The Tonic of Silence

/

How silence in nature impacts our mental health

Gerry Seavo James, Niki DiGaetano, Mark Sheeran, Lauren Jones, Anastasia Allison, Sanjana Sekhar, JD Reinbott, Wade Roush, Eric Biderman, Francesca Turauskis, and Diedre Wolownick

Season 6 | Episode 3

For many of us, getting outside is more than just fun; it’s how we find inner stillness.

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we decided to turn the mic over to you, our community. We asked how silence in nature has been significant to your mental health.

On this episode, we’re sharing some of our favorite responses.

  • Welcome to Out There Podcast. Our stories are written for the ear, so for those able, we recommend listening while reading along. Transcripts may contain minor errors; please check the audio before quoting.

    VOICEOVER: Hub and Spoke audio collective.

    WILLOW BELDEN: Have you ever had a situation where you’re out on a hike, and you see a mountain off in the distance, and you want to know what it is? Lucky for you, there’s an app that can help with that. It’s called PeakVisor.

    PeakVisor is our presenting sponsor this season. When you open up their app, it shows you a panorama of everything you’re looking at, with all the peaks labeled. They also have intricate 3D maps to help you plan out your adventures.

    If you’d like to be a superhero of outdoor navigation, check out PeakVisor in the app store. You just might love it.

    Hi, I’m Willow Belden, and you’re listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors.

    This season is all about silence. Each episode, we’re exploring how we find stillness amidst the noise — whether that’s literal or figurative. And this is a special episode, where we’ve turned the mic over to you, our listeners.

    About a year ago, someone left us a review on Apple Podcasts that really made me smile. It said, “Willow’s stories and interviews always give me a sense of calmness almost like the feeling I have when I’m in the wilderness.”

    That’s a sentiment we hear often – that this podcast somehow evokes a sense of peace. That it harnesses the power of nature to bring about inner stillness. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. Tapping into that peace – that stillness – has always been one of my goals for Out There.

    And so today – in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month – we’re leaning into that and diving deep into the connection between nature and emotional wellness. We started by posing a question to our community. We asked how silence in nature has been significant to your mental health. And in this episode, we’re sharing some of our favorite stories and insights from all of you.

    ANASTASIA ALLISON: Hi, my name is Anastasia Allison. I’m the founder of Kula Cloth, and I’m also the violinist for a small duo called the Musical Mountaineers.

    I am a lifelong violinist. I started playing violin when I was four years old. And it was always done in a really traditional way. I would learn songs and then eventually play them at a recital, where inevitably people would clap as soon as I was done playing.

    In 2017, my friend Rose Freeman and I had this idea. We thought, ‘What if we carried a violin and a piano or a keyboard out into the wilderness and played a concert at sunrise for nobody?’ And so we woke up at 11 o'clock at night and drove to this trailhead, and we got there at two in the morning, and we hiked in the dark by the light of our headlamps up to this spot just below the summit of a peak, where we stood on these big granite slabs.

    And there was sort of this moment before we started playing, like the whole universe was just holding its breath, waiting to see what happened.

    And then there was music.

    And then when we were done, it just sort of faded back into that silence. It was like an opening to something that was always there, and oddly enough, it was something that I had never heard before. Because that moment of silence is usually covered up by applause or talking or even my own thoughts at times.

    A few years ago we had the opportunity to climb to a peak with a reporter, and we played a song on this sort of snowy rock garden. And as soon as we were done, he sort of sat there in silence and then said, “Don't take this the wrong way, but the moment after you finish playing is just as beautiful as the music.” And I knew exactly what he was talking about.

    WADE ROUSH: Last year, I moved from an apartment that was deep in the heart of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the busiest part of town, to a house in the high desert outside of Sante Fe, New Mexico.

    This is Wade Roush. I’m the producer of Soonish, which is one of Out There’s sister shows at the Hub and Spoke audio collective.

    Before I left Cambridge, I made a point of going out on my balcony with a sound meter app to measure the loudness of the traffic noise and the general roar of the city. And it was usually in the range of 65 decibels, which is sort of like putting your ear up against a dishwasher.

    Now, when I go out on my patio here in Sante Fe and sample the noise levels with the same app, it’s usually around 35 decibels, which is more like people whispering in a library.

    Now you’ve gotta remember, the decibel scale is logarithmic, so a 65-decibel sound is actually 1,000 times more intense than a 35-decibel sound.

    So now you understand part of the reason I moved. The incessant noise of the big city was starting to drive me crazy. But out here in the desert, I feel like my mind and spirit can open up a bit.

    WILLOW: This is a common theme that we heard over and over again – that many of you are intentional about chasing silence. That there’s something inherently healing about getting away from all the noise. But why is that, exactly? What is it about silence that’s so beneficial for us? Why do we seek it out?

    NIKI DIGAETANO: Hi there, my name’s Niki DiGaetano, and I am a writer, backpacker, and death doula living in Salt Lake City, Utah.

    Two years ago, I went on a 900-mile-long section hike of the Appalachian Trail. And for most of that trip, so basically from West Virginia up through Vermont, I didn't use my earbuds at all. I didn't listen to any music when I was hiking.

    It gave me some clarity as to some struggles I was dealing with off trail, such as the racist treatment of my ex, my now ex-partner's parents. They had given me like this giant crisis around being Chinese American. Like I had never really thought about it in the context of, ‘Oh, my face is problematic for people.’ But now I was, because they explicitly said, “If you date an Asian girl, we'll disown you.” And they were talking to their son, of course, who was my ex.

    And I remember this one morning, just kind of immersed in the emptiness that is the nature and the silence of it, of just walking through this sunlit field, and I kind of stopped dead. And I thought to myself, ‘Does any of this matter?’ Like when it comes to my partner's parents, like, ‘Does any of this matter?’

    And the answer was, ‘It doesn't.’ You know, I had been so affected by the racist comments and treatment that like I was, before I left for trail, I had been doing things like googling plastic surgery to alter my face, to please these people. And I was just really hyper fixated on it.

    And I believe that being out there in the woods and on the trail, on this journey, in this silence of nature, was really healing to just, I guess, my soul. It really gave my mind space for clarity. And I very much understand now why like forest bathing and forest and wilderness therapy is such a huge component, and I wish it was more talked about nowadays. So thank you.

    JD REINBOTT: Hi there, my name is JD Reinbott, and I am a marine conservationist as well as a queer rights activist who is currently based in the Florida Keys.

    SANJANA SEKHAR: My name is Sanjana Sekhar, and I'm a writer, filmmaker, and climate activist.

    JD: As a diver, I spend obviously a lot of time out on the water. It is my happy place. And I always find that whenever I have a lot on my mind, whether it's good things or bad things, the moment I back roll or giant stride off of a boat and slip below the ocean surface, all of those thoughts just go away.

    SANJANA: The immersive sensory experience of being outside takes you out of your mind and into your body. It allows me to just connect to what's happening around me right now and not be worrying about yesterday or tomorrow.

    MARK SHEERAN: Hello, my name is Mark Sheeran. I am 64 years old, and I'm a retired high school teacher and cross country coach. When I go running, I never take any music with me. I never listen to any podcasts. Rather, I just allow myself the silence of letting nature sort of come to me, whether it's through the wind, the birds, the trees.

    SANJANA: The roar of a rushing river or the gossip of the birds.

    MARK: The sound of my feet hitting the ground as one and feeling really connected to the earth.

    JD: There's no outside noise. You're just sitting underwater, and the only thing you can hear is the sound of your breath and the crackling of life underwater.

    SANJANA: It interrupts the otherwise non-stop flow of thoughts and simulations and worries, the way that the information age has all of our minds constantly on. I feel like being outdoors flips that switch and silences the buzz.

    JD: And looking up at the sun glistening through the water and reflecting down on me, and just looking around at the fish living their lives, the small little critters — everything that you see when you're diving —it just makes my mind go blank and makes me stop thinking about my bills or the work that I'm doing or the awkward conversation that I wish I had said things differently.

    MARK: What it does for me more than anything else is it allows me to process emotions and allows me a lot more clarity.

    SANJANA: It quiets my overactive mind.

    JD: And just finally allows me to go still and to stop thinking.

    MARK: An example of this is while I was teaching, frequently I would hit a stumbling block on a lesson plan, and when I would go out and run and think about my class, when I would finish, I would always have a solution.

    JD: And for me, I've always found that peace, that bliss, that state of stillness, such an escape.

    SANJANA: And this should be accessible to everyone, but much like outdoor recreation itself, physical and mental health are also gate kept in our society because of racism and classism, sexism, ableism. I think that because of that, tapping into healing in nature is a pretty radical act, whether it's just sticking your head out the window for a breath of fresh air or sitting in a patch of grass, a family park day or hiking, biking, climbing. When you let that healing flow through you, that's powerful for you and for your community, and for our planet as a whole.

    GERRY SEAVO JAMES: My name is Gerry Seavo James. I live in Frankfort, Kentucky, ancestral homelands of the Cherokee, Osage, and Shawnee, and I serve as one of the deputy campaign directors for the Sierra Club's Outdoors for All campaign.

    You know, when you think about nature, you think about outdoor recreation, a big thing is going there for freedom. Going there to be silent and going there to, you know, kind of like free your mind. And, you know, that's a large part for me. Like I go into nature to have fun, to challenge myself, to reset, to see really awesome scenic vistas and kind of like, be carefree.

    I'm a big paddle boarder. I'm a kayak, stand up paddle boarding, canoe instructor, like certified through the American Canoe Association. I've paddled thousands of miles across this country.

    One day, I went out to go paddle Laurel River Lake here in Kentucky. And I was just paddling my paddleboard, you know, getting my miles in, getting my scenic vista quota in, and these folks saw me in a powerboat and they immediately began hooting and hollering at me and saying stuff like, “Can you swim? Great to see someone like you out here. Let's see…” And then what they did was, they spun the boat around, and they waked me in the boat, waked me with their boat's wake to see if I would fall off my board.

    And that was just very interesting how, you know, for me, I was going out there to get that silence — quote unquote “silence” — but, to get that peace, get that zen, and have fun. And here, because of who I am and what I look like, you know, that was disrupted. It puts you on alarm. It's like, am I going to go out there and get that silence and get that Zen and have that fun without having, you know, someone be threatened by me or view me as an oddity?

    I don't necessarily go out in nature and I'm looking for complete silence, complete quietness. Like, I don't mind someone having like a boom box or playing their music and stuff like that. But when I say “silence,” I guess I'm using it as like peace. Like, we are, we are all out in nature respecting each other, having fun, smiling, being happy, and just like holding space for each other.

    WILLOW: So Gerry raises an interesting point – this idea that silence isn’t always literal. A lot of times, when we’re searching for silence, what we actually want is metaphorical silence, inner stillness. And in fact, as a few of you pointed out, literal silence isn’t even always attainable.

    FRANCESCA TURAUSKIS: My name is Francesca Turauskis. I am an audio producer and a writer, and I’m based in West Sussex.

    DIERDRE WOLOWNICK: I’m Dierdre Wolownick. I am an author, a marathoner, and Alex Honnold’s mom.

    FRANCESCA: I don’t think I have ever been in silence in nature.

    DIERDRE: There is no silence in nature. Step out into your backyard.

    FRANCESCA: Right now, I am sat outside.

    DIERDRE: No matter where you live.

    FRANCESCA: And I can hear birds.

    DIERDRE: You will hear birds. Even if it’s just pigeons cooing outside your highrise city apartment.

    FRANCESCA: I can hear a squirrel in the trees.

    DIERDRE: You’ll hear insects.

    FRANCESCA: I can hear some of the leaves rustling in the wind.

    DIERDRE: Have you ever had the pleasure of hearing a tree filled with cicadas?

    FRANCESCA: But also, being in nature, I think we shouldn’t have silence.

    DIERDRE: In our busy lives, we’re taught to focus on what’s important, and to block out the rest.

    FRANCESCA: A silent nature is something that is desolate.

    DIERDRE: Nature is an incredible symphony. It is not silence. It’s life happening all around us.

    FRANCESCA: And it is that noise in nature which helps with my mental health.

    DIERDRE: It’s very important to our mental health.

    FRANCESCA: Because if I’m left to my own devices in silence, that’s when thoughts might start ruminating in a way which aren’t necessarily healthy. If there is some external noise, some external nature that I can focus on, that’s what helps me to clear my head.

    DIERDRE: And it allows us to hear the things that are important and can heal us.

    ERIC BIEDERMANN: I’m Eric Biedermann, and I’m from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Silence in nature is something I can never truly have. I live with chronic tinnitus, a constant ringing of the ears that I’ve had as long as I can remember. Essentially, my brain fills any sound void or silence with a constant “eeeee” noise that only I can hear.

    I’m fortunate that my case is mild. It’s just a nuisance that I can suppress with other sound. However, severe cases of tinnitus can be debilitating, with the most extreme cases having catastrophic impacts on mental health.

    So I’m grateful to nature because it often solves this problem by providing a soundtrack. Whether it’s a cool breeze, the flow of a mountain stream, or birdsong, nature often obliges by giving my brain something else to latch onto. So while silence in nature isn’t possible for me, focusing on the music it provides is a good alternative.

    WILLOW: Medical conditions like Eric’s can have very real impacts on our mental health. And several of you talked about this — about needing a distraction from health-related issues.

    Our last guest is someone named Lauren Jones. And while her situation is nothing like Eric’s, she too found that nature provided a kind of remedy or solace as she navigated a tough reality.

    LAUREN JONES: Hi there. They call me Yard Sale. The true essence of Yard Sale was my thru-hike on the Colorado Trail during the summer of 2020, after the loss of our first embryo via IVF. We have since then lost six more embryos in the last four years.

    So I found my trail journal, and on day 28, day 28 of 40 – because I chose the last 40 days of my 40th year of life to thru-hike the Colorado Trail, I literally hiked out on my 41st birthday – but back then on day 28, I'm about 100 or something miles away from being complete, and I mooned the moon.

    It's just me and the moon. It's quiet. My cheeks kissing the sky that's dark and starlit, with this giant brightness of moonlight, charging my spirit, charging my soul, charging me to keep going, to continue feeling what the trail has taught me, which is that I'm not broken. That my body isn't broken. That we aren't broken.

    We can do hard things. Every climb is temporary. Every decline and descent is relief, and it's met with water and nourishment and gentleness. And yet we keep climbing and keep aiming, and the trail provides. It's phenomenal, what the wilderness and what silence does for our mental wellness, for our self care, and the forever teachings of just living life in general.

    In the last 24 hours, we have just lost our seventh embryo. So as I record this in 2024, the silence in the wilderness found in 2020 has brought me forward in so many more of my life journeys. And I know that I can get through it. I trust the trail. The trail provides. We will get through this. I'll continue to moon the moon, and we'll see ya on the other side. In the silence, in the wilderness, in our aspiring journey to become parents, we will begin again.

    WILLOW: This episode was produced by Sheeba Joseph and me, Willow Belden, with help from Katie Reuther and Maria Ordovas-Montanes. Sound design by me, Willow Belden. Music includes works from Blue Dot Sessions, Story Blocks, and the Musical Mountaineers.

    Coming up next time on Out There…

    AMBER VON SCHASSEN: I am literally ear-to-ear grinning, smiling.

    WILLOW: What if you challenged yourself to spend a thousand hours outdoors? Tune in on May 16 for a story about going outside in order to overcome your fears.

    This summer, Out There is co-hosting an evening of campfire stories here in southeast Wyoming. And we’re looking for storytellers who’d like to participate.

    If you’d like to be one of our storytellers, please get in touch by May 11. Just click the link in the episode description to learn more.

    Alright, I am out for a bike ride, and I am at a spot here where I can see three different mountain ranges. And I only know what one of them is. And I’m always curious what the other two are.

    Lucky for me, there’s an app that can help. It’s called PeakVisor.

    Alright, so I’ve opened up PeakVisor. It’s thinking.

    The app shows me a panorama of everything I’m looking at, with all the mountains labeled.

    Oh wow, okay. So I am looking all the way down into Rocky Mountain National Park.

    PeakVisor is our presenting sponsor this season. Their app has information on more than a million summits all over the world. Plus, they have detailed 3D maps to help you with your planning. If you’d like to be a superhero of outdoor navigation, check out PeakVisor in the app store. You just might love it.

    A big thank you to everyone who participated in this episode, including Anastasia Allison, Eric Bidermann, Niki DiGaetano, Gerry Seavo James, Lauren Jones, JD Reinbott, Wade Roush, Sanjana Sekhar, Mark Sheeran, Francesca Turauskis, and Dierdre Wolownick.

    You can find links to the guests at our website, Outtherepodcast.com.

    Thank you also to everyone who submitted voice memos. We received more submissions than we were able to include in this episode, but we loved hearing from all of you, and we hope you’ll stay in touch.

    That’s it for this episode. We’ll see you in two weeks. And in the meantime, have a beautiful day, be bold, go outside, and find your dreams.

 

Storytelling opportunity!

Out There is co-hosting an evening of campfire stories with Common Outdoor Ground this summer, and we’re looking for storytellers.

The event will be in southeast Wyoming in June. If you’d like to tell a story, please get in touch by May 11.

Tell Your Story
 

Episode Notes

Credits

  • This episode was produced by Sheeba Joseph and Willow Belden, with assistance from Katie Reuther and Maria Ordovas-Montanes

  • Sound design by Willow Belden

  • Music from Blue Dot Sessions, Story Blocks, and the Musical Mountaineers

Guests

Links

 
 

This episode sponsored by PeakVisor