Episode 395: The second biggest threat to health?
In this episode, Fiona talks about the importance of finding stillness amidst the noise of everyday life. She also discusses the benefits of incorporating stillness into daily routine. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
Personal experience with noise pollution
Effects of noise pollution on health
Importance of stillness in daily life
Various ways to find stillness
Benefits of incorporating stillness into daily routine
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Welcome to episode 395 of the My Daily Business Podcast. Today is a quick tip episode, and this is going to surprise you. I'm pretty sure it'll surprise you. It surprised me for sure. When I found out about this, I was like, "Really?" But it gave me food for thought, which is what I'm sharing today. Before I get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land on which I live and record this podcast, and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. The other thing I wanted to mention is that if you are trying to understand marketing, regardless of what platforms you're choosing, but understand the tenets of what makes good marketing, what makes it successful, and how to analyse that and tell the difference between whether your marketing is working for you or not, then you can check out a marketing course marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com.
At the moment, we are just about to start the nine week live coaching component of that. Twice a year, we offer the course with a nine week live coaching component. You can do the course in your own time and then come to coaching for that and ask any questions that you have. And then at the end of the nine weeks, you can also present your marketing plan to me and everyone else for feedback. If you're interested in that, head on over to marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com. Of course, you can always just do the course anytime you like without the coaching component. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
I don't know if you can hear this, or if you are new here, maybe you don't even notice. Thank you so much for being here. If you do listen to this quite often, then you may well notice I have a cold at the moment so I can barely hear myself. My ears are completely blocked. But something that I did hear in this office when I came to record this podcast was a noisy fly. Now I'm somebody who, even though I live out in like a very bushy area in North Warrandyte in Melbourne, Australia, I cannot stand the noise of insects, flies, mosquitoes, anything like that. My husband will attest that I'm constantly like, open the window, or do this. I can't have any creepy crawley, which is weird considering where I've chosen to live. But the noise of this fly irritated me so much today when I was trying to sit down and record these because it's a recording and you can't hear the buzzing of the insects in the background.
I would say that I am easily irritated by noise. It reminded me of years ago when we lived in London together, when my husband and I lived there, and I got irritated by my next-door neighbours. I lived next to these people who dealt drugs as that was their living and different podcast for that. But they would be up until 5 or 6:00 AM all the time, always during the week, like if you want to party on the weekend, all good. I have partied myself. But not during the week like that. We told them multiple times, is there any way you could keep the noise down just at least during the week, at least during the start of the week when we have to get up early for work? But they didn't.
I ended up talking to the London Noise Pollution Police, which originally when a friend had told me, I was like, “Is that a joke?” And they're like, “No, there's noise pollution police.” I was like, “What?” Anyway, I had this interesting conversation with this guy where he was very pedantic about which exact songs I had heard at 5:00 AM. I just remember him reading the report back to me, so it was Michael Jackson's thriller. I was like, “I'm pretty sure.” Why am I bringing all this up? Because I was reading recently that noise pollution, so environmental noise, also called noise pollution, according to the World Health Organization is one of the leading reasons that we will have health issues. They said that noise is the second largest environmental cause of health problems just after the impact of air pollution.
They're not talking about Michael Jackson's songs being played at 5:00 AM on a Wednesday, or a fly buzzing around when you're about to record a podcast. They're talking about larger cities and places where there are huge amounts of noise or maybe people in areas where huge infrastructure and commercial grade noise is being used all the time. But what they did talk about in this article that I was looking at on environmental health was basically that we are constantly being consumed by noise. We are always listening on the go. We are doing multiple things at one time. We are double screening it. Is that what they call when you're watching Netflix and then you're also on your phone? We are, and I know I'm very guilty of this constantly listening to, not nature, but just other things whilst we're on walks, while we are exercising, and we constantly have the radio on while we're driving.
There's just this endless supply of noise. What it made me think about is how often in a week I have complete silence. I was raised Catholic and I went to church every single Sunday for I think the first 20 years of my life. I don't go very often at all anymore. I am one of those Catholics that just goes Christmas and Easter. But I remember talking to somebody and saying how I missed going, and not necessarily that I missed going to that particular church, but to any church, synagogue, temple mosque, whatever your ideas are, or maybe you're an atheist or maybe your agnostic, whatever it is. I think some of the draw card to some of these places is just the silence. It's the silence. I remember talking to somebody about the stillness that happens within any religious or spiritual temple or anything else, just this stillness.
There isn't usually a whole lot of talking. I mean, yes, there is singing and there are prayers and chants and mantras and different things, but in a lot of the places I've been say temples when you go in Bali or I've been into mosques and synagogues and other places where I don't have that religion myself, but I've gone in and practised and prayed and done things in different places. And there's always this level of calmness and stillness. I think that's something that we so often lack, particularly as business owners where you are running around, you're trying to do a million things, you always feel like you're behind. You always feel like you've got something else to be doing, something else to be learning. I put my hand up that I will often be listening to a podcast or an audiobook or YouTube whilst also cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry, and tidying up the kids' rooms.
Often am doing something else at the same time as opposed to just having a bit of stillness and a bit of space for my mind to think. I used to do this a lot more, and this is outside of meditation. In addition to, meditation is almost like another thing that you're doing in that space, as opposed to just sitting with stillness. When I'm in the car, not having the radio on, not listening to something, not WhatsApping a friend, just driving in stillness. And even that, that small thing has been interesting to like just let my mind wander, let it rest, let it be still. I think we just don't do that enough. I guess what I wanted to say in today's quick two episodes is how often are you allowing yourself to have that stillness to remove yourself from the noise?
Whether that is actual noise or whether it is just the constant drum of stimulation that comes from being on social media, being on your phone watching this, listening to this, doing this, always learning, and always feeling like you should have something on. I know the irony of me saying this whilst I'm recording a podcast, which you may well be listening to whilst doing something else, but I would ask you to think about in the next week, how many times can you give yourself that gift of just stillness? For some people, it may well look like going into a temple or going into a church or a synagogue or a mosque or whatever practice they have. For other people, it might just be sitting in your garden. For other people, take a minute to sit on your couch in the middle of the day in your apartment and just listen to nothing.
Maybe taking 20 minutes out in the middle of your workday to go for a walk and just not putting extra pressure on yourself to be learning something at the same time or utilising that time that you're on the walk to get something else done. And just see how you feel. See how it calms you down. As I said at the beginning, interesting to see that noise pollution is the second largest environmental cause of health problems. I was looking at what it can do, which obviously if you've got noise too loud and continuously having that, like if you work in a factory or other such things, of course, that can lead to an actual hearing loss. But just standard, the amount of environmental noise can lead to things like cognitive impairment, especially in children. There's been a lot of studies on that.
Annoyance, irritability, sleep disturbance, negative impacts on mental health, also negative effects on the cardiovascular and metabolic system. There are so many reasons outside of just feeling it good to reduce the noise and permit yourself to be still, to have that stillness. I wish you well in that, and I'd love to know if you are doing that already, what works for you. I have a client who, I think gets up at 4:00 AM every single day, which is amazing. Something I couldn't do, but she gets up at 4:00 AM every day, and she did talk about how it's so lovely and quiet and still in the house. I do get that. I've worked many years of my life at cafes. I've worked at places where they were always outside of the city that I was living in.
A lot of commuting and there's something wonderful about that very early time in the morning, I don't do that myself at the moment, but I do remember her talking about that. Like I said these other places, just give yourself that gift of stillness. I'd love to know what you do. You can always send us a message @mydailybusiness_ on Instagram or just @mydailybusiness on TikTok. Or you can always send us an email at hello@mydailybusiness.com. I'd love to know how you find your stillness and what it has done for your mental health, physical health, spiritual health, and all the things. Thanks so much for reading. I'll see you next time. Bye.
