The Joy of Quiet

Last week in 7th grade Health class, we read an interesting article from The New York Times called The Joy of Quiet by Pico Iyer.  The article discussed the importance of incorporating peace and quiet into our highly technical and over scheduled lives.  The article noted that the average American "spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen...(and)...the average American teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day."  These are alarming statistics. 

However, the article reported that during a recent study, subjects who had spent time in a "quiet rural setting....exhibited greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition."  Through reading and discussing the article, we discovered how beneficial "down time" truly can be to our mental and physical health.  A link to the article can be found below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?_r=2

Special thanks to Dr. Martire for sharing this article with me.