
Peace and quiet is all about the noise in your head - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/38/noise/this-is-your-brain-on-silence-rp
======
DoreenMichele
_In a remote and quiet place, Vikman says, she discovers thoughts and feelings
that aren’t audible in her busy daily life. “If you want to know yourself you
have to be with yourself, and discuss with yourself, be able to talk with
yourself.”_

I was a homemaker for years. A lot of housework is fairly mindless, allowing
for uninterrupted deep thought because most folks will not bother you while
you are doing laundry. They don't want to be asked to help.

I have spent years cultivating a relatively quiet life by American standards.
Since my ex moved out, I mostly have not had a TV. I gave up my car years ago,
giving up its built in radio along with it. In my household, it is a common
courtesy to announce "I am starting up a video (or game) with voices." so as
to not startle anyone.

People complain a lot about the stress of our 24/7 always on lives in the US.
They often lay the blame on computers, smart phones, email notifications and
social media. I have a smart phone and computers. I don't feel harried and
interrupted and like I can't get a break.

My life was quiet before sleeping in a tent for nearly 6 years, but doing that
deepened the quiet. I am prone to ear infections. I can't wear headphones
because of it. My days were spent in a library. My nights were spent trying to
be quiet enough to go unnoticed and not have the cops called on me. Games were
often played with the sound off.

Peace and quiet is necessary to be able to hear yourself think. I think the
degree to which constant noise interferes with deep contemplation and self
reflection goes largely unrecognized.

A lot of people could probably skip therapy entirely if they could just
arrange to hear themselves think. But I think many people are intentionally
avoiding that because the constant flak of noise obscuring their thoughts and
feelings is critical to their ability to stay in a relationship that doesn't
work or at a job they actually hate.

Hearing their own opinions about their own lives would likely compel many of
them to make hard decisions and big changes and they would rather not know.
That's scary. It's overwhelming. The noise that enables remaining stuck is
like an anaesthetic.

~~~
colmvp
> A lot of people could probably skip therapy entirely if they could just
> arrange to hear themselves think.

I'm sure you aren't completely implying this but as someone who went through
therapy and attended group classes where I encountered dozens of people with
significantly worse forms of anxiety, there are a lot of people whose problem
IS their thoughts.

Negative thoughts are capable of preventing people from doing even basic
things like talking to a friendly stranger, washing dishes, or even getting
out of bed to do a routine. It akin to having poor eye sight and being forced
to wear a broken pair of glasses. Those thoughts completely change the
perspective of the world, sap energy, and foster incredibly awful feelings.
And I think without guidance, it's easy to get into a loop where thoughts can
pull a person into a deeper darkness.

I personally find it much easier to be with my thoughts now that a lot of my
life has changed for the better, but there's no way I think I could've done it
without my therapist. I needed someone to be my champion, to be a voice that
could counter my inner critic, to build my confidence before I had the
capacity to challenge the beliefs that constantly prevented me from doing
things that brought fulfillment.

~~~
throwawyy92892
Could you explain a bit more about your negative thought problems and how
therapy helped? I'm in a similar situation and am looking at options to help
myself. Thanks.

~~~
dqpb
Woebot is a project out of Stanford which teaches you how to recognize and
correct unhealthy thinking. It is also an interesting example of a chatbot
based service. [https://woebot.io/](https://woebot.io/)

~~~
reallymental
I'm quite disturbed by efforts like this. Perhaps because I __cannot __fathom
how a chatbot can help replace human compassion and emotion from just simple
human characteristics like facial expressions.

A major part of the solution will be to get together and try to understand
each other. __Not __to delegate this to a bot that 'll spit out some random
LSTM generated "words".

Our bots can help solve __some __problems in our communication, and can help
us communicate when we __cannot __physically do so. Hawking will testify to
this perhaps.

They should not communicate __instead __of us being able to do so.

~~~
nothrabannosir
To plagiarise myself from another, similar HN thread
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14504306](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14504306)):

That's not self-evidently a bad thing.

For example, here is an article about Ellie, a South-Carolina University
virtual therapist used in the treatment of PTSD. It notes some explicit
advantages which at least complement humans:

 _“One advantage of using Ellie to gather behaviour evidences is that people
seem to open up quite easily to Ellie, given that she is a computer and is not
designed to judge the person”, Morency explains to news.com.au_

...

 _Morency stresses she is not a substitute for a human therapist. Rather, she
is used in tandem with a doctor as a data-gatherer, able to break down walls
which may exist due to a patient’s unwillingness to disclose sensitive
information to a human._

 _As Morency explains, “The behavioural indicators that Ellie identifies will
be summarised to the doctor, who will integrate it as part of the treatment or
therapy. Our vision is that Ellie will be a decision support tool that will
help human doctors and clinicians during treatment and therapy.”_

\- [http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/meet-ellie-
the-...](http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/meet-ellie-the-robot-
therapist-treating-soldiers-with-ptsd/news-
story/0201fa7cf336c609182cffd637deef00)

------
jimmies
American culture of making noise and hyping is tiring and annoying at times.

Sports events are the most prominent example. Going to popular sports matches
in the US: football, ice hockey, basketball, etc. and you'll be bombarded with
ads, noise, hype from the loudspeakers and flashing lights from the huge
screens -- every single second you're there. When you watch the Super Bowl,
you watch more ads than you watch the game. Going to a soccer game which is
the most popular sport outside of the US, the only sound you'll ever hear is
when the fans actually make noise. And perhaps, the announcement when they
substitute players. By the way, it's quite cool to be in a high-stakes soccer
match: There are volunteering leaders emerging from the crowd that orchestrate
the people naturally. Noise in sports events are great, but only when they are
not from the stupid flashing screens.

It's not a surprise to me that the laugh tracks were invented in America.
Their presence in modern American sitcoms is annoying at best. But now, I
think the producers started to realize that.

I think we are happier when we're treated like adults who know how to feel and
behave.

~~~
cyphar
One thing I didn't understand when I visited the US is that people applaud in
American cinemas. I don't understand why that's seen as appropriate.

~~~
mgkimsal
having lived here 40+ years, and seen many movies, I think I've seen/heard
applause or cheering maybe... 2 or 3x? At the end of a fantastic movie, there
may be cheering. Massive stunt that fools everyone - maybe. But
cheering/applause at the cinema in the US is certainly not common.

~~~
jjeaff
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you have mostly lived in all white
areas and or watched movies that appeal primarily to white audiences.

Go watch a Tyler Perry movie or the recent black panther if you want to hear
lots of clapping or cheering during a movie.

~~~
mgkimsal
In the last 15 years yeah. Before that probably somewhat more mixed area, but
possibly so on movie choices. I don't go to many 'summer blockbuster' sort of
movies any more.

------
vitro
Another thing is advertisement pollution. Just notice it when going around in
some bigger cities. Ads everywhere, shouting at you and not letting you to
rest. Even if you don't look at them, they are still there, talking to you.

~~~
procedural_love
This article itself may be paid advertising, perhaps by the Finland marketing
board. They even mention VisitFinland.com in the final paragraph.

"Science says quiet is good for you."

"Finland is a place that is quiet."

"You should go to Finland."

It's not even subtle but I didn't see it mentioned in these comments at all.

~~~
magic_beans
If it was a paid ad, it was successful, because now I want to go to Finland.

------
sandov
I was in Salvador, Brazil this summer and was disgusted by how loud everything
was, people on the streets carrying speakers playing music, street sellers
screaming, cars honking, I prefer the relative quietness of my southern Chile.

~~~
fefb
Salvador is the capital of the Bahia a state of Brazil. The city has almost 3
millions of people, and it is know for its famous Carnaval parties in the
summer. What were you hoping for? A silence place?

~~~
bornonline1
The comment did not imply the expectation for the city to be quiet. But once
arrived, they discovered the city to be loud. It seems like you misunderstood
the point.

------
montrose
"Kirste found that two hours of silence per day prompted cell development in
the hippocampus."

This was in mice, but if silence turns out to grow neurons in humans too, that
will be big news.

~~~
Mononokay
I could be far off base here, but I wonder if this could be tied to why humans
are generally considered more capable of learning in adolescence - the older
someone gets, the more noise they find around them. Lecturers' voices, phones
ringing, music, cars and the like are all things you hear progressively more
after age 3 or so.

~~~
dwringer
There's a (loosely) related thread under today's article about John von
Neumann's assistant[1] about von Neumann's alleged preference for working with
loud music playing (something I've seen corroborated in places like _Turing 's
Cathedral_, where it was also mentioned that he liked working with noise in
general; to what degree any specific music was preferable, I can't discern,
though that book mentioned loud marches). It seems there may be some
individual (or, at least, situational) variability with how noise affects
productivity and thought.

The perceived structure or unstructuredness of the noise in the mind of the
listener seems like it also may be relevant, at least from my own experiences
- similar to how looking at a wall of code can induce anxiety in novice
programmers, but someone familiar with the language and systems employed can
see forms and patterns, interpreting what the code actually does and reducing
the level of cognitive dissonance that results from looking at it. FWIW,
marches can be characterized by a strongly defined and relatively simple
structure with a driving 1-2-3-4 pulse that carries the music along and frames
our perception of it.

Stanislaw Ulam wrote of von Neumann: "If one has to divide mathematicians, as
Poincaré proposed, into two types—those with visual and those with auditory
intuition—Johnny perhaps belonged to the latter. In him, the 'auditory sense,'
however, probably was very abstract. It involved, rather, a complementarity
between the formal appearance of a collection of symbols and the game played
with them on the one hand, and an interpretation of their meanings on the
other. The foregoing distinction is somewhat like that between a mental
picture of the physical chess board and a mental picture of a sequence of
moves on it, written down in algebraic notation." [2]

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16411799](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16411799)

[2]
[http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1958-64-03/S0002-9904-1958-...](http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1958-64-03/S0002-9904-1958-10189-5/S0002-9904-1958-10189-5.pdf)

~~~
Swizec
I'm nowhere near as cool as Von Neumann, but I find that loud noisy music
helps me work. The noisier the better. It helps to drown out background sounds
that catch the attention.

If you hear a door creak or a person speak, that's attention grabbing. Are
they speaking to me? Is someone looking for me? Can I add to the conversation?

But with noise you are isolated. The attention grabbing sounds don't come
through.

------
intrasight
Anyone reading this Nautilus article should also read the counter-point
article from 2016

[http://nautil.us/issue/38/noise/noise-is-a-drug-and-new-
york...](http://nautil.us/issue/38/noise/noise-is-a-drug-and-new-york-is-full-
of-addicts)

Lewis Black, a comedian, couches his praise of noise in a cynical one-liner,
noting dryly, “The reason I live in New York City is because it’s the loudest
city on the planet Earth. It’s so loud I never have to listen to any of the
shit that’s going on in my own head.”

------
baxtr
_> Here’s how Kirste made sense of the results. She knew that “environmental
enrichment,” like the introduction of toys or fellow mice, encouraged the
development of neurons because they challenged the brains of mice. Perhaps the
total absence of sound may have been so artificial, she reasoned—so alarming,
even—that it prompted a higher level of sensitivity or alertness in the mice.
Neurogenesis could be an adaptive response to uncanny quiet._

Just a word of caution: Experiments that work in mice don’t necessarily work
in humans [1]. These findings are very preliminary, although interesting.

[1] [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/11/01/the-
troubl...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/11/01/the-trouble-with-
lab-mice/)

------
curlcntr
Taking this another level, and, where I thought the article was originally
going, there is an internal dialog going on even with external silence. An
aspect of vipassana meditation (and probably others) is when that internal
noise silences.

~~~
mirimir
That's what I was expecting as well. What Landmark folk call the voice in your
head. Which is always interpreting, telling stories, and so on. It's often
hard to hear what other people are saying, because that inner voice is so
loud. But with practice, it eventually shuts up, most of the time.

------
hyperpallium
During silence, the brain consolidates, much as muscles strengthen after
exertion, not during.

This consolidation consists in making information fit together "better", by
seeking patterns and other redundancies - resulting in both compression and
insight. A role also assigned to sleep.

It's more basic than intellectual consolidation, but things like the concept
of a chair. (Not _the_ philosphical concept of a chair, but some particular
person's actual concept).

But it also explains why we have spontaneous insight when disengaged, e.g. in
the shower.

------
tpallarino
Attention has now been made a commodity, so good luck finding peace and quiet
if you don't have the money to buy it

~~~
m_fayer
I feel like this can't be said enough. Various kinds of minimalism, which are
really just different ways of being left in peace, are now pleasures that are
only reachable by the privileged classes. So of course these pleasures find a
lot of enthusiasm here. Not that I'm any less enthusiastic than most here, but
we shouldn't forget that out industry contains some of the worst offenders
when it comes to distraction and interruption.

------
andrewbinstock
I wish hotels would be graded on how quiet they are.

------
juhq
"...and a vibrant cultural capital the size of Nashville, Tennessee..." ahh
yes, as a finn, I know all the us cities/states and their size and instantly
compare finnish cities to us counterparts. Indeed I do sir.

------
vinceguidry
I do a lot of meditation and trance work, and I can say that trance is all
about training yourself to ignore things that demand your attention. Both the
body and the mind will issue such demands.

Stimulation becomes a "resource," one that you want to get rid of as fast as
you gather it. But the easiest way to get rid of it is to not gather it in the
first place.

As you get deeper into trance, other things you're not so skilled at ignoring
start to make themselves known. You need to learn how to ignore those too.
Otherwise you just don't have a whole lot of fun.

The brain can ignore practically anything. Many psychological disorders
involve the brain not being able to ignore things that most people can ignore,
such as OCD or tinnitus. If I'm in a weird state, tinnitus can become really
awful. But most of the time it's not a thing. I submit that 90% of tinnitus
cases could be solved with some guided meditation, and 9% of the other 10%
needs the attention of a TMJ specialist. Maybe 10% of 10%.

------
remir
I went to Target when they (briefly) came to Canada and was surprised and
delighted by the absence of music in the store. I'm sure some people were
weirded out by that, but I found it refreshing and peaceful.

~~~
doseofreality
They were also a forerunner in not using the loudspeaker system to page
various employees.

------
craftyguy
Wait, this is a joke, right?? :
[https://i.imgur.com/LsjFa8O.png](https://i.imgur.com/LsjFa8O.png)

(Ad tossed up immediately upon opening the article)

------
throwaway76025
Protect your ears and don’t get tinnitus. Some people ruin their futures
(aspiring musician or audio engineer).

------
mattbgates
The voices in my head may or may not agree with the voices in your head.

------
tlrobinson
For some reason I intensely I dislike that "Silence, please" slogan. Maybe
it's lost in translation, but to me it comes across as scolding.

I actually want to go to Finland and make a lot of noise right now. Maybe I've
been browsing
[https://reddit.com/r/firstworldanarchists](https://reddit.com/r/firstworldanarchists)
too much lately.

