This time we’re chatting with Sarah Anderson, a painter, founder of London’s Travel Bookshop (yep, the one in Notting Hill) and the writer behind new book The Lost Art Of Silence.

Hi, Sarah! If you could recommend One Good Thing everyone can do to benefit their mental health, what would it be?

Having just published a book on the benefits of silence, the thing I would recommend for people is to seek out and find pockets of silence in their lives.

Makes sense. Why?

We live in an increasingly noisy world and to step away from this noisy world, even for a short time, can bring enormous benefits. Finding silence can be easy, even in a city, but is often not simple.

How does silence work to bring us calm?

By stepping away from the din of daily life we can begin to reconnect to our silent centre, enabling us to shed many of the stresses that we regularly encounter. It gives us time to think or just to ‘be’. We do have some control over the sound around us – we can remove earphones and turn off music – but it’s harder to escape the ‘background’ music in shops and restaurants. However, with a little imagination, it is possible to achieve silence. Parks, cemeteries and places of worship can all be useful as silent spaces.

One Good Thing: how pursuing pockets of silence can benefit your mental health