplate, resolve conflict, understand our thoughts, feeling and emotions and the moment allows us to access higher levels of creativity and inspiration. Being alone with your thought and inner voice is pivotal to knowing thyself.
Another important aspect is that the brain isn’t resting when in silence. It is in a “default mode”, a mode in which it collects information (including from the environment) and makes sense of it all. So, moments of silence give us space and time to understand who we are.
Silence fosters brain growth
It is evidenced that moments of silence help the brain rest and rejuvenate and that the brain grows from it. If you think that silence is lost time, it is quite the opposite. Research today reveals that the brain recognises silence as an input of information rather than a lack of it. Silence also promotes cell development in the areas of the brain in charge of sensory memory formation.
Silence can stimulate creativity
Clearing the mind, helps to create space for creativity. In learning to digest our thoughts and quieten the mind, we can make room for sparks of creativity and inspired action.
“The password to creativity is SILENCE.” Michael Bassey Johnson.
Silence improves communication and relationship development
It can help to improve the capacity to communicate and connect with others.
Silence is a key ingredient in deepening and improving the quality of communication and relationships, be it personal or business. Silence allows for presence and receptivity of information. In the effort to increase the capacity to listen to others, one creates true moments of discourse, greater understanding, intimacy, intellectual sharing and enables the growth of the relationship which is a win- win for parties involved.
Through silence one is also able to confront their inner conflict and in doing so, it is known to bring self-awareness which is a great asset in communicating with others. When people are unaware of how to deal with silence whilst listening, they tend to interfere during moments when they have to listen which is insensitive to others and can affect the effectiveness of the communication.
“Did you know that the word listen contains the same letters as the word silent” Alfred Brendel
Silence as an approach in business development
Through silence, one is able to listen in the unjustified and justified fears and worries of the other party and come to a very good understanding of their objections. If the objection is legitimate silence enables one to capture the full perspective and develop better ways of dealing with the objection or provide an alternative. This is very important in marketing and sales.
Silence as a great approach in business negotiations
Silence is known to be a good tool to use in negotiation. It can allow you to defuse anchors. A pause during negotiation can improve outcomes for both parties, not only the one who started the silence.
“Safety lies in silence. It is easier to rectify what you miss by silence, than to secure what you lose by speaking.” Imam Ali (AS)
Silence can improve concentration and focus
Auditory stillness helps with focus. When freed from any external stimuli of noise, we see that our brains can lead us to better concentrate on the task we have at hand. A couple of research studies have demonstrated this one study by Radun, J., Maula, H., Rajala, Scheinin, M., and Hongisto, V. (2021) 59 praticicpants performed tasks that required concentration with either total silence, speech or other noise in the background. They noted that those that worked in silence experienced the least cognitive load and the lowest stress levels.
Silence may also help to reduce cortisol
Research shows that people who perform their tasks with noise in the background had a higher levels of stress hormone called cortisol.
Dr Martine Prunty, PhD A Clinical Pyshologist in Sydney asserts that an accumulation of unpleasant noise can lead to mental stress and excess release of cortisol.
“ When it becomes elevated, it can lead to weight gain, feeling of signicant overwhelm, difficulties sleeping and chronic diseases.” Dr Prunty.
Silence could help lower blood pressure
Did you know that hypertension or high blood pressure is called a silent killer and that silence has been noted to reduce blood pressure? I think this is profound.
A study found that a chronically noisy environment can increase heart rate and blood pressure and yet another study found that 2-minute silence after listening to music can significantly reduce your heart rate and blood pressure.
So how can you find this inner quietude, tranquility and calm?
By taking action. You must make room for it in your life.
Simple steps to take to start the process of creating space for silence in your life
- Notice the noise – including background noise
- Turn off a television, radio and phone and ditch earbuds
- Introduce and practise silent prayer, mindfulness, meditation and contemplation.
- Take a walk
- Start your day early
- Set an intention to LISTEN in a conversation or meeting discussion.
- Start with small steps– Start by practising one or two minutes of silence. Every mindfulness training session we have at IWAW CLUB begin with the moment of timed silence which is normally challenging at the beginning but the ladies get better.
- Join a meditation and mindfulness coaching or training class. Sometimes we need support to introduce a new habit or activity in our lives.
- “A fool is known by his speech, a wise man by his silence.” Pythagoras