Enjoy the silence

Our increasingly noisy world has been linked to ill health as well as hearing loss. That's not the only reason we need more peace and quiet

- Sam Pyrah

No dogs barking. No lawnmowers. No sirens or car alarms. No planes. No construction work. No delivery lorries. Just pure, blissful silence. My ears could barely believe what they weren't hearing when I opened the door, stepped into the garden and listened. It was autumn last year and I had just moved from southeast England to Abernethy Forest in the Scottish Highlands. Occasionally, the wind shushed through the treetops. Then it was quiet again. I lay in bed that night, letting my ears explore the faint thrum of silence, and for the first time in ages I didn't reach for my earplugs.

In the ensuing months, my ears let go, by degrees, of a tension that I hadn't been aware I was holding.

A 2006 study from the University of Pavia on music unexpectedly revealed how much the body and brain appreciate silence. The researchers were investigating how different types of music affected markers of stress, including blood pressure, heart rate and breathing frequency. A twominute silence was randomly inserted between the tracks as a control measure; but it turned out that listening to this silence elicited the lowest readings of all. "This relaxation effect was even greater than that seen at the end of five minutes of quiet rest [prior to the study beginning]," the authors wrote.

Spending time in silence - through meditation, prayer or going solo in the wilderness - has been integral to spiritual and religious practices for millennia. "The fact that it arose as a central feature, across different continents and eras, speaks to its importance," said Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist and campaigner for the pres ervation of quiet places. But in today's noisy world, silence is often seen as an emptiness to be filled.