'This Is Your Brain on Silence'

[Remy]

“Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care that can be inflicted on sick or well.” Every careless clatter or banal bit of banter, Nightingale argued, can be a source of alarm, distress, and loss of sleep for recovering patients."

This is a great article on the importance of silence for brain repair and regeneration.

Full article here:

http://nautil.us/issue/38/noise/this-is-your-brain-on-silence-rp

 

[Who Me?]

I just saw this. I remember years ago a woman I knew from the UK was put on silence and no stimulation so her brain could heal. I lost touch because electronics were banned

Don't think this is a dupe of Remy's link. If so please tell me. But those Fin's are on to something maybe

A 2013 study on mice published in the journal Brain, Structure and Function used differed types of noise and silence and monitored the effect the sound and silence had on the brains of the mice. The silence was intended to be the control in the study but what they found was surprising. The scientists discovered that when the mice were exposed to two hours of silence per day they developed new cells in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a region of the brain associated with memory, emotion and learning.

Con't


http://www.lifehack.org/377243/science-says-silence-much-more-important-our-brains-than-thought

 

[Cort]

This is great stuff!

And this from Florence Nightingale - after whom May 12th was named International Awareness Day

In 1859, the British nurse and social reformer Florence Nightingale wrote, “Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care that can be inflicted on sick or well.” Every careless clatter or banal bit of banter, Nightingale argued, can be a source of alarm, distress, and loss of sleep for recovering patients. She even quoted a lecture that identified “sudden noises” as a cause of death among sick children.

This might be particularly relevant to ME/CFS and FM because in FM and I suppose ME/CFS the brain has trouble ignoring innocuous stimuli like noises. It should stop paying attention to them but it doesn't. That suggests that it always remains overstimulated (and helps to explain the focus problem).

Neurophysiological research suggests that noises first activate the amygdalae, clusters of neurons located in the temporal lobes of the brain, associated with memory formation and emotion. The activation prompts an immediate release of stress hormones like cortisol.

There have been studies that suggest something is going on with the default mode in ME/CFS.

For decades, scientists had known that the brain’s “background” activity consumed the lion’s share of its energy. Difficult tasks like pattern recognition or arithmetic, in fact, only increased the brain’s energy consumption by a few percent. This suggested that by ignoring the background activity, neurologists might be overlooking something crucial. “When you do that,” Raichle explains, “most of the brain’s activities end up on the cutting room floor.”l

This is amazing

Kirste found that two hours of silence per day prompted cell development in the hippocampus, the brain region related to the formation of memory, involving the senses. This was deeply puzzling: The total absence of input was having a more pronounced effect than any sort of input tested.

My question with ME/CFS is how can you have silence - mental silence - when your body always seems to be acting up? ME/CFS is the opposite of silence in my opinion.

 

[bobby]

My question with ME/CFS is how can you have silence - mental silence - when your body always seems to be acting up? ME/CFS is the opposite of silence in my opinion.

I was thinking the same thing, Cort. Absolute silence doesn't really exist for us, if our brain acts up even by the sound of the bed sheets against our skin, or the sound of our own breathing?

The more silent my surroundings, the more I hear my tinnitus. A while ago I noticed that if I keep my earplugs in too long, it has the same effect as spending too much time in a noisy place, as the earplugs magnify the loudness of my tinnitus.

I guess we never win...

 

[Cort]

I was thinking the same thing, Cort. Absolute silence doesn't really exist for us, if our brain acts up even by the sound of the bed sheets against our skin, or the sound of our own breathing?

The more silent my surroundings, the more I hear my tinnitus. A while ago I noticed that if I keep my earplugs in too long, it has the same effect as spending too much time in a noisy place, as the earplugs magnify the loudness of my tinnitus.

I guess we never win...

Darn - tinnitus is something that I have to deal with as well

Plus there's the heart beats I hear some times and just feelings of pain and discomfort and weird body sensations that take away from the mental silence I think we could use to heal...

 

[Cort]

Darn - tinnitus is something that I have to deal with as well

Plus there's the heart beats I hear some times and just feelings of pain and discomfort and weird body sensations that take away from the mental silence I think we could use to heal...

I didn't know I had tinnitis until I spent time in the desert. Even then I thought oh this is what silence is like - there's this ringing sound to it! (lol). That was probably about 10 years ago. It comes and goes but has gotten a lot louder since then.