Latest / Still Standing: Stories of Resilience, Survival & Strength / Why Closing Your Eyes to Music Heals Your Exhausted Nervous System | Still Standing
Transcript
- You are holding your breath right now, aren’t you? I can see it in the way your shoulders are creeping up toward your ears, even though you’re just sitting there on the couch. Let’s take a breath with me. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Good. Now, let’s talk about the sheer volume of information your eyes are processing every single day. It is exhausting. We live in a world that demands we watch everything. We watch the news until our hearts sink. We watch other people’s highlight reels on social media until we feel inadequate. We watch screens at work, then screens at home, trying to decompress but only adding more digital noise to an already overloaded system. Your brain is a magnificent organ, but it wasn’t designed to process this much visual data without rest. Every pixel you see requires energy. Every color, every movement, every face you analyze sends signals firing through your nervous system. By the time evening rolls around, you are not just tired; you are depleted. You have been performing for the world all day, and your eyes have been the primary instrument of that performance. They are wide open, taking in threats, opportunities, judgments, and distractions. And yet, when we try to rest, we often keep them open. We lie in bed staring at the ceiling, or worse, we keep scrolling because we are afraid of what might happen if we stop looking. But there is another way. There is a small, radical act of rebellion against this constant visual demand. It doesn’t require you to leave your house, or buy a new app, or meditate for an hour. It just requires you to do something as simple as closing your eyes while you listen to music. I want to explain why this works, because it isn’t just poetic or mystical. It is deeply biological. When you close your eyes, you cut off approximately eighty percent of the sensory input your brain receives from the outside world. That is a massive reduction in cognitive load. Suddenly, your brain doesn’t have to process shapes, distances, facial expressions, or text. It can redirect that energy inward. And when you pair that with music, something beautiful happens. Music is a frequency-based experience. It vibrates through your body. It bypasses the logical centers of your brain and speaks directly to the emotional and somatic parts. When you listen with your eyes closed, you are not just hearing the melody; you are feeling it. You are letting the bass line settle into your chest. You are letting the high notes float above your head. Without the distraction of sight, your auditory cortex goes into overdrive, but in a good way. It becomes hyper-focused on texture, tone, and rhythm. This shift allows your nervous system to move out of a state of high alert—the sympathetic mode where you are always scanning for danger—and into a state of safety. The parasympathetic nervous system kicks in. Your heart rate slows. Your muscles unclench. For those few minutes, you are not managing your environment; you are inhabiting your internal landscape. It is a return to yourself. It is a reminder that you exist inside your body, not just in front of it. I learned this the hard way, years ago, when I was still working in those high-pressure corporate roles. I remember one specific Tuesday in November. It was raining, which felt appropriate given my mood. I had spent eight hours on conference calls, reading slides, and navigating office politics that made no sense. My eyes were dry, burning, and heavy. I walked into my kitchen, put on my headphones, and played a piece of cello music. Just one song. I sat on the floor, leaned back against the cabinets, and closed my eyes. I didn’t try to solve any problems. I didn’t check my phone. I just listened. And for three minutes, I cried. Not a polite, held-back cry, but a deep, shuddering release. I realized how long it had been since I had truly felt anything other than stress or fatigue. That moment was a turning point for me. It taught me that healing doesn’t always look like a grand gesture or a vacation to Bali. Sometimes it looks like sitting on your kitchen floor in your socks, listening to Bach, and letting yourself feel the weight of the day so you can set it down. If I hadn’t closed my eyes, I might have kept scrolling, kept pushing, kept pretending I was fine. But by shutting out the light, I let the truth in. And that truth was that I needed to rest. I needed to be gentle with myself. That small act of closing my eyes became a daily practice, a ritual of self-care that grounded me when everything else felt chaotic. So, let’s sit in that for a second. What did keeping your eyes open cost you today? How many moments did you miss because you were too busy watching to actually being present? We often think that seeing is believing, but sometimes, feeling is knowing. Sometimes, the truth of your own exhaustion is hidden behind the glare of the screen. When you close your eyes, you strip away the pretense. You remove the audience. There is no one to perform for when your eyelids are shut. There is just you and the sound. This is where resilience lives. Not in the ability to endure pain, but in the ability to recognize when you need relief. Resilience is not about bouncing back quickly; it is about slowing down enough to hear your own heartbeat again. It is about trusting that you can survive the dark, quiet moments. Many of us are terrified of silence. We fill it with TV, with podcasts, with chatter. But silence, paired with music, is not empty. It is full. It is full of your own thoughts, your own memories, your own feelings. When you close your eyes, you give yourself permission to go there. To visit the places you’ve been avoiding. To acknowledge the grief, the joy, the fear, the hope. All of it is there, waiting for you. And you don’t need to fix it. You just need to witness it. Listening with your eyes closed is an act of witnessing. It is saying to yourself, 'I am here. I am listening. I am safe.' And that simple affirmation can change the trajectory of your entire day. I want to invite you to try something tonight. Before you turn off the lights, before you scroll one last time, choose one song. Just one. Pick something that moves you. Maybe it’s an old favorite, maybe it’s something new. Put on your headphones or find a speaker that lets the sound surround you. Sit comfortably. Close your eyes. Take that deep breath we talked about earlier. And then, just listen. Notice where you feel the music in your body. Does the piano resonate in your fingertips? Does the drumbeat echo in your stomach? Let the visuals fade away. Imagine the sound as colors, as textures, as landscapes. If your mind wanders to your to-do list, gently bring it back to the sound. This is not about achieving a meditative state; it is about reconnecting with your senses. Do this for three minutes. Five minutes. As long as you can. And after you open your eyes, notice how you feel. Are your shoulders lower? Is your jaw less tight? Do you feel a little lighter? This is your nervous system thanking you. It is saying, 'Thank you for giving me a break.' Over time, this practice can rewire your response to stress. You will start to crave these moments of sensory retreat. You will learn to identify when you are overloaded and know exactly how to help yourself. You will become the guardian of your own peace. And in a world that constantly demands your attention, that is the most powerful thing you can offer yourself. You are teaching your body that it is okay to rest. You are proving that you are worth protecting. So tonight, make that promise. Close your eyes. Listen deeply. And let the music hold you. Take care of yourself, listener. I’m so glad you’re here. Until next time, keep listening, and keep breathing. You are doing better than you think.