How To Be Quiet

Apologies if you're a parent looking to shush an unruly child; this isn't the post for you! Instead, I'm looking at quietening your mind in a world full of loud and colourful distractions. Read on to learn how to be quiet.

You already know that I'm an introvert, so being quiet is less of a chore for me and more a way of life. It doesn't take much for me to spend a whole day of my holidays not talking, or only interacting with people briefly (even introverts need coffee!). But physically not talking doesn't really translate into my mind being quieter, and that can be a constant source of irritation and distraction.

Within minutes of getting out of bed on a morning my senses are assaulted by television, social media, music, books, and pretty much any other medium you care to consider. This isn't the healthiest thing for me, as I can flit between Facebook and Twitter at the speed of light, consuming more information than I know what to do with. And then it's on to work, to do more of the same. And then at home on an evening, where I can watch a film and check my phone at the same time (or write a blog post!). It's helpful, sometimes, but it's also quite distracting, and it can mean that I struggle to focus on one thing at once - my mind is flighty, always running on to the next thing even as I try to make it settle down. Something has to give eventually.

Our brains are incredible, meaning-making, fast-paced processing machines, but concentration is something you have to practice to get better at. I've noticed mine shrinking slightly over the years, as my information started to come to me in 140-character bites. That's not a dig at social media, it's just something I've noticed my brain doing. TL;DR (Too Long, Didn't Read) exists for a reason! However, when I considered replying to a work email with that phrase a few weeks ago, I knew it was time to change!

Something that is important to understand when you take up any kind of meditation practice (be it mindfulness, more formal guided meditation, or just diaphragmatic breathing), is that your mind is not designed to be empty. Go back and read that sentence again if it surprises you! So often we think that we're doing mindfulness or meditation "wrong" because we can't achieve some sort of "blank mind" state - this in itself is wrong, and is likely to completely put you off meditation if you believe it. And rightly so!

As we've previously said, your brain is incredible and skilled at processing. Even if you don't want to be having thoughts at that particular moment, your brain doesn't care - it will still generate them. That has amazing up-sides (multitasking, yay!) and also incredible down-sides (anxiety can cause even benign thoughts to spiral). Meditation should be less about having a completely empty mind, and more about teaching your mind to focus on one thing at once. Here are some tips for quietening your mind a little bit:

• Do one thing at once. I know you think you can surf Twitter and watch TV, but you end up doing both of them poorly. As frustrating as it's likely to feel, commit to doing one thing at once. If you can, pause the TV once you start looking at your phone, or put your phone in a different room. It's harder to quieten your mind if it's tuning in to several things at once throughout the day.
• Do something mindfully. That doesn't mean trying to take twenty minutes to eat a raisin (either you've been on mindfulness training and know exactly what I'm talking about, or you don't - and if you don't, be grateful!). It means really tuning in to the cup of tea you're drinking, the meal you're eating, or the book you're reading. If you're outside, you might take a breath and then look around again, just to reconnect with your surroundings and the world. Focus doesn't have to be forced, you can add it in to bits of your day.
• Ease into it. If you decide to start meditating (or any change, really) by spending 90 minutes on it, you're going to get bored and frustrated pretty quickly. Start by committing to quieten your mind for a minute a day - that's it, just a minute - and build it up slowly over time.
• Unplug. I don't really believe that "too much screen time is bad for us," but I do believe that constantly switching between refreshing three social media feeds for hours on end can't be great for our brains. Take a bit of time towards the end of the day to unplug and unwind, without expectation.
• Remember that it's okay to do nothing. This is the trickiest one, I think. We spend so much time trying to fill our time, that nothingness can be frightening. But you're allowed to just "be," rather than rushing to do more. I might do a longer blog post on this one day but for now, just remember that it's okay not to fill every single minute of your day with stuff.

As we're confronted with so many different things, which can focus our attention on amazing or terrible things, a little bit of quiet can't be a bad thing. Tell me how you get yours in the comments.