Silence feels loud the first few minutes because everything you’ve been muting finally gets a turn to talk.

The discomfort in the first few minutes of quiet is not the quiet itself. It is the backlog. Anything you have been outrunning with music or scrolling arrives at once because nothing is competing with it anymore. That rush is why people reach for a phone at exactly that moment, and it is also the sign the quiet is doing something.

If you want to try it, give it longer than the uncomfortable part, which usually passes quickly. Let whatever shows up show up without doing anything about it yet. If something turns out heavier than you want to hold alone, that is worth telling someone.