The kind of quiet that makes your ears feel like they’re buzzing but you can’t find it. You can hear the fridge humming, a car passing by far away, and someone walking above you in the building. But somehow, all of that comes together to make a heavy stillness that makes your shoulders rise toward your ears.
You scroll through your phone to get away from it. After that, close the apps. After three seconds, open them again.
Nothing bad is going on. There is nothing going on.
And that’s why the silence feels like too much.
The noise that we can’t hear in our silence
From the outside, silence looks calm. A dark room with no notifications and no one asking for anything. It sounds like a wellness retreat on paper.
But inside, silence can bring out hidden thoughts like a strong tide. Old embarrassments, conversations that never got finished, and the message you never answered. They all seem to be louder all of a sudden.
The inside volume goes up when the outside volume goes down. That difference is what hurts. **Silence turns into a mirror,** but not everyone is ready to look into it.
When was the last time you were in a waiting room that was quiet? There is no music. No television. A clock that you can’t stop hearing and magazines that no one reads anymore.
People reach for their phones in a matter of minutes. They read their emails again. They scroll through news stories that don’t interest them. Someone might start talking too loudly just to break the silence.
We say we’re “bored.” But if you stop and look closely, you see something else. Boredom hides unease. A strange feeling of restlessness that has more to do with what’s echoing in your chest than with the room.
This is sometimes called “stimulus withdrawal” by psychologists. We get little distractions all day long that our brains are used to. When those inputs go away, the nervous system has to deal with raw, unfiltered emotion all of a sudden.
That could be being alone. Doubt about yourself. Grief that you thought you had gotten over. These feelings don’t come from being quiet. It takes away the padding around them.
This is why a quiet flat after a breakup seems different from the same flat on a lazy Sunday that you chose for yourself. The decibels are the same. The music for the emotions is not.
Learning to stay when the noise gets loud
One small, useful thing you can do is plan out your silence. Not a full retreat in silence. Little pockets. Two or three minutes where you choose not to fill the space on purpose.
Set a timer. Lay down or sit down. Listen for three sounds: one that is far away, one that is close to you, and one that is in the middle. Look at something simple, like a cup, a plant, or a crack in the wall.
The goal is not to “clear your mind.” It’s to shape the silence so that your body can handle it. That way, it stops feeling like a void and starts feeling like a container.
A lot of people try this once, get a lot of thoughts, and then say, “Silence just isn’t for me.” That response makes sense. If you get a lot of alerts and have a lot of conversations during the day, the first dose of stillness can feel like emotional jet lag.
The expectation is what hurts the most. You sit down and think you’ll feel calm. Instead, you think about the bills you haven’t paid and the strange thing your friend said two weeks ago. You come to the conclusion that you’re doing it wrong.
Let’s be honest: no one really does this every day with the discipline of a monk. What matters is going back to it slowly and not judging your brain for being loud when it’s quiet.
Sometimes the silence is full of things.
It has everything we’ve been too busy to feel
Name what comes up quietly: “worry,” “sadness,” “planning tomorrow,” and so on. Putting a name to something makes it feel like it’s a little bit separate from you.
Give your body something to hold on toTouch your own hand, hold a warm mug, and feel your feet on the floor. Touching someone reminds your nervous system that you’re safe right now.
Make a clear lineSay to yourself, “I’m going to stay quiet for two minutes, then I’ll move.” When the mind knows there’s a way out, it relaxes.
Don’t let background noise get in the way; use soft sounds instead.A fan, the sound of rain, or traffic in the distance can make silence less harsh without drowning out your thoughts.
Stop giving your silence a grade.You don’t want to win a trophy for being calm. Staying still for 60 seconds on some days is a quiet revolution.
When silence shows us what we really need
If you stop using silence as a test, it will show you its true face. Not always nice, not always gentle, but always honest. You might notice that a lot of your day is spent trying to avoid certain thoughts. You might notice how quickly you reach for noise when you’re sad.
That thought can make you feel uneasy. It can also be a guide. If you always feel the same way when you’re quiet, that feeling is a sign of a need. You might want to connect with others. You might be tired. You might be living too fast for your heart to keep up.
When you don’t say anything, the story goes away and all you have left is the headline: “I’m lonely.” “I’m afraid I’m behind.” “I don’t know who I am when I’m not busy.”
It’s not easy to meet these sentences in a quiet room. They’re also the ones who quietly make us scroll, binge-watch, work too much, and share too much.
It’s not just the silence that makes you feel overwhelmed; it’s all the feelings you’ve been putting off that come rushing in when the door finally opens.
When you see that wave, the bravest thing you can do is not fight it but say, “Oh, there you are.” “I hear you,” and then talk to someone who can hear you too.
