The Quiet Advantage
We’re surrounded by noise all the time: conversations, screens, notifications. Over time, I’ve come to notice, and appreciate, what happens when I can pull away from all of it.
When I was younger, music was always on. At home, in the car, at the gym, while studying. There was always a soundtrack running in the background. It gave me energy and made things feel connected.
Nowadays, I still listen to a lot of music, but my relationship with it has changed. For certain kinds of work, especially when I need focus or clarity, I’ve found myself reaching less for music and more for silence.
Silence reveals its benefits slowly. At first, it just feels like less stimulation. But the longer I sit with it, the more I notice my thoughts traveling deeper and ideas connecting more naturally. The work feels steadier, like it holds itself together with less effort. In a world where there is almost always background noise competing for attention, a truly quiet space feels immediately different. Focus sharpens. Calm settles in.
I was somewhat surprised how easy it was to find science to back this up. Even short stretches of silence can lower heart rate and blood pressure more than relaxing music. Sustained quiet has been linked to growth in the hippocampus, the part of the brain tied to memory and learning. And background speech or music with lyrics consistently interferes with language-heavy tasks like reading and writing. People working in quiet, private rooms report higher focus and satisfaction, while noisier environments often rank lowest for productivity.
For me, silence has become more than just the absence of sound. It is a reset. A way to set intention before creating. A baseline where ideas have room to unfold without interruption.
Silence was not something I valued when I was younger, but now it is something I rely on and can’t live without.
GDH
References
Bernardi, L., et al. (2006). Cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory changes induced by different types of music in musicians and non-musicians: the importance of silence. Heart, 92(4). https://heart.bmj.com/content/92/4/445
Kirste, I., et al. (2013). Is silence golden? Effects of auditory stimuli and their absence on adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Brain Structure & Function, 220(2). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4087081/
Souza, A. S., et al. (2023). Should We Turn Off the Music? Music with Lyrics Interferes with Cognitive Performance in Verbal Tasks. Frontiers in Psychology. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10162369/
Kim, J., & de Dear, R. (2013). Workspace satisfaction: The privacy–communication trade-off in open-plan offices. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36, 18–26. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2gq017pb