The value of a quiet hour

🔴 Have you read these articles yet?

👉 New Honor X7d hit the market at ~R4,000. Is it worth it?
👉 FSCA-licensed or no-go? A pocket guide to South Africa’s CASP regime

The concept of a quiet hour in the form of an uninterrupted pocket of stillness is one of the simplest yet most profoundly effective forms of self-care available. It is a deliberate, uninterrupted slice of time where you make a conscious choice to pause, breathe deeply, and allow your constantly active mind to settle.

This chosen stillness is not merely desirable; it is absolutely essential for maintaining a balanced and grounded psyche. It serves as a necessary antidote to the information overload that characterises modern life.

The beauty of a personal quiet hour is its inherent flexibility. It does not have to be a fixed, rigid appointment, nor does it have to look the same each day, which is what makes it so sustainable. It can be strategically placed early in the morning, a golden hour before the house stirs and the professional world logs on, offering a chance to set the day's intentions calmly.

It might be scheduled during a lunch break, where you step physically and mentally away from your workspace to ground yourself in the middle of the day. Or, most commonly, it can be claimed in the evening when the day's peak activity softens.

During this protected time, the activity is less important than the intention behind it. Whether you use the time to mindfully sip a cup of rooibos tea, engage in stream-of-consciousness journaling, take a gentle and silent walk through your neighbourhood, or simply sit outside observing the play of light and shadow, the immense benefit comes from granting yourself absolute permission to pause.

This is a time free from productivity guilt. The goal is not to achieve anything, but to be, to listen to your own internal monologue, or, ideally, to let that monologue quiet down.

This kind of deliberate stillness is often profoundly appreciated by travellers when they stumble upon it unexpectedly on the road. The sheer, untainted silence of a sunrise observed in a national park, the vast, echoing quiet of an empty beach at dusk, or the meditative rhythm of walking a quiet farm road can instantly remind a person how fundamentally peaceful and restorative slowing down can be.

The conscious practice of the quiet hour is an effort to bottle a version of that deep, travel-induced stillness and bring it into the demanding structure of daily life. This small, consistent shift can have a truly meaningful impact on one's overall well-being, acting as a preventative measure against stress build-up.

For those in Southern Africa, the quiet hour might naturally gravitate toward the outdoors, leveraging the mild climate and the specific natural sounds. It could involve watching the distinct flight of a particular bird species, feeling the gentle heat dissipate from the paving stones, or simply sitting on a stoep as the light changes, connecting with the subtle, enduring rhythms of the continent.

A personal quiet hour, once established, swiftly graduates from a chore to a cherished routine. It acts as a mental filter, helping you to process the day's input, which often results in the ability to think more clearly, make decisions with greater calm, and respond to external pressure more thoughtfully rather than reactively.

By setting aside this small, protected pocket of silence, you invest in your own resilience, helping to steady the mind, lower the baseline stress level, and, ultimately, make the entire week feel far less scattered and overwhelming. It is the simple, powerful act of refilling your own well before the demands of the world can completely drain it.

 🔴👉 Visit our Categories page to find your favourite read!