Few people can deal with silence. Even the peacefulness of the country is not silent. The wind becomes obvious, birds sing, it rains. The more silent it becomes the more you hear little things.
It just is not that intrusive constant annoying background clutter. People talk of peacefulness they mention the sound of the snow on there skis. The waves on the shore. For most people silence is not golden. They need the TV on even though there mind is busy blocking it out. Wearing a Walkman while jogging by a busy road.
It boils down to what you need. Some of us need very little so any thing over that amount is stressful. And then there is personal stress. Take two different people in a restaurant. One likes to sit quietly and listen to the noise. The other person can not handle the noise without having some one to talk to so the noise is blocked out.
So what it boils down to is that you have to find your own way of dealing with stress.
One thing I found hard was being out of the loop. Six months in the hospital gave me a whole new set of stressors and when I left, the ones I had been used to were foreign. I used to work in a noisy shop. Now when I visit it bothers me. Times change and so do people. We have to change with it or move away. Imagine bringing some one from pre revolution earth and dropping them in NYC. Instant insanity or instant awe. Depends on the person really.
So you need relaxation techniques and for everyone they will be different but some generally work for everyone. Start with those and then add on your own personal ones. This is where a live group therapy is so good. There would be a number of people stating what works for them in a given situation. Something hard to do here because of the time factor. Not impossible just hard.
A question to think on. What causes a normative stressor to become non-normative for you?
Davit
