Today we are covering the understated importance of silence on our brains as well as the negative consequences of noise.

the-science-of-silence-wednesday-checkup

The Science of Silence | Wednesday Checkup

hey guys welcome to this week's Wednesday check is this making you uncomfortable let's talk about if your brain experiences a sudden onset of silence it triggers the auditory cortex the part of your brain that translates sound just as much as if you heard a really abrupt loud sound so if you got a little uncomfortable during that last section you're not alone especially in the current era in which we live where notifications Netflix podcasts YouTube traffic noise is all around us a moment of silence can be quite unnerving actually the reason why I wanted to discuss both silence and noise on today's Wednesday checkup is because two weeks ago I was invited to speak on a panel at South by Southwest shout out Austin Texas and discuss how noise can adversely or negatively impact your health on a side note it's pretty crazy is I had to follow Mark Cuban's presentation and I'm a huge Shark Tank fans so meeting him in the greenroom was crazy traditionally when you meet people that are either celebrities or billionaires they travel in packs of five ten makeup artist managers whatever he was by himself he was in a t-shirt when he found out that one of the young girls in a room was a fan he invited her over told her Shark Tank stories super nice guy Mark Cuban you're the man I'm sorry back to silence I think the first thing that needs to be said here is that in this current day and age that we live in despite the fact that we're hyper connected I mean everyone has a phone everyone has social media anyone can message pretty much anyone in the war anywhere in the world and yet we're still all really disconnected and I think silence or the lack of silence plays a role there let me explain what I mean most people will incorrectly define silence as a passive state with a lack of sound I don't think that's what it is I think silence is an act of state where you're interacting with both yourself and your environment when you have some time away from noise away from distractions away from notifications you're truly able to focus on what you've accomplished today what mistakes have you made today where you can do better in talking to a lot of my patients and discussing the topic of silence what I've come to realize is that a lot of the discomfort that stems from silence is usually from the idea that people don't like to be left alone with their thoughts that they have a lot of anxieties that start to seep in their insecurities start showing to their own minds but when they're constantly feeding their minds with dopamine hits and doing things and staying active they're distracting themselves so when you have a moment of silence it suddenly brings all these things to your attention and can be quite distressing I don't think that's reason enough to ignore silence I think that should be even more of a reason that you should seek some silence throughout the day for a moment of self-reflection and when I say self-reflection doesn't mean meditating with your fingers touching and your knees crossed just means having a moment of silence away from the kids away from the families away from the cellphones away from the traffic noise where you can just sit and be a human for a second many people tell me that I do the same thing dr. Mike and I listen to relaxing music actually a study published in the journal heart found that music had an arousal effect on the human body a heart rate breathing pattern blood pressure and then when you turned off the music and went into full silence all those factors dropped meaning that the person relaxed even below baseline before the music was even present we all need that so many of my patients come in with hypertension if I can just prescribe them a moment of silence in order to lower it I think that sounds a lot better than facing the adverse reactions of some medications I don't want you to think that I'm saying silence is better than all other sounds and music and all that it's not what I'm saying as with everything in nature and our bodies there requires a balance relaxing music can trigger a calming period of arousal upbeat music can prepare us for a challenge and get us excited to meet new goals when we have silence it allows us time for reflection and growth balancing all of these things is extremely important our everyday life and when you swing in one direction too far you're gonna have a problem a study done in 2013 on silence received a lot of buzz and publicity because it showed that mice who experience two hours of silence per day actually had a growth of nerve cells within the portion of the brain that's responsible for memory now people got very excited about this because of the prevalence of conditions like dementia Alzheimer's Parkinson's and they started to postulate that perhaps silence at one point can be a treatment for these conditions and maybe that can be the case but this is a preliminary study and the biggest caveat here is that this was done on mice we've cured cancer and other diseases in mice before and that success doesn't always translate to humans we've talked about silence but let's pivot to noise it's been long documented that a prolonged exposure to loud noises is not good for our health talking about hearing loss heart health issues stress levels lack of creativity and productivity and as a holistic physician I truly see the negative impact a loud environment has on my patients for example there's been a study done that looked at folks who lived near loud environments train tracks airports etc and what they found is that they have higher levels of cortisol the stress hormone that gets released when your sympathetic nervous system kicks in that's that fight-or-flight response you get when you see a lion or bear think about that loud noises can stress you out just like a lion or bear another study done by Cornell University found that those who work in noisy office environments were less likely to be productive and more likely to be cognitively impaired this is why I'm not a huge fan of open office environments you need your private space you need that silence as the wise Ari Gold would say silence Lloyd it's golden we talk noise we talk silence now let's talk mail time Oh before we start I want to give a personal and huge thank you to my man Philip DeFranco for giving us not one but two shout outs in his YouTube videos I grew up watching him he's a youtuber that I really admire actually this is really embarrassing I'm gonna show this to you live on camera this was my very first attempt at YouTube I tried to be Philip DeFranco here a new article from Jeff a respected medical journal puts it to question if working out solely on the weekends it's as equally as beneficial as working out throughout the week it is common knowledge that exercise kids o matic can't watch it but Phillip thank you for inspiring me to educate young folks all across the world and to make some content that is meaningful and honestly have some fun because this is a pretty fun process and I'm blessed to be able to do sorry let's open up the package okay why is life hard the shirt smells like vinegar and it says don't stop now live survive thrive and stay happy and healthy what someone's sent a present for bear it's a little Gator I think it's awesome that you aspire to be a therapy dog Oh oh my god no way hi my name is Kelly and I'm a huge fan of your YouTube channel my friends and I saw you have a roxy pillow we decided to get you a bear once a match visiting your Facebook page occasionally I see that you like being a man of style a top hat what's up are you doing how you doing cheers to you good lady oh no legit no legit if these fit right now I'm gonna be grateful cuz this i-i've been wanting gloves like this for a while yo Sherri Williams I can dig these and if you don't think I look good in this hat probably neither do I but I still appreciate the gesture [Music]

Dr.

Related Videos

Consultation & Treatment

Consult With Loading Doctor Data