Silence isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, sometimes just sitting in silence is better than the constant clutter of sound around you. There are times that silence can induce anxiety. Normally, I consider silence to be a negative thing. I’ll take it as meaning that something’s wrong. There are times when you just need to remember that silence isn’t necessarily a horrible thing.
Sitting in a quiet room can be relieving. It can be calming, relaxing, and you won’t have to worry about the world around you. There are times that it can feel completely and utterly beautiful. This is why I am celebrating Quiet Day on February 25th, and I suggest that you do too. Quietness can be not only mentally relaxing but it has its physical benefits too.
Something so simple as even the sound of a cell phone ringing can cause your blood pressure to rise. Is it really the silence that’s causing the anxiety, or is it the fact that you’re just waiting for the silence to end? When the silence comes to an end, in my personal experience, that’s when I become more stressed out. I’ll tend to get more irritable in a loud, obnoxious presence than I am when there’s pure silence.
There are ways to celebrate Quiet Day – by yourself. Meditation is my personal favorite technique to celebrate silence. Becoming more in touch with myself, calming my mind, getting that overwhelming feeling of calmness – it can be my favorite part of the day. For other people it can be something so simple as setting an amount of time where they won’t look at their phone, it’s relaxing to just turn the phone off, even for just an hour.
Celebrating Quiet Day doesn’t mean that you have to sit in dead silence for the entire day. You certainly can’t expect other people to sit in silence for an entire day. The best way to celebrate the day is to take the time to celebrate you. This day can be a very personal holiday, a very relaxing holiday at that.
If you want an entire day of silence, you can even go on a “silent retreat.” To do this, you wouldn’t have to spend a lot of money like on one of those yoga retreats. Instead, you could go somewhere in nature and just sit silently, focus on the world around you instead of the people, sounds, and stressful things around you. Go to a place that you can go and just simply relax. It sounds easier said than done, but this can be very helpful, again, mentally and physically. It can be relaxing to just know that things can be quiet.
It’s relaxing, at times, to know that you don’t have to deal with the world around you, and you can escape, at least for a short period of time. Celebrating this day can be something as plain and easy as going into a quiet room, shutting the door and taking some deep breaths. Even if it’s only for five minutes, fixating on your breath can help you to calm and relax before jumping back into the world.
Some noises, even low level, can increase the aggression, mess with your memory and focus, and overall make things more difficult. On Quiet Day, take some time specifically for yourself. Get in your zone – even if it’s a short amount of time, and calm yourself. Believe me, it’ll be worth it and you’ll feel so much better after you make it through those few minutes of quiet.
Featured image via Blaz Erzetic on Unsplash
[…] inspiration for this blog in the first place. Coming across that lecture, and the fact that today is National Quiet Day, a day to celebrate quietness by sitting in a room and getting more in touch with yourself, calming […]