There is, in all of our lives, a common need that often gets overlooked and neglected… a need for silence.

These days there is ALWAYS another source of stimulus, more noise, more stress, more video to watch, news to read, emails, phone calls, etc.  There is input from work, from family, from friends, from the media, from nearly everyone around you.

The human mind, and the body for that matter, is NOT meant to put up with this sort of constant bombardment.  Continuous input from all of these various sources will amp up your stress level, cause your sleep to suffer in both amount and quality, and eventually cause problems with nearly every aspect of your life.

The cure is simple, but sometimes hard to implement.  Every day, you need to take some time without stimulus… without conversation, music, TV, or even books.  Give your mind some time to process all of the junk… it usually works best in the evening, thought it may not feel like it.

When you first start this practice, it will likely feel like you are failing, because your mind is running all over the place (especially when you do it after a full day).  That’s okay, though… the idea isn’t to reach a state of zen meditation (though if you continue the practice every day, you may reach that point eventually), it’s simply to let go, and let all of the chaos from your life wind down a bit.  That lets your brain start to organize, categorize, and otherwise process things.

You can think of it like juggling… all of these sources of input are balls to keep in the air.  It makes it a heck of a lot easier if you put some of them away as you go… it’s a lot easier to juggle ten balls total if you keep putting some away from time to time, and only keep a few going at any given time.

Most of your sources of input aren’t going to make room for you to take the time for silence, so you are going to have to make the time.  Everyone around you will benefit, however, so it’s for their good as well as your own.

Just remember the line from the AMC movie theater chain: