Our lives today are full of noise – auditory, visual, tactile, cognitive etc. From honking cars, to bright neon billboards, uncomfortably tight clothing to endless worries, there is an overload of stimulus input from all these modalities. This understandably overworks and gradually exhausts our sense organs, our mind, our body and our very nerves. This eventually makes people high strung, jumpy, easily distressed and low on frustration tolerance. Without us even realizing it, all this noise slowly gnaws its way through our inner strength and resilience. Consequentially, the number of people finding themselves on the edge, fearing an emotional or mental breakdown at any moment is steadily increasing.
WHAT CAN WE DO ?
While some or most of this noise seems beyond our control, not all of it is. We might not be able to alter the traffic or the bombardment of advertisements, but we can definitely try to cut down on the noise we create ourselves by being busy all the time. It’s time to give your system a break. Allow it to rest and rejuvenate.
Silence is probably one of the simplest and most effective techniques to do so. Observing silence for a few minutes every day and allowing your mind and body to quiet down is perhaps the easiest way to make your life easy. It will provide space and opportunity for mental and emotional cleansing and has the potential to bring about huge shifts. It will also allow one to sort out the clutter and reconsider thoughts, emotions, beliefs and experiences from a fresh calmer and more grounded perspective.
The wisdom is old, preached by religion and spirituality alike. As more and more people turn to practices like meditation and yoga, hopefully silence will soon be understood and appreciated better. I happened to read an article on ‘Goodlife Zen’ that crisply explains why we need space for silence in a noisy world and how to make that space in your life. Read it here.
Mahima Gupta
Psychologist, Inner Space, 2010-2012
