A recent piece in Nautilus explores in detail the positive effects that silence can have on our brains. Journalist Daniel A. Gross elaborates on several studies in which researchers set out to study the effects of various types of noise–such as music, short bursts of sound, and white noise–only to discover the silence in between the sounds they were studying produced interesting results. Here are a few gems this body of research has revealed.
Growth of new brain cells
In exposing groups of mice to a selection of sounds, Duke University regenerative biologist Imke Kirste was trying to see which one might spark the creation of new brain cells. She used silence as her control.
She found that two hours of silence a day produced new cell creation in the hippocampus, the main part of the brain associated with memory. In reviewing the results, Kirste concluded that silence could have been such a strange departure from the norm that it heightened the mice’s alertness.
“We saw that silence is really helping the new generated cells to differentiate into neurons and integrate into the system,” Kirste said.
Read the complete text: http://www.inc.com/betsy-mikel/your-brain-benefits-most-when-you-listen-to-absolutely-nothing-science-says.html?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
Chez Froggie 