I love Depeche Mode. They’ve given the world two important things to remember. And right now, we need to remember them:
Just hang on, suffer well.
Enjoy the silence.
Last June, an article in Scientific American summed up the current state of things as “post-normal times.” Even last year feels like a homecoming dance compared to what’s going on now. And just wait until next year…
And the year after that…
You get the idea.
Every year is going to feel less normal than the year before it. What we considered “normal” is merely a spec in the rearview mirror. There’s no going back. Things are different now, and it calls for a fundamentally different worldview. Rest might feel like a luxury lately, a privilege few get to enjoy. And while that might be true, it’s also an essential component of our sanity.
We’ve got to find a way to do it.
Here’s some science for that:
A 2013 study found that two hours of silence per day helped stimulate brain cell growth in mice, improving memory and focus.
Another study found that silence can lower stress hormones like cortisol. Research has found that silence can lower your heart rate and blood pressure. Silence throughout the day can also help you sleep better at night. It also helps patients in the intensive care unit recover faster.
Contrary to the steady stream of op-eds bashing lockdowns, one 2022 study confirmed that many people during the initial phase of the SARS-2 pandemic reported higher levels of emotional well-being, associated with more time in quiet reflection, especially nature. It wasn’t great for everyone, but many people benefited from slowing down and spending more time not doing things.
Our minds and bodies desperately crave silence.
Even if we think we don’t want it…
A 2022 article in New Scientist rounds up statements from a number of health organizations about the “underestimated harm” that noise is doing to us. The author extols the virtues of sensory deprivation tanks. Apparently, these things date back to the 1950s, when a researcher named Jay Shirley at the National Institutes of Mental Health first started to discover that our brains like it when you remove most or all of the external stimulus for a little while. John Lilly continued that work at the University of Oklahoma.
As Lilly once said, “I believe in our culture we need certain socially accepted places where we don’t answer the telephone, we don’t have to answer questions or agree with anyone on anything.” Lilly didn’t live long enough to see the rise of social media, or even the smartphone. Imagine what he would say about a majority of western culture now constantly engaged with each other. Shirley and Lilly’s work, now archived at Purdue, led to the development of flotation therapy.
That was their answer.
According to flotation therapy, removing all external stimuli—including gravity—can lead the brain into a theta state similar to REM sleep. Once there, your body engages in fast healing. Advocates of flotation therapy even assert that it helps increase T Cell production. A 2018 study in PLoS One backs some of this up. The 50 participants reported “significant reductions in stress, muscle tension, pain, depression and negative affect,” as well as “a significant improvement in mood characterized by increases in serenity, relaxation, happiness, and overall well-being.” A 2016 study in Performance Enhancement & Health found similar benefits in athletes. Just this year, a team of researchers at Chapman University did a comprehensive review of flotation therapy studies. Flotation therapy makes up just one part of a broader technique called Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST), a term developed by psychologists in the late 1970s. Although it’s often dismissed as woo, the studies confirm there’s something to it.
You don’t necessarily have to float in a tank to see similar results. Browse the Reddit forums, and you’ll see people doing different versions of REST, whatever they can afford. One person mentioned this thing called a “mindfold,” a padded sleep mask that completely blocks out light. You can find several different brands of padded sleep masks online. Some of them come with extra deep pockets, so you can even open your eyes and just stare into the void.
Research has also been raising awareness about binaural beats, a sound your brain actually creates when you listen to music that delivers a different frequency in each ear. A lot of meditation music out there specifically triggers this effect. Binaural beats sync with your brain waves and slow them down, recreating the mental state we otherwise achieve only through sleep. A 2023 article in PLoS One reviewed more than a dozen studies on binaural beats and concluded:
It’s not B.S.
I’ve already got two sleep masks that I wear at night. I also listen to white noise. Plus, I’ve installed blackout curtains on my window. Most nights, I spend about an hour just sitting and listening to ambient music.
(I’m a big fan of sith meditation.)
A few years ago, at the height of my anxiety about the future, I stumbled into all of this. Since then, I’ve almost completely given up things like Netflix. Sure enough, the author of the New Scientist piece on flotation therapy tried to get her husband interested. Guess how he responded:
“Isn’t that a form of torture?”
It’s not surprising, that reaction. The last thing on earth most people want to do is sit (or float) in silence. They hate it so much, that participants in one study at the University of Virginia even started shocking themselves because they got so bored, or maybe it was something else that made them so uncomfortable to sit alone with their thoughts. Makes you wonder…
Of course, a 2019 study at the Catholic University of Applied Sciences in Germany found the opposite effect. When they asked participants to sit quietly in a room, they enjoyed it a lot. They loved the reprieve from their noisy worlds, and many of them realized they wanted to do it more often.
In some ways, humanity’s disdain for silence fits with the reluctance most people show for other healthy behaviors, like eating raw vegetables or wearing a respirator during a pandemic. It’s ironic how often the average person chooses self-destruction, especially when they’re helped along by an economic system that essentially depends on them being constantly unsatisfied, constantly stimulated, constantly distracted, constantly angry, constantly engaged. Healthy, grounded, content people who engage in critical thinking might be more productive, but they don’t consume nearly as much—and that’s what matters to the elite.
Isn’t it?
Unfortunately, we live in a world where it’s often a privilege to enjoy any true silence. Years ago, we lived downtown. It was a nightmare of light and noise pollution. One time, my landlord even decided to renovate our building. For months, crews started at 7 am on weekend mornings and often worked until sundown. We also had a noisy, alcoholic neighbor who liked to sing in the stairwell at 2 am. That was probably the most miserable year of my life.
All of this has led me in a different direction from all the mindfulness influencers who use this research as an excuse to steer everyone away from bad news. Instead, I think you should read all the sad, depressing news. Read through the scientific studies and the actual reports about what’s going on in the world. Understand what disasters and diseases threaten us. Reflect on them.
Process them.
It’s not easy to sit in silence or dark ambient beats, thinking about the state of the world and what you can or should be doing. On the other hand, the alternative means living in a state of fragile ignorance, too scared to think about what’s really going on for even a few seconds. That seems worse.
Sometimes I think during silence. Other times, I just turn my brain off and let it float through whatever it wants.
There’s a form of meditation that’s not the fluffy stuff you always read about. It’s called insight meditation. Instead of trying to completely shut out thoughts, you pick one emotion or one thought and concentrate it.
You let yourself feel it.
Especially now, there’s a burning temptation to pour our hearts and minds out onto every app about every single disaster as it unfolds. That’s not quite the same thing as sharing insights and information.
On the one hand, it’s cathartic.
It’s also exhausting.
It’s especially fatiguing to argue with strangers online, regardless of whether it’s some anti-vaxxer troll or a latte liberal who just won’t listen. Social media can help us stay informed, but it can also act like a wil-o-the-wisp, leading us away into an endless chain of distractions and outrages. You know how you feel after a night of doomscrolling and troll wrestling.
Not good.
I don’t think the answer is to give up these technologies. I also don’t think “getting out” and socializing with idiots is going to help much, either. If we’re going to engage with the world, then we also need to know how to disengage from the world. The better we are at that, the better we’ll do.
Listen to Dave Gahan.
Enjoy the silence.
Suffer well.