I enjoy SILENCE. grateful for peace, equanimity and increased creativity:

 

A great silent space holds all of nature in its embrace. It also holds you.

ECKHART TOLLE “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” — Aldous Huxley Stress: On one level, if you think about how stimulated we are all the time, it’s healthy to have silence to just calm our nervous system. All the noise in modern life triggers our sympathetic nervous system. That’s the part of us where we experience fight or flight. If you think of most of human history, we were never in this condition of constant stimulation. And often, there’s tremendous noise pollution in our environment. So, silence is the opposite. It can help you relax. If you even spend time hiking, in the woods, in the mountains, that kind of quiet can be very settling. Inner Quiet Is Rejuvenating: Then there’s the silence of just being quiet. Being with yourself. And silence can help us be with ourselves. Sometimes, if you put your attention on silence, you can grow very quiet inside. And that’s a pleasant experience. You can find that when you are in the presence of silence, your mind settles down. Solitude: But it’s important to be OK with being with yourself, and silence can help with that. It’s not always easy, especially to begin with, but I’ve found silence helps keep me from running away from myself. Often you have to deal with the noise in your mind. Creativity: For me, silence can be a source of great creativity. When I let everything go and focus on silence, often, after a certain amount of time, new ideas emerge and bubble up. Health Benefits: Silence lowers blood pressure, boosts your immune system, boosts your brain chemistry, reduces stress (lowers blood cortisol levels and adrenaline levels), allows for good hormone regulation and interaction of all the hormone-related systems in your body, and keeps plaque from forming in arteries. Deliberate Silence/Not Talking: In many Eastern traditions, “mauna,” or observing silence, is an integral practice. Not speaking and turning inward is thought to bring peace, clarity and spiritual purity. Presence: Here’s another quote I like: “In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.” — Mother Teresa. Silence can bring us into the present moment like little else can. It focuses your attention on the here and now. You start to notice that the present moment is a living, dynamic thing. You notice that the silence isn’t an empty void … there’s much more to it. And on a spiritual level, it’s important for us to experience and practice that presence. We learn how to really listen.  Q: What does a lack of silence do to us physically, mentally and emotionally? A: I think a lot of things. There’s distraction and lack of focus. A lack of silence stimulates all the negative effects of stress on your body and mind. It’s emotionally taxing and depleting. Constant noise isn’t healthy for us. Also, for most of human history, we’ve been accustomed to a lot more silence. I think this quote says a lot: “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature — trees, flowers, grass — grows in silence. See the stars, the moon and the sun — how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.” — Mother Teresa