{"id":9389,"date":"2014-10-20T17:11:19","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T21:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=9389"},"modified":"2014-10-20T17:11:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T21:11:19","slug":"the-healing-comfort-of-quiet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html","title":{"rendered":"the healing comfort of quiet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"via<\/a>
via flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When it’s noisy, I can’t think. My mother used to say — I can’t hear myself think!! <\/em>Now, these many years later, I get it. When the dogs are barking (frequent!), and the phone is ringing, and someone (or 2 someones) is talking? I’m hopeless.<\/p>\n

That’s when I want to be sitting on the deck. Just sitting. Not even meditating, but that too. I want to be outside, in the green aerie that’s our deck, surrounded by trees and birds and sky. And noisy as the birds are, it still feels<\/em> like quiet.<\/p>\n

Noise is everywhere, even when you’re not paying attention: “dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, and hair dryers can all reach or exceed 90 dBA<\/a><\/em>.” At 120 dBA, you experience pain… Me? I take ear plugs to the movies. They’re too loud!<\/p>\n

So, obviously I’m anti-noise.\u00a0 When we bought our new dishwasher, we sported for one w\/ a low noise rating, even though it was more. And if I could afford a less noisy hair dryer? Believe me, I’d buy one!<\/p>\n

\"artist<\/a>
artist Leonard Peng, Nautilus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Until then, there’s the back deck. \ud83d\ude42 Where the (loud) birds may be noisy to some, but whose bright banter comforts me.<\/p>\n

Almost as much as sitting, still, in the spaces between crows calling to each other, and mockers trying to impress each other. I don’t need recent research to confirm the benefits, although it’s interesting.<\/p>\n

Finland, for instance, is counting on people paying for silence. Using the image of the country’s\u00a0 ‘quiet’ as a tourist draw, hoping that the promise of a place where quiet is the norm will lure paying customers.<\/p>\n

What I know about silence began w\/ my attempts at meditation, just sitting in silence. Of course, the mind (at least mine!) is never <\/em>quiet. But finding a space in my day for silence became a source of comfort.<\/p>\n

\"via<\/a>
via wiki commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Research, again, bears me out. Silence has a longer impact <\/a>on the brain that does noise. Noise is forgotten, but silence? Over time, it builds new cells, neurons that are useful. And that, my friends, is amazing. Not to mention the slowing heartbeat, the softer breathing, the settling of tension out of the body.<\/p>\n

So I’m voting for silence, w\/ my ears. I’m trying to drive w\/out music (at least some<\/em> of the time). And sit on the deck w\/out electronics in hand. Because, again, I know it comforts me. Like a cool drink of water in the hot Oklahoma summer. Or a soft warm quilt on a chilly night. The appropriate counter to what ails me. Maybe you, too ~<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it’s noisy, I can’t think. My mother used to say — I can’t hear myself think!! Now, these many years later, I get it. When the dogs are barking (frequent!), and the phone is ringing, and someone (or 2 someones) is talking? I’m hopeless. That’s when I want to be sitting on the deck.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,901,902,903],"class_list":["post-9389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-silence","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-quiet","tag-silence-2","tag-sitting"],"yoast_head":"\nthe healing comfort of quiet - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When it's noisy, I can't think. My mother used to say -- I can't hear myself think!! Now, these many years later, I get it. When the dogs are barking\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"the healing comfort of quiet - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When it's noisy, I can't think. My mother used to say -- I can't hear myself think!! Now, these many years later, I get it. When the dogs are barking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-20T21:11:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/10\/quiet.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"the healing comfort of quiet - Beginner's Heart","description":"When it's noisy, I can't think. My mother used to say -- I can't hear myself think!! Now, these many years later, I get it. When the dogs are barking","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"the healing comfort of quiet - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"When it's noisy, I can't think. My mother used to say -- I can't hear myself think!! Now, these many years later, I get it. When the dogs are barking","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2014-10-20T21:11:19+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/10\/quiet.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html","name":"the healing comfort of quiet - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/10\/quiet.jpg","datePublished":"2014-10-20T21:11:19+00:00","dateModified":"2014-10-20T21:11:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"When it's noisy, I can't think. My mother used to say -- I can't hear myself think!! Now, these many years later, I get it. When the dogs are barking","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/10\/quiet.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/10\/quiet.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/10\/the-healing-comfort-of-quiet.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"the healing comfort of quiet"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9389"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9395,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9389\/revisions\/9395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}