No matter if you love the holidays or not, it’s truly important to get a moment of solitude for yourself even during this most busy time of the year. Seeking solitude actually improves your health. And when you return from solitude — even if it was just a 10 minute bath — you can appreciate your connections even more.
For more on the healing power of connecting with others over the holidays, read this free article I wrote for you here:
As much as the holidays can be a time of wonderment, connection and healing, they can also be a time off deep grief and sorrow. If that is more the case for you this year, you may find support by reading this free article I wrote for you here:
Meanwhile, find time to get a moment of peace and quiet in a world that is blasting holiday music everywhere you go. The volumes of music, conversation, traffic and more, pervasively found everywhere have been shown to significantly increase your risk of heart attack, heart disease, heart failure, stroke, even atrial fibrillation.
And it doesn’t stop there. Not only is chronic noise increasing your blood pressure, increasing inflammation in your vasculature, and causing stress on the body, but it’s also increasing your risk of metabolic diseases and type two diabetes.
And sadly, it’s not just loud sounds (like an airplane taking off, the sound of construction, or fireworks exploding) that affect your health, it’s the small chronic ones that do too. The level of normal talking, phones ringing, and the routine sounds of cars on the street all impact your heart attack and stroke risk, and they all up your risk for metabolic disease as well.
Noise pollution is not exclusively about our exposures to loud sounds any more. We are now aware that normal volumes of daily noise results in much more insidious health risks over time. The new term is Noise Annoyance — which is all that is needed to produce these increased rates of chronic, life threatening health issues.
Every 10 dBA increase in noise increases your heart attack risk by 6%, arterial calcification by 8%, and stroke risk by 14%… starting at only 50 dBA. So normal conversation (roughly 60 dBA) can, over time, contribute negatively to health issues. The normal sound of cars driving in normal traffic, listening to a telephone ring, eating at a busy restaurant, walking through the mall, or any other environment with constant conversation and music playing actually adds to your cardiovascular risk.
Think about your day:
- Do you hear traffic constantly (especially consider if you hear traffic where you sleep at night?)
- Do you work in an area where there is chronic talking (such as a hospital, a hotel, a store or a restaurant?)
- Do you work in an area where there are phones constantly ringing (such as at an office?)
- Do you work in an area that has music playing constantly?
- Do you sleep with music or a television on?
The health effects from chronic background noise affect all of us, whether we find the noise irritating or not. Although we experience more stress when we hear irritating noises we dislike, even background noises that you have grown accustomed to can still cause negative health effects.
To help decrease the level of your chronic background noises, I created a free printable PDF for you:
In addition, today I’m sharing lots of ideas to help you balance your noise exposures by developing a solitude practice of your own.
A solitude practice is something to take seriously and be deliberate about, especially if you have noise sensitivity (hyperacusis.) Many conditions cause people to be sensitive to noise, folks with chronic ringing in the ear (tinnitus,) shift workers, and folks with neurodevelopment disorders, including autism. For example, this study reported about 80% of patients suffering from ringing in the ears report hyperacusis. You almost assuredly know someone who noise sensitive.
In fact, a study published in the International Journal of Audiology in Dec 2002 reports that about 9% of the population — or about 630 million people worldwide — have issues with noise sensitivity. If you have hyperacusis, on top of the long term health impact of chronic background noise, it also affects your immediate ability to think, process, focus and react to the world around you.
And those with neurodivergent issues — including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) — can have a harder time localizing the source of a sound, which creates added difficulty in understanding speech, which then gets exponentially worse in noisy environments.
Children and adults who have ASD find their sympathetic nervous system gets hyper-stimulated by noise. This medical study found approximately 70% of patients with ASD had noise hypersensitivity. And this medical study used MRI imaging of ASD patients to directly reveal that the brain has has difficulty distinguishing social input from non-social auditory input. Tinnitus can also dramatically increase the risk of noise sensitivity.
So now that we are taking noise pollution more seriously, what can you do about it?
Develop a solitude practice and return to it often to restore balance and decrease the cumulative effects of noise pollution. Here are 8 different solitude practices you can do routinely that will help safeguard your health:
8 Solitude Practices To Protect Your Health:
Solitude Practice #1: Listen to birds in nature
A study published in Ecological Economics in Nov 2020 suggests that bird diversity is as important to life satisfaction as an income is. Researchers found that not only is happiness correlated with local bird diversity, but a 10% boost in bird diversity actually increases happiness to at the same magnitude as a 10% boost in income does!
We’ve known for a while that animals improve our mood, health, and even boost longevity (I’ve written about how owning a pet improves your health in a free healing article you might enjoy right here: ) and plants do much the same… decreasing depression rates, anxiety rates, and dramatically reducing stress.
But even knowing all of that, I still think if you ask most people if they would rather see a couple extra birds today or earn a slightly higher paycheck, most would assume that money would provide more satisfaction.
This study suggests we might actually be just as happy — perhaps even happier — if we increase our exposure to birds. Analyzing data from over 26,000 adults across 26 different countries, researchers evaluated biological diversity, socio-economic data and life satisfaction surveys to examine what makes the biggest impact on our long term happiness. It turns out, more than plants, more than large fauna, more than insect or tree diversity, bird diversity has the biggest impact on happiness… comparable in magnitude to that of income.
Stop and listen for birds. We can often hear birds even when we can’t see them. Living in an urban area? There are still birds. Listen for them in early morning — sunrise is the best time to hear birds — or listen in the late afternoon hours.
Want to increase the amount of birds you see and hear?
Hang a bird feeder in a window, put some potted plants, a birdbath or a birdhouse on a porch, balcony or doorstep — even without a yard, you absolutely can attract more birds to you, even in urban settings. For inspiration, check out this blog post on Bryony Angells’s blog — it’s so adorable — her hummingbird feeders and more hung up on a 10th story balcony that get’s plenty of attention from local birds!
So today, go outside and take three deep breaths while becoming aware of your outdoor surround sounds.
Simply close your eyes, and draw your awareness outside of your body. Breathe in and listen for the sounds that you can hear. Birds, wind, children laughing, distant music playing, dogs barking, or simply the full presence of stillness in the air. Even complete quiet has a felt sense, a sound quality if you listen to it. As you exhale, expand your awareness into the environment and become one with the sounds. Repeat several more times until you truly feel connected to the outdoor sounds in your location.
If you want to plan a solitude practice around where you’ll see the most birds, or even one particular bird you’d like to see, you may enjoy birding apps like Birdseye, that give you up to date information on where to find birds, and will tell you what birds are actually around you, no matter where you are! Grab some binoculars, consider getting up a little earlier than you normally would (sunrise is often the best time to listen to birds!) and have fun.
Solitude Practice #2: Schedule A Weekend In Nature
Crave to hear more of nature’s natural sounds? Consider a weekend away.
There is great evidence to suggest that even one weekend in nature can boost your long term health. A study published in Biomedical and Environmental Sciences in 2012 showed that even a brief intervention of one single weekend spent in nature had significant health benefits — reducing stress, reducing inflammation, and even boosting the body’s immune response, compared to staying in an urban environment for the weekend.
After only a two day immersion in nature, study participants had measurably boosted immunity markers in the blood, lowered blood inflammatory markers, lower cortisol levels, boosted natural killer cells, and improvement of several other markers of immunity and inflammation.
But here is the best part: not only was this health boost significant immediately, but it persisted for an entire month after just that one single weekend in nature! So one weekend in nature sustained an improvement in health for weeks, well after the subjects returned to their urban living. The researchers even suggest that routine visits in nature may provide long term anti-cancer benefits, because the subjects who spent a weekend in nature had boosted T Cell and Natural Killer cell function (which produce anti-cancer proteins) that persisted for weeks.
They encourage time spent in nature as a healthy part of a cancer prevention plan, and I agree… if you can’t get outside in nature daily, these studies suggest that planning one weekend a month can still make a huge difference in not only your current health, but protecting your future health as well.
If you can strive to take on weekend a month to enjoy solitude in nature in order to support your long term health, you can reap the benefits of weeks of boosted health, even if you can’t live there. And you might just find that giving yourself a little bit of time to enjoy the singing of birds on these weekend breaks gives you more life satisfaction than your paycheck does.
Solitude Practice #3: A Silent Retreat in the comfort of your own home.
Sitting in stillness in your living space and taking three deep breaths while becoming aware of the background sounds of your home is still beneficial, even without the nature sounds from outdoors.
Simply close your eyes, and draw your awareness outside of your body, expanding to fill the room you are in. Breathe in and listen for the sounds that you can hear. Pets napping, the refrigerator humming, plumbing, air conditioning, neighbors murmuring, even complete silence has a felt sound if you listen to it. As you exhale, expand to fill the room and become one with the sounds. Repeat several more times until you truly feel connected to the energy of your indoor living space.
Practice this daily, it will help you get out of your own head and drop your awareness into the present moment, which you will find is incredibly centering and stress relieving once you get into a habit of doing it
Solitude Practice #4: Use A Mantra
Bored, or find your mind wandering? Consider adding mantra to your solitude practice.
Published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on June 20, 2018, researchers found that simply repeating a word or phrase (mantra) had benefits every bit as robust as traditional talk therapy treatments. Even better, the improvements from mantra therapy were sustained for months after the treatment ended, with more patients being PTSD free after mantra therapy than traditional talk therapy (60% of mantra patients were PTSD free at 2 months after intervention, compared to 40% of the talk therapy group.)
Mantra is simple, it’s convenient — and it’s free (as a huge advocate for grounding therapy, you know I am a big fan of free therapies that allow patients to take control over their own health.)
Slowing down your thoughts and practicing sustaining a point of attention on just a single repeated word or phrase was shown to help patients cope with daily anxiety, fear, anger, depression and insomnia.
You can practice a healing mantra any time, any where. It’s very private and very powerful. All it takes is literally a few deep breaths, repeating a meaningful word or phrase with each in breath and out breath. Mantra can be any self selected word or phrase, here are some examples:
breathing in: I am lovable
breathing out: I am loved
or
breathing in: I am protected
breathing out: I am healing
or
breathing in: I am safe
breathing out: I am at home in my body
I have painted lots of healing paintings that I have included mantras on… like the All Is Well painting I created (at the top of this section) and like this I Am At Home In My Body artwork above.
These can be incredibly helpful as a visual reminder will remind you take a moment to stop, take a deep breath, and repeat a mantra. Very helpful when hung by a door, a mirror, or in your closet. I have my artwork Breathe Deeply hung in my own bathroom where I brush my teeth so that I remember do repeat this mantra every morning and evening:
You can look through all my original hand painted healing artwork right here:
Dr. Koniver’s Original Paintings
Solitude Practice #5: Try Candle Gazing
Prefer a visual focus? Try adding a candle to your solitude practice.
Candle gazing (also known as Tratakam) is a wonderful, relaxing experience that can be as quick or as long as you need it to be. I find it a wonderful, centering and deeply healing alternative to meditation.
All you do is:
- Sit comfortably in a dimly lit room with your spine straight.
- Place a lighted candle centered in front of you and simply focus your gaze on the candle flame.
- Allow your mind and your breathing to calm and relax. Blink naturally and easily. Allow your body to still. Your breath will automatically become lighter.
- During candle gazing, you may feel like you are floating or the flame seems to move three dimensionally. Just keep your gaze on the light of the candle and relax, release and allow the journey.
- Enjoy solitude in this way from 5 – 30 minutes.
Solitude Practice #6: Add Breath Work
Because we can actively control our body’s air exchange through intentional breathing, there are lots of awesome ways you can play around with using your breath to calm you, invigorate you, increase your stamina, and more.
I have done tons of research for you — from personally attending Transcendental Breathing in person events to workshops on yoga breathing techniques to more traditional medical training in respiratory rate and oxygenation patterns and lung physiology and respiratory interventions like incentive spirometry and lung percussion, etc… and my favorite simple, fun, effective breathing exercise is the 4-7-8 breath.
If you’d like to watch a video of this breath work, Dr. Andrew Weil has a great video demonstrating the 4-7-8 technique on his website here… all you need to do is:
- Inhale through your nose to a count of four.
- Hold your breath to a count of seven.
- Exhale through your mouth, making an audible sound, to a count of eight.
- Go at whatever pace you are comfortable with… you can count quickly or slowly, the most important thing is to keep a 4-7-8 ratio, exhaling for twice as long as inhaling.
Solitude Practice #7: Listen to Self Selected Music
Now that we have cleared a space for silence, we can actively extend our period of solitude by inviting pleasant sounds back in, in the form of music.
This is how powerful music is: if you play music that holds special meaning to a patient experiencing memory loss, they can recover context and depth and recognition in the form of long term memory recall while the music is being played. Playing music that is personally relevant to a patient has been shown to:
- increase communication skills
- increase long term recall
- increase activity level and energy level
- increase social function and engagement
- decrease high blood pressure
- improve mood
- reduce pain levels
- enhance sleep
It’s so effective that I would go so far as to say it’s a good idea to incorporate a list of your favorite music into your advanced directive, because the music that people respond to the most, and the music that tends to increase quality of life, is music that you have personal associations and memories to. Use music at any age to help self soothe… for example:
- before athletic competitions
- before school exams
- before and even during surgical procedures, medical or dental interventions
- to ease stress during “stay at home” pandemics
- or even to energize you to do a task you are dreading, such as before public speaking or while making a meal after a long hard day.
- create a playlist that uplifts you when you feel down
- create a playlist that soothes and relaxes you when you feel anxious
- create a playlist that you can exercise to
- create a playlist that you can bathe and/or do self massage to
- create a playlist to play while cooking in the kitchen
- create a playlist to dance to
- create a morning “rise and shine” playlist
- create an evening “wind down” playlist
Music is an invaluable tool for self-soothing and decreasing anxiety and depression. I highly suggest watching the Alive Inside Documentary to see the immediate impact that music has on health — the trailer alone will inspire you in a big way!
Solitude Practice #8: Active Listening
When you are ready for speaking to others, carry some of this appreciation for solitude into your conversation and focus more on active listening than speaking. Active listening is the ultimate way to gift someone with the power of your full, complete, undivided attention.
Dropping the need to prepare, recite, think of, or formulate your response when people are talking frees you up to access the power of the present moment — accepting that what shows up in a spontaneous way when it is your turn to speak is ideal. If you are thinking of what you want to say while the other person is talking, then you are absolutely not active listening.
The compliment to this is that when you fully focus on what the other person is saying (instead of thinking about what your response should be) you are gifting them and you with an intensely accessible and palpable connection — they feel the attention of you listening to them as they speak, so immediately they feel more validated and heard. Generally, this means they are more open, more honest, and more able to listen to you and validate your expression when you choose to speak.
But regardless of how they respond to your pure, intentional listening… do it for you. Do it as a practice. Do it as a way of life. Over time your love relationships will benefit, your children will benefit, your friendships will benefit, your co-workers will benefit.
Active listening with full attention will become your default mode once you start to sense the shift in energy. The connections become deeper, the response of the person speaking becomes more authentic, and ironically your own power in the conversation actually increases.
Do your best to enter into a discussion with the pure positive intention to actively listen for the entirety of their speaking. You absolutely can and should reply to them — it doesn’t limit your talking or expression at all to actively listen. On the contrary, it frees you up to access your own deep seated inner knowings as you respond directly from your current inner truth and not from premeditated thought.
Enjoy becoming more aware of the background noise in your life and cultivating a solitude practice to give much needed balance to your auditory input, as well as helping to center your awareness and even deepen your relationships with others.
Xoxox,
Laura Koniver MD
PS: If you enjoy journalling, it may be incredibly eye opening to journal about the communication patterns you were exposed to as a child… it will help you to understand your level of noise tolerance as well as understand any difficulties you may have in using your own voice as an adult.
I’ve adapted these journal questions from: The Sevenfold Journey by Anodea Judith and Selene Vega.
Get out some paper or a journal and free flow your thoughts and words out onto paper, and don’t sensor yourself in any way. Here we go:
1. What were the patterns of communication in your family growing up?
2. Were you encouraged to speak your truth or discouraged from speaking up? How was this encouragement or discouragement done?
3. How often did you feel sincerely listened to growing up? Who was the best listener, who made you feel most heard?
4. Who was the worst listener? Who made you feel the most invalidated or shamed?
5. Do you have any difficulty feeling heard now? What do you look for or need from a listener in order to feel validated and heard?
6. What are your hesitations or fears in speaking out? Where do you feel these sensations in your body?
7. When you feel shy, what part of your body do you shut down? What is your posture? What does your energy do?
8. Is there anyone you have unfinished communication with? Make a list of all the people you have unfinished communication with. What do you want to say (or wish you had said?) to them?
If possible, communicate directly with anyone you listed as a response for question number 8 as a way to facilitate a healing release.
If not possible, if the person is deceased or if the sharing of your inner truth with that individual feels too daunting or unsafe, let’s write a letter to get this energy expressed and released.
You can write anything you like — do not censor yourself this time, as you may have felt the need to do in the past. This letter is for you. Often you have to learn to give yourself closure, especially from relationships where you have been violated in some way and are not likely to get respectful closure from sharing and reaching out.
Write about your feelings, about your truth, what you’ve learned from the situation, what you would have liked or requested from them in return for this sharing, and release it.
Burn it over a flame and drop into a bowl of water or simply shred it and throw it away. Release, release, release.
Do this as often as necessary and with as many people as necessary until you feel a palpable unburdening of any inner suppressed truths that you have carried silently.
