Finding calm and quiet in an ever increasingly noisy world

Here is a pub quiz question: - where is the loudest city in the world? – according to the United Nations, the answer is Dhaka in Bangladesh. Apparently, the noise in the city is a major public health concern. Many people living there experience hearing and sleep problems, and have a higher risk of hypertension and mental health problems, due to the constant noise. The top ten noisiest cities in the world in descending order are Dhaka, Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh City, Moradabad, Cairo, Delhi, New York, Beijing, Buenos Aires and Los Angeles. I have been to five of these cities and can testify to the negative impact the noise can have on one’s mental health and wellbeing.

New York was in the news last week for other reasons. Incredibly it has been 23 years since two hijacked planes were deliberately flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. 2,606 people died on the day itself or later from their injuries. A further 125 people were killed as a third plane was crashed into the Pentagon. There were four planes involved in these attacks and all 246 passengers and crew on the planes were killed too. 19 of the hijackers who committed murder-suicide also died. The September 11th attacks were the deadliest terrorist attacks in human history.

I have been to New York many times. Here is a picture from one of my earlier visits. It was taken 38 years ago. I have changed since then and of course, since the attack, the world has changed too. Talking to colleagues last Wednesday, without exception, we could all recall precisely where we were when the attacks happened.

More recently J and I visited New York and one of the most poignant moments of our trip was spending time at the National September 11th Memorial and Museum. The memorial’s design is called ‘Reflecting Absence’ and was designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker. For those readers who have not been there, the memorial is made up of two recessed pools (the footprints of the twin towers), set in a field of trees. It was opened six days after my birthday in 2014.

It is a most humbling place visit. All the names of the victims are inscribed on the walls around each pool. A white rose is placed on top of each victim’s name on their birthdays. Amid a still bustling and noisy New York, the quietness and stillness of the memorial is almost unbelievable. I have visited many famous places, but visiting the 9/11 memorial remains one of the most moving and profound experiences of my life. 

Manchester doesn’t feature on the top 10 list of noisy cities. However, it is still a busy, bustling, and noisy place to live and/or work in. I was in the city centre last week to participate in an induction and training day for some of our Council of Governors. The day was spent in the Manchester Friends Meeting House, and it was very successful and highly enjoyable day too. There has been a Quaker community in Manchester since 1795. The Friends Meeting House is a Grade II listed building, built in 1828. One of the most remarkable things about the place is that, as soon as you walk through the building’s front doors you enter a world of quiet, stillness and calm.

I try and avoid religion and politics in these blogs, but the Quakers are an interesting group of people. They are just ordinary folk like you and me. Indeed, when I worked in Wales as a Charge Nurse in a community hospital, our visiting GP was a practising Quaker, and a wonderful man too. As a community, Quakers have simple, but clear values. These include promoting peace, equality, simplicity, and truth. They try and live their lives according to these values. Throughout history, Quakers have been involved in many humanitarian issues, including the abolition of slavery.

These days Quakers continue to work for peace, protecting the climate and social justice. The Manchester Friends Meeting House is an oasis of calm and stillness in a very bustling city. It epitomises the Quaker endeavour to create spaces for people of all faiths, backgrounds and social position to come and just be in a place of quiet, stillness, and contemplation. In a sometimes very noisy, busy, and impersonal world, this is a much-needed space. Of course, you don’t have to go to a building like the Friends Meeting House to find such a space. I practice mindfulness. Whilst I will sometimes go and sit on a favourite bench or walk to a particular favourite spot, I can also sit in my car or my office, lay in my bed and in all these spaces connect with my own thoughts and feelings, and to the place I find myself in at the time.

In a world that often sees us rushing about, place to place, meeting to meeting, it can be easy to become disconnected from the world around us. When this happens, it can also be easy to become disconnected from our thoughts and emotions and the behaviours these might shape. Mindfulness can help us become more aware of our thoughts and feelings as they happen in the moment, and moment to moment. In turn, pausing in this way will help us improve our mental health and wellbeing. You don’t have to be a Quaker to sit silently and pay attention to your thoughts. We can all create our little oasis of calm and stillness, and in an ever increasingly turbulent, noisy, and busy world, that must be a good thing.