WORDS BY AYALA MARTIN PHOTOGRAPHY BY COTTONBRO STUDIO & FANETTE GUILLOUD
T
here is a stretch of forest in Oregon’s Willamette Valley where the Douglas firs grow so dense they swallow sound. No cell signals pierce the canopy. No Wi-Fi passwords hum in the underbrush. The only notifications here come from woodpecker Morse code and the creak of branches bowing under their own weight. This place isn’t remote—it’s 90 minutes from Portland—but it feels like a glitch in the algorithm of modern life. Scientists call these zones “quiet areas,” pockets of land where human noise pollution drops below 30 decibels. In 2024, researchers found something unsettling: Over 60% of people under 35 reported feeling visceral unease in such silence. Their brains, wired for the fractal chaos of apps and alerts, misfired in the absence of input. One participant described it as “hearing my own pulse for the first time. It freaked me out.”
But how’s this for a paradox: What terrifies us might also save us.
Shari B. Kaplan LCSW, a clinical director with 30 years of experience and creator of integrative mental health programs at Cannectd Wellness, puts it plainly: “In a fast-paced world dominated by screens and urban living, the call of nature has become more than a longing—it’s a necessity.”
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