True contact is found in silence

Black and white photo of a man and woman sitting under an umbrella; the woman leans on the man’s shoulder.

When I was an adolescent, time spent with my first girlfriend – a title very quickly rescinded – was as exhilarating as it was onerous. The cause of the former was straightforward, but that of the latter was specific to that juncture in my life: I felt that a beat of dead air was a solemn mark against me, and every moment must be filled with witty and memorable words. Before our meetings, I would tabulate, sometimes physically putting to paper, all the interesting, intriguing, titillating things I could mention. I treated hanging out like a state examination. You can imagine why she lunged at the first opportunity to become an ex.

But we remained – and remain – close friends, and some time after our ill-starred relationship ended, something indelible happened: we had our first real silence. Late in a balmy summer night, conversation extinguished itself and, for some reason, nothing else was said. I’ve had a lot of beautiful silences since then, but it remains the most poignant.

I was reminded of this experience by Emil Cioran, the brooding and sardonic Romanian French philosopher, who was actually capable of stringing together witty and memorable words. ‘True contact between beings,’ he wrote, ‘is established only by mute presence, by apparent non-communication, by that mysterious and wordless exchange which resembles inward prayer.’

Silences between people, of course, have all sorts of meanings, and Cioran is far from the only philosopher to write about silence. But here he incomparably evokes the strange intimacy that inheres in the best kinds of silence. Perhaps the next time you are fortunate enough to inhabit this kind of silence with someone important to you, you’ll think of ‘true contact’.

by Sam Dresser

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The delightful Psyche Video ‘Le Mots de la Carpe’ by the French animator Lucrèce Andreae shows how silence can be path to love in the cacophony of speed-dating.

For more on Cioran’s minimalist approach to life, see the Psyche Idea ‘Learning to Be a Loser: A Philosopher’s Case for Doing Nothing’ (2023) by Costica Bradatan.


NOTE TO SELFSLEEP PROBLEMS

Sleep is important, but not that important

A person lying in bed under a duvet, arms covering face; bedside table with books, a lamp, a mug and reading glasses.

Over the past decade or so, there has been a huge shift in our attitude to sleep in the Western world. We’ve moved from ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’, ‘Sleep is for wimps’ and ‘Money never sleeps’ to scientists, doctors and health bloggers alike emphasising the huge importance of getting our Zzzs.

It’s positive that people now take sleep more seriously but, as a sleep researcher myself, I fear things have gone too far. Increasingly, many people, who by any objective measure are getting enough sleep, are worrying unnecessarily that their sleep is not ‘good enough’. In 2017, a group of US sleep experts coined the term ‘orthosomnia’ to refer to a desire for ‘perfect sleep’. They described how people are now arriving at clinics clutching a sleep tracker or a popular science book, explaining that they had always considered themselves to be good sleepers until…

Another unexpected consequence of so much promotion about the importance of sleep is that people who, for reasons outside of their control, are struggling to get enough sleep are becoming increasingly distressed about it. This applies to many people in society but, as one example, consider those who care for others with disabilities that require around-the-clock monitoring or support, and who therefore miss out on what my colleagues and I call ‘sleep privilege’ – the luxury, enjoyed by some, to sleep under optimal circumstances and conditions.

Yes, sleep is undoubtedly important, but dramatic headlines stating it is the most important factor for health, or that too little sleep can be devastating, are typically unwarranted, and it seems that its value might be beginning to be overinflated. Looking ahead, could it be that some of the challenges caused by undervaluing sleep will be replaced by those linked to overvaluing it?

by Alice Gregory

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Alice Gregory and her colleagues wrote about the dangers of sleep being overvalued in a recent open-access editorial for the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

If you’re concerned about your sleep, check out these Psyche Guides: ‘How to Sleep Well Again’ (2022) by Chris James, and ‘How to Sleep Well When You’re a Perfectionist’ (2024) by Nick Wignall.


The value of scribbling in the margins

Page from a book with printed text about society and handwritten notes in the margin, including ’True but only in part‘.

As you read, do you scribble around the edges? Over the years, writers have sworn by the practice. Edgar Allan Poe once wrote: ‘In getting my books, I have been always solicitous of an ample margin … for the facility it affords me of pencilling suggested thoughts, agreements and differences of opinion …’

I tend to make notes digitally nowadays. And if I include magazines and newspapers, most of my reading is online, where I probably could annotate with the right software, but can hardly doodle. That’s a shame. Apart from the fact that annotating boosts recall, we’d lose something if freeform margin-writing faded away. One of the meanings of ‘marginalia’ is ‘non-essential’, yet it’s anything but.

For one thing, scribbled-upon books have helped reveal the web of influences between writers and thinkers. Herman Melville’s annotated copy of John Milton’s Paradise Lost shows how it fed into Moby-Dick. And Charles Darwin’s comments in his books – from Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology to his grandfather Erasmus Darwin’s The Temple of Natureinform how they shaped his theory.

Marginalia can reveal everyday insights too. Historians occasionally find scrawls in manuscripts that speak of long-dead readers’ lives. A recent exhibition in Dublin features scriptures doodled on by medieval Irish monks. One described feeling ‘ale-killed’ (hungover); another complained about his materials (‘New parchment, bad ink. O I say nothing more’). Turns out nuns did similar. In 2022, researchers found surprisingly modern cartoons of people around the edges of an 8th-century Act of Apostles. A nun etched them, perhaps mischievously.

Reading about these examples made me think I should annotate more – not everything, but the writing I care about. Or perhaps I’ll take a leaf from a wholesome TikTok trend I discovered while writing this: gifting an annotated book. This 21st-century practice suggests digitalisation may not be annotation’s death knell after all. Poe might have approved.

by Richard Fisher

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To learn more about Edgar Allan Poe’s approach to annotation, check out the article ‘Edgar Allan Poe on the Joy of Marginalia and What Handwriting Reveals About Character’ (2013) by Maria Popova on the appropriately titled website The Marginalian.

For other ways to get more out of the books and magazines you digest, dive into the Psyche Guide ‘How to Gain More From Your Reading’ (2024) by Robert DiYanni.


NOTE TO SELFEMOTION REGULATION

Seeing all the parts of a tough situation

An adult and child looking at Santa inside a large snow globe with snowy trees at dusk.

When I’m going through something stressful, I have a strong urge to think out loud about it with someone I trust. There are probably several reasons I end up feeling better: my listener helps me avoid catastrophic thinking, or reminds me that they have my back if things get worse. But another likely reason is that having the chance to describe a difficult situation in detail – even if you’re just describing it to yourself, as in a journal – invites you to see the full picture, and in many cases, it’s not all bad.

Research by Christian Waugh and colleagues at Wake Forest University in North Carolina underscores this and highlights its potential for helping us manage our emotions. They focused largely on people’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on data they collected then. When people reflected on a stressful experience they’d been having, and were prompted to describe six specific elements of the situation, they tended to list at least one that was positive (such as spending more time with family during the pandemic). Having more positive elements in the list was associated with feeling less negative and more positive emotion following the task. Taking some time to elaborate on one of the positive aspects seemed to help people feel better, too.

It can be annoying to be told to ‘look on the bright side’ or ‘find the silver lining’. But personal trials often come with opportunities for growth or self-insight; grief or separation sometimes lead to new connections; and even mundane sources of frustration (a traffic jam, say) can contain small points of pleasure or relief (enjoying a song on the radio that you would’ve missed). Where there are such leavening factors, taking a moment to talk or write about the experience could help us make the most of them.

by Matt Huston

FIND OUT MORE

To learn about other accessible means of managing emotions, start with this Psyche Idea written by Christian Waugh himself: ‘Asking One Simple Question Can Entirely Change How You Feel’ (2022).

In an episode of the Speaking of Psychology podcast (produced by the American Psychological Association), the psychologist James Pennebaker talks about his research on expressive writing and how it makes people feel better.


How slow breathing calms down your brain

Photo of a man in profile with glasses, eyes closed, head tilted back under a structure with a grid-like roof.

Just breathe! When you’re gripped by anxiety, hearing this well-intentioned advice can be infuriating. Compared with the power of my body’s fight-or-flight response, the notion that I can find calm by tuning into my breath feels almost fanciful.

But recently I came across a study in Scientific Reports that caught my eye because it showed that slow breathing makes a difference not just to how people feel, but to their brain activity. The results have increased my confidence that breathing can make a meaningful difference.

The researchers set things up so their participants either knew they’d be exposed to horrible images (such as pictures of injuries and scary animals) or they thought there’d be a chance they might be – this latter condition acted as a simulation of ‘anticipatory anxiety’, like when you have a dentist appointment and you’re not sure if you might need a horrible procedure.

Anticipatory anxiety increased the aversive impact of the images – both in terms of how bad the participants felt after looking at them, and in terms of the electrical activity in their brains, specifically in the beta-frequency range that’s known to be amplified when we’re stressed or worried.

Crucially, however, the effects of anticipatory anxiety on subjective feelings and brain activity were dulled if the participants engaged in 30 seconds of slow breathing (six seconds in, six seconds out) before the task. In fact, after slow breathing, the participants had lower beta brain activity in the anxiety condition than they had in the non-anxiety condition after normal breathing (two seconds in, two seconds out).

It’s a small study and it’s long established that neuroscience findings can be seductive, so I’m wary of being overly gullible. But I thought the design was clever. It showed that, while anxiety can intensify our difficult experiences, a simple, slow-breathing technique can mitigate these effects.

by Christian Jarrett

FIND OUT MORE

Check out the Psyche Guide ‘How to Breathe’ (2022) by Martin Petrus.

Read the results of another study published this year that found slow-paced breathing can assist emotional regulation.

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