While calming for some, silence can be terribly distressing for others. A psychologist explains why.
“The mind, like nature, abhors a vacuum.”wrote Victor Hugo. So much so that some people fear silence as a threat. The hubbub of the open space, the hustle and bustle of the city with its horns, its musicians, its altercations between passers-by… Noise reassures them. When they get home, they rush to turn on the television or the radio to escape the silence. And themselves?
Silence is revealing of our emotional state. It allows us to find ourselves face to face with ourselves and our interiority. “That’s why it scares people who are agitated inside, who are anxious and who feel alone because silence brings to light all this inner agitation.”explains Sophie Lavault, clinical psychologist and doctor in neuroscience. And for good reason, when we are in noise, our brain is processing external signals, it is less busy processing signals from the internal environment. Our expert likes to perceive attention as an attentional spotlight that we direct from one place to another: outwards when there are stimuli around us, and inwards when there is silence.
Silence that occurs in a conversation can be uncomfortable because it conveys uncertainty. “Our brain lacks the keys to knowing the intentions of others, which can lead to asking ourselves a lot of questions about what the person is thinking.”informs Sophie Lavault. Since the brain hates uncertainty, it will make interpretations. We will interpret silence differently depending on whether we are anxious, jealous, or if we feel at peace. In fact, silence is disturbing for people who have disturbing emotions. “When the other is talking to me, I know what he thinks, whereas in silence, he may think badly of me. For example, if I am afraid of not being loved, I will interpret the silence of the other as a potential rejection.”illustrates the clinical psychologist.
Yet silence also has many benefits for our mental health. By offering us a space of respite and recovery, silence soothes our nervous system. Because when we are constantly surrounded by noise, our brain is constantly processing information. As a result, we become exhausted. “Silence invites us to reconnect with ourselves, to concentrate better, far from distractors“, argues the specialist. “We can then reconnect to the network of mental wandering which corresponds to the brain’s preferred activation mode when we are doing nothing. It is a state in which we will mix a whole bunch of information from the past and the future, and which allows us to let thoughts emerge in order to be able to create.”