The Silence of a House in Autumn

When the weather finally gets so cold and nasty that you have to close your windows, it will become clear to you very quickly that your house is very quiet.  With the windows closed, the dog’s snores, the odd sounds made by the heater every so often, and the creaks in the floor-boards as you pad around start to have the same effect on you that hearing a screech owl call as you walk in the woods in the night does, your blood stops moving in your veins for a very long second.

It does not take much psychological training (or probably any at all) to realise that this is an undesirable situation.

Introduce some sounds… unless you need absolute focus

You can always play music you enjoy to drown out the nearly (and this is key, it’s nearly) non-existent alternative soundscape inside your home.  Studies have shown that when you’re doing anything that requires mental effort, you’ll work better in silence or almost silence than when listening to music.

Introducing softly played white noise or nature sounds will boost your mental performance. (see our Issue on Designing for Brain Power), counter the stress of distractions, and mentally refresh you when the work out your brain starts to wear you down.  White noise and nature soundscapes are available online.  With the nature sounds, the goal is to find ones that remind you of being in a meadow on a lovely Spring day—that means they’ll feature burbling brooks or peaceful waves (which means the imagined meadow needs to be on the coast), grasses and leaves shuffling slightly in the breeze, and birds calling out quietly to each other.  No screeching parrots or monkeys, no powerful sounding gusts of wind, no humans.

And so what about getting out of the house?

Many of us, the saner sort, refrain from spending time outdoors when the weather is cold and nasty, which cuts down on how many calories we burn off on walks and tending our gardens.

The effects on our waistlines are immediate.  Also, since we’re not walking, etc., we have oodles more time for baking and creating other luscious and, inevitably, calorie intense concoctions.

So do read our Health Issue for tips on how to design to help your waistline!