Tranquillity
Perhaps tranquillity is about being given the chance to reflect on things that sit in the periphery of our mind, that can only ever be a brief experience.
By Caesium-135, Featured Writer.
Tranquillity is said to be a state of mind in which you are calm, serene, and worry-free; a place where you have suspended the manic focus required to live life in the modern world. It is where you are when you press 'pause' on your everyday struggles.
We have an area of decking outside our living room that overlooks our rear garden. This is where I can sit at a table, day or night, and let thoughts and feelings wander in my version of reflective meditation. This is my ‘tranquil place’.
It is Sunday morning. It is on the chilly side with dark but high clouds and, evidenced on the window panes, the sort of fine rain you know must be there but cannot feel the touch of.
In the distance, I can hear the toll of church bells. It evokes childhood feelings of moments long forgotten, and memories of grandparents whose lives were much more closely tied with the church than mine. I often wonder who, nowadays, knows what Whitsun is, let alone marks it as an event in the calendar by which to measure the passing of the year.
My grandmother did. It’s one of those faint flashes of memories that persist in total isolation of context. I can still hear her voice, if not the words themselves, and see her face whilst talking about her plans for Whitsun. How memory fails with age! Perhaps it's nature's way of saving us from a sense of loss?
A huge pine tree a few gardens away often acts as the choir stalls for the morning chorus; little birds perched at the ends of its branches singing their hearts out. Oddly, whilst this place is still filled with sound, the lack of human voices makes it feel like silence, and I feel my body relax at its core. It must be good for the blood pressure if nothing else!
My fresh cup of coffee gives rise to a thin wisp of steam in the chill morning air, the only stimulant I allow myself - although my iPad lies close by, tempting me to engage with the wider world. Leave that monster in the box for a little while longer.
Perhaps the tranquillity we all feel at times like this, the chance to reflect on things that sit in the periphery of our mind can only ever be a brief experience. Perhaps its value lies not solely in the brief activity itself but in the opportunity to provide us with contrast: a thing, a feeling, something to remember when we pause for breath as the undercurrents of life sweep us forward?
Perhaps tranquillity can help us enjoy the swim?
The Struggle for Tranquillity
Attention Restoration Theory (ART) is a theory that we can improve concentration by putting ourselves in, or at least experiencing to some degree, the natural environment. Walking in the country or a park, strolling by the sea, sitting and looking at a landscape - even viewing relaxation apps or listening to natural sounds are valid ways to make that disconnection from daily stress.
Further reading: 'The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective' by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-34139-4.
Kaplan and Kaplan, as reported in, ‘Is it Really Nature That Restores People? A Comparison with Historical Sites with High Restorative Potential’ (2019), identified four ‘restorative properties of nature’:
Being-Away
This refers to a change of scenery and/or experience from daily routines, promoting a conceptual distance from the ordinary;
Fascination
Intended as the capability of nature to involuntarily elicit the individual’s attention, without mental effort and thus the depletion of cognitive resources;
Extent
Implying the properties of coherence among the environmental elements and scope in environments, which should be perceived as extended enough to engage the mind;
Compatibility
Which has to do with the perceived congruence between the characteristics of the environment and people’s needs, intentions and inclinations.
In 2010, the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 127, 1840, carried an article about the creation of a tool and database to evaluate the effectiveness of these ‘restorative environments’, and seems to be one of a number of approaches being developed to evaluate their effectiveness. Will we, in the future, have our gardens and public parks given a ‘Restorative Score’?
We are probably all aware of Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD, but should we think more about how simple weather can impact the way we feel?
Certainly the issue of mental health and climate change is the subject of study, as evidenced by 'The Impact of Climate Change on Mental Health: A Systematic Descriptive Review', by Paolo Cianconi et al., (n. d). However, I think it's fair to say that these studies are both in their infancy, and the scope and potential impact is so great as to make it a significant challenge.
More general impacts can be seen in a PLOS ONE article 'The Temperature and self-reported mental health in the United States' by Mengyao Li et al., (2020). The research, in simple terms, says that mental health issues are less likely to be reported on colder days, than on hotter days. Does this mean that 'finding tranquillity' can be easier on a cold, damp Sunday morning than on a warm summer's day? Perhaps.
The peaceful, calming ringing of church bells appears to have a dark side! Reported in The Guardian is a condition referred to as ‘ringing vertigo’, the fear of falling bells and strangulation. That aside, the feeling of calm I took from hearing bells seems peculiar to me, when researching, I found a number of articles where church bells were silenced in order to preserve mental health. To me, that feels like a modern tendency to oversensitivity, but I don't live that close to them.
The use of silence as a route to well-being is well known. Look at most spas and you will find a room seat aside for quiet contemplation, or a Zen garden where you can relax in its carefully manicured environs; something I have enjoyed and remember well myself.
Wherever your ‘tranquil place’ is, make the most of it.