The sound of silence
One thing that struck me in Penang is the quietness of it all. At night, our room was eerily quiet, no loud air conditioning, no traffic noise, no tuk tuk's zooming by, hardly any dogs barking. And it was nice. The other thing I really enjoy is being by the 'sea' (technically it's not the sea). There's nothing like staring out onto the sea - it's very calming and for a lot of my life I did live by the sea.
Coincidently, I came across an article in the BBC website today stating that "The sight of the sea is the quickest and most effective way to reduce high stress levels for many people" - 42% infact. This is followed by:
A walk in the park: 33%
Hearing bird song: 14%
The smell of cut grass: 10%
In Bangkok, there is no sea to stare out at, I don't go for walks in the park because it's too hot and I'm not a 'wake up at the crack of dawn' type person to catch reasonable temperatures. I certainly don't hear birds tweeting and no one mows the lawn around here either. I'm, therefore, one huge stressball according to this.
In addition, they state that scaryling on average city dwellers can expect to spend 73 days without more than five minutes of silence at a time. That's just crazy. Apparently in London 1/4 of Londoners haven't experienced silence in over 6 months. If that's London, Bangkok has got to be worse with all the motorbikes, tuk tuks etc... And me, I'm all for silence.
It's time for an island holiday me thinks...
Coincidently, I came across an article in the BBC website today stating that "The sight of the sea is the quickest and most effective way to reduce high stress levels for many people" - 42% infact. This is followed by:
A walk in the park: 33%
Hearing bird song: 14%
The smell of cut grass: 10%
In Bangkok, there is no sea to stare out at, I don't go for walks in the park because it's too hot and I'm not a 'wake up at the crack of dawn' type person to catch reasonable temperatures. I certainly don't hear birds tweeting and no one mows the lawn around here either. I'm, therefore, one huge stressball according to this.
In addition, they state that scaryling on average city dwellers can expect to spend 73 days without more than five minutes of silence at a time. That's just crazy. Apparently in London 1/4 of Londoners haven't experienced silence in over 6 months. If that's London, Bangkok has got to be worse with all the motorbikes, tuk tuks etc... And me, I'm all for silence.
It's time for an island holiday me thinks...
posted by Baba at
5:21 PM
