Stop right now and listen to what’s around you. What do you hear? Music? An alert from your phone? A news anchor chattering on the TV or radio?

The nonstop noise that surrounds us doesn’t abate. As the Kenny Chesney song “Noise” sadly observes, we had no role in getting it all started and little power to shut it down.

Clearly there’s need for more quiet in our day. Time to think, rest, reflect, and recharge.

We have opportunities to do this, yet we don’t take advantage of them enough. For example, on our commute we can turn off the radio for a few minutes. Sitting down after school or work, we can unplug from technology for a few minutes. At the end of the day, we can go to sleep on time, without one more look at our smartphones. In the moment, we can spend time in silence before the day begins.

Quiet is our weapon to counter noise.

Our brains crave quiet yet it’s elusive, and we resist seeking it. Spiritual writers prescribe that we dedicate daily moments for prayerful reflection, and mindfulness experts share tips on meditation practices. There are even apps dedicated to relaxation and stress reduction. All of this is meant to calm and center our brains, but if you talk to anyone who has tried to follow any of these exercises seriously, they’ll tell you how challenging it is, at least at first.

Dedicating some time for quiet is a hard but worthwhile habit. Our brains are high-performance engines that race at high speeds, so we need to let them cool down or they will start to smoke.

Dimly Lit Dinnertime: Our Brains Barraged and Batteries Drained

Imagine a couple like Matt and Marta on a typical weekday. They both have complicated schedules. There are bills to pay, e-mails to answer, conference calls to take, long commutes to endure. They run from activity to appointment, returning phone calls, scheduling carpools, and making plans. Setting aside time for each other is practically impossible.

Their kids aren’t immune to their own noise. They are always connected to school, sports, side jobs, and social media.

Over the course of a typical weekday, the entire family exerts precious mental energy focusing on so many competing priorities and trying to keep up.

“It’s hard to slow down and focus on being a family,” says Marta. “Matt and I see how things have changed dramatically over the past 10 years and how draining it is for all of us.”

When dinnertime comes around, everyone’s brains are still buzzing, and their commitments aren’t slowing down.

“We made a choice to make dinner a sacred moment where the chaos and connectivity are left at the door,” Matt shares. “No phones, no interruptions, and no calls—just quiet time to be together.”

Every day they battle the temptation to embrace hyperconnectivity and all the noise around them instead of setting aside time for personal and family connections. Yet, they make a concerted effort to hold fast and set rules for simple conversation that puts their priority on each other.

“We each talk about a high point and a low point in our day and what’s happening tomorrow,” Marta says. “It’s made us a better family. We like being together, and it restores us.”

Sadly, many families miss these quiet moments and dive back into the chaos of a constantly connected, busy world.

The Extrovert Ideal and the Allure of Open Spaces

Modern workspaces have opened up all around us. Gone are the days of offices with doors and privacy. The open concept design for homes has followed with great rooms connecting what used to be two or three different rooms into one common area.

So why the push for architectural openness? Blame it on extroverts.

Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, told NPR: “It’s quite a problem in the workplace today, because we have a workplace that is increasingly set up for maximum group interaction. More and more of our offices are set up as open-plan offices where there are no walls and there’s very little privacy . . . The average amount of space per employee actually shrunk from 500 square feet in the 1970s to 200 square feet today.”¹

Our society places a value on being collaborative, creative, and in constant contact with each other. We now work in what amounts to large coffee shops where clamor and creativity sit on a pedestal, and privacy and focus are a footnote.

About two decades ago, the US General Services Administration, which manages and supports the offices of federal agencies, decided to move toward open office spaces to encourage interaction and productivity. Yet, recent studies and surveys of federal employees show that interaction between staff has declined, along with productivity.²

What’s more, a study by Harvard Business School shows that open floor plans decrease in-person interaction by 73%, while e-mailing and messaging increased by 67%. The study concludes that open floor plans decrease employees’ ability to concentrate.³

Why Be Quiet? (I’ve Got Something to Say About That)

We all need attention liberation.

According to Psychology Today, approximately 50–75% of people are said to be extroverts.⁴ It seems that our world is designed by them and for them. An emphatic value is placed on what extroverts do naturally: make small talk, share opinions freely, and shine socially.

Though I’m exaggerating a little, this might ring true if you’re an introvert.

So why is quiet time so important? It’s not meant to hush extroverts but rather to get all of us to rest, think, and recharge. We need it because we’re all overstimulated.

Our attention needs to be freed, not fried.

According to Daniel Goleman, author of Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, quiet time is needed for the same reason we need to recover after physical exercise. However, he warns that not all activities are recuperative.

Such restoration occurs when we switch from effortful attention, where the mind needs to suppress distractions, to letting go and allowing our attention to be captured by whatever presents itself. But only certain kinds of bottom-up focus act to restore energy for focused attention. Surfing the Web, playing video games, or answering emails does not.⁵

Our brains require rest as much as our bodies.

Risky Isolation

Isolation can be healthy if it equates to a momentary separation from activity in order to reduce stimulation and regain energy. This is something introverts pursue naturally and extroverts may need to attempt more intentionally and forcefully. Even unplugging for 10 minutes can make you feel like you’re being antisocial, yet the benefits are immediate and real.

The serious issue, however, is when isolation becomes permanent separation. As human beings, we need real connection with each other.

A study by the global health service company Cigna found that “nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone (46 percent) or left out (47 percent)” and that “Generation Z (adults ages 18–22) is the loneliest generation and claims to be in worse health than older generations.”⁶

Extroverts can risk isolation when they use their down time to stay online, playing games that don’t require other people. Introverts can further avoid human interaction and turn to quiet time as a way of cutting themselves off from the friendships and contacts so vital to them.

In either case, quiet time needs to be a realistic chance for us to recharge and regain our mental energy to focus on important matters that require our precious, depleted attention, not just to disconnect from others or avoid them altogether.

Rewarding Isolation

Quiet time’s reward is that we give ourselves time to think and reflect. In their book Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude, Raymond Kethledge and Michael Erwin make a compelling case for how effective leaders can take advantage of momentary isolation, stepping out of the hectic connectivity of their daily circumstances to seek clarity and direction.

In the introduction, they write,

Leadership, as Dwight Eisenhower defined it, “is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” That does not mean that leadership amounts to using people; like anyone else, a leader must recognize that each person is an end in himself. It means, instead, to make others embrace your goals as their own. But to do that you must first determine your goals. And you must do that with enough clarity and conviction to hold fast to your goals—even when, inevitably, there are great pressures to yield from them. To develop that clarity and conviction of purpose and the moral courage to sustain it through adversity requires something that one might not associate with leadership. That something is solitude.⁷

Steps Toward Quiet

Here are some suggestions for increasing quiet time and achieving strategic solitude in our lives:

5. Find Your Own “Cabin”

If you’re a busy person who’s always on, you need to get away for a few minutes during the day. Think of it like magically escaping a busy city and instantly finding a quiet place in the mountains.

Since your home, office, and school are designed to promote disruptions and distractions all around you, how do you escape? You need some imagination and determination to find or create a space that limits noise and preserves quiet. It certainly won’t be easy, but the payoff will be significant.

At work, you might find an empty office or unused conference room or make a “do not disturb” sign and buy a pair of noise- canceling headphones. At home, you might set aside a room or even a chair and table as a sacred space to read, think, and rest. At school, using the library, a study hall, or sitting in an empty classroom might do the trick.

Take a look at the spaces around you that can serve as a refuge from the deluge of your hectic days. Find them and use them.

Contemplatives in the Middle of the World

There are dozens of small ways that we can insert quiet into our modern lives. It’s not just taking a nap, going for a brisk walk, or finding a safe, silent haven at work.

Centuries ago, people who felt a strong religious calling would leave society entirely and form monastic communities. One of the more well-known saints to lead this movement in Christian tradition was Benedict of Nursia, who formed a monastery in Italy, in 529 ad, where men would leave the world and become contemplatives, dedicating their lives to prayer and work (“ora et labora”). There was very little said that wasn’t directed to God. They spent eight hours a day in prayer, eight hours working, and eight hours sleeping.

In the modern tradition, my parents belonged to a religious organization whose founder proposed an intriguing version of the ancient monastic tradition that was uniquely designed for modern, busy lay people. Their vocation was to become “contemplatives in the middle of the world.” He encouraged ordinary people to live daily practices like an hour of silent prayer, reciting the rosary, and meditating quietly on scripture. Many of these practices, it turns out, are ways to let your mind unwind and recharge.

Before getting married, my dad was briefly connected to the Alexian Brothers, a Catholic religious order. Although that vocation was not meant for him, he felt the strong appeal of the life of quiet, contemplative prayer.

He and my mom would have all of the kids join them in praying the rosary in the car driving from place to place. Looking back, it was something they wanted to do, and if we were with them, well, we were on board, too. It was generally boring, but it was something we did as a family.

If you’re unfamiliar, the rosary is a repetitive prayer that cycles short devotions over and over again out loud (“Hail Mary, full of grace . . . .” “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son . . . .”).

Now, more than ever, those practices have both a deep spiritual and mental value. They let the brain unwind and wander. They don’t force the mind somewhere but gracefully permit it to drift toward contemplation and rest. Ironically, it let my young mind unwind and drift to sleep many times in those car rides. I needed it then, and my kids need it even more now!