If you can’t sit with your own thoughts for ten minutes, that’s the room to clean first.

Constant noise is often not a preference. It is a way of staying a step ahead of something you would rather not meet: a worry, a conversation you keep postponing, a feeling that has been waiting a while for a turn. Discomfort in the silence is information about what got left unattended, not evidence that something is wrong with you.

Try five minutes instead of ten, with nothing playing, and let whatever shows up show up. You do not have to solve it. Naming one thing that surfaces usually makes the quiet less loud the next time.