A client of mine just went on vacation to Hawaii. She reported tremendous enjoyment from floating in the ocean. She also noticed feeling disconnected from the world around her. I assured her this was a good thing to happen in the context of a vacation. I wondered if this came from unplugging from the noise, intensity, and constant bombardments of social media and marketing in her mainland life. That got me thinking about going from an over-stimulated to an under-stimulated condition and about the role of noise. For 99.99% of human history, people lived in a very quiet environment devoid of the sounds emanating from cars, container trucks, garbage and recycling trucks, jet airplanes, home appliances, tree cutting, manufacturing, building construction/demolition, and road repairs, as well as sidewalk, grocery stores, malls, and restaurants crowded with talky people. Loud, constant noises of one kind or another are inescapable even when people try to get away via camping trips, hiking, bike riding or vacations.
Loud, constant noise causes more than distraction and irritation. It overstimulates and sometimes overwhelms our nervous systems. It’s even hard to sleep given barking dogs, road noises, airport noises, etc. Have you ever stayed at a hotel or motel near a highway or main road and been kept up most of the night? The constant noise bombardment may well be a factor in why so many of us find ourselves irritable, cranky, grumpy, nervous or depressed. It this is correct, and I believe it is, why not counteract toxic noise with temporary escapes. Meditating in the quietest room of your house or apartment would help. So would walking your dog in a park densely populated by trees, hiking along a river, napping with a fan that creates white noise, biking on a country road, visiting a desert area or visiting a remote and little visited beach. For people who can’t go to quiet spots in Hawaii and who find it hard to leave the house, there is a remarkable array of methods to soundproof parts of your home which include placing Styrofoam blocks under your floors and using wall hangings. Henry David Thoreau had Walden Pond to himself. Such ponds are extremely scarce these days due the ceaseless encroachment of development. Try to find your own way to escape the noise and give yourself and your nervous system a rest.