We put off enjoying silence until the conditions are perfect, but waiting for everything to quiet down just delays developing the skills to detect and savor rest in its many imperfect forms.
Today we begin Find Rest in the Unrest, a ten-exercise series that explores the restful aspects of ordinary experience that we habitually miss while waiting for ideal circumstances to do the work for us. We’ll explore restful auditory, visual, and bodily sensations; the gaps in mental activity; and the elusive peaceful feelings we fail to recognize because we’re waiting for the dramatic versions we’ve come to imagine. Then we’ll combine these options and explore ways to use them in everyday life. None of these attention exercises require perfectly relaxing situations.
We’ll start by listening to silence.
That might sound like an invitation to listen to nothing. But consider how noticeable it can be when an appliance switches off, a conversation pauses, or the last note of a song fades. The absence of sound can become something we recognize.
A 2023 study on auditory illusions suggests we can actually hear silence, rather than mentally inferring that a sound is missing. Researchers inserted brief silences into recordings of busy restaurants, markets, and playgrounds for participants to compare. Their results suggest that we perceive silences in ways similar to how we perceive sounds, rather than merely inferring that a sound is missing.
In the laboratory of my own life, paying closer attention to silence has sharpened my ability to distinguish raw perceptions from their meaning—to untangle “sensing” from “making sense.” I’ve explored that same shift with internal speech, too—practicing hearing thoughts more as sounds and less automatically for what they mean.
I’ve noticed how restful it can feel to hear conversations in a language I don’t understand. On a bus in a big city or another country—or while watching a foreign film with the subtitles turned off—I can practice letting the voices wash over me. It’s like teaching myself that there are other ways to listen than the ones I practice daily by default. And even when I do understand what’s being said, I can give more of my limited attention to the sound of voices, including their rhythm, pitch, volume, and the silent pauses between words and sentences. It’s like listening to the music of ordinary moments without needing to decipher every lyric.
Listening for silence invites this shift. A sound becomes something to explore, including the contrast it offers when it ends. Other sounds might continue. We don’t need the entire world to fall silent to recognize that one particular sound is gone.
Sometimes, giving a few seconds of attention to quiet feels comforting in a tangible bodily sense, and that comfort may make another restful sensation easier to notice. Maybe tension in my face melts a little or I’m pulled to a place in my body that isn’t asking anything of me. In this way, taking in one instance of relief a bit more fully can evoke another one to notice.
We’ll explore this possibility throughout the series. Something uncomfortable may keep pulling at our attention while something restful remains available alongside it. Becoming familiar with both gives us more options.
For today, we’ll keep the experiment simple: listen to a sound, notice when it stops, and stay curious about what follows.
You don’t have to stop your thoughts to hear the absence of a sound. And you don’t have to find the experience soothing to begin getting acquainted with it. As with physical exercise, the benefits of attentional exercise can show up unexpectedly in daily life as you become more familiar with the practice.
I encourage you to try each exercise in this series two or three times, becoming familiar enough to explore it without guidance. As this year fades and the next begins, you’ll have a growing repertoire of ways to discover a little internal ease in ordinary moments.
Exercise
This attention exercise explores how to hear silence by noticing when sounds end and listening to the relative quiet around you.
When to use this attention exercise:
Shopping in a grocery store or waiting in line
Listening to live or recorded music
Noticing pauses in a conversation
