In December, I stopped listening to music. Not dramatically. No manifesto. I didn’t announce it on Instagram or replace playlists with monk chants. I just… didn’t press play.

No music in the car. No headphones on runs. No cycling with a beat pushing me forward.

Just silence, wind, breathing, tyres on asphalt, thoughts doing their annoying but necessary thing.

At first, it felt wrong. Almost suspiciously empty — like forgetting your phone at home and checking your pocket every five minutes. But then something unexpected happened: I became calmer. Not euphoric, not hyper-productive — just steady. My workouts stopped swinging between highs and crashes. My pacing improved. My focus deepened. My nervous system, it seems, finally exhaled.

This isn’t an anti-music manifesto. Music is powerful. Music is beautiful. Music has saved many of us more than once. But living with a constant soundtrack — especially in a city like Dubai, in a life full of pressure, speed, and stimulation — may be doing something to our brains that we don’t fully notice until we turn the volume down.

And science agrees.

Music isn't neutral. Neurologically, it is a shortcut — straight into the brain’s reward and emotion systems.

When you listen to music you enjoy, your brain releases dopamine, the same neurotransmitter involved in motivation, pleasure, and anticipation. Studies using PET scans have shown dopamine spikes not only when the “good part” of a song hits, but even before it arrives — your brain predicting pleasure. This is why music is so effective during workouts: it makes effort feel easier by chemically rewarding you for continuing.

But dopamine is not calm. Dopamine is a drive.

Chronic dopamine stimulation — not just from music, but from notifications, podcasts, reels, constant audio input — keeps the brain in a state of anticipatory tension. You are always waiting for the next drop, the next chorus, the next emotional cue. Over time, this can make stillness feel uncomfortable and silence feel like deprivation.

In other words: if your brain is used to being entertained, regulated, or soothed externally, it forgets how to self-regulate.

Endurance sports aren't just physical — they are deeply neurological. Cycling, running, swimming all rely on the brain’s ability to manage discomfort, pace effort, and regulate stress responses over time.

Music can help — especially at high intensities. Research consistently shows that music can lower perceived exertion (RPE), improve mood, and increase time to exhaustion during hard efforts. That is why interval sessions with music feel easier and why spin classes thrive on playlists.

But here is the catch: for steady-state training, silence may be more effective.

Without music, your brain receives clearer internal signals. You hear your breathing. You feel your cadence. You notice subtle fatigue instead of overriding it. Studies in sports psychology suggest that athletes training without external stimuli develop better interoceptive awareness — the ability to sense internal bodily states. This is linked to improved pacing, fewer burnout cycles, and better long-term consistency.

That is exactly what I noticed. My workouts stopped being emotional. They became procedural. I wasn’t chasing energy — I was managing it.

There is another layer here, and it isn't about performance — it is about mental health.

Music activates the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain. This is why songs trigger memories instantly, why breakups have soundtracks, why certain tracks can ruin you for life (you know the ones). When you live with constant music, you are also living with constant emotional priming.

Silence, on the other hand, activates the default mode network — the brain system associated with self-reflection, memory integration, and emotional processing. This network is crucial for mental resilience, creativity, and emotional regulation.

In simpler terms: silence lets the brain clean up.

Studies on sensory deprivation (even mild forms, like quiet walks or silent driving) show reductions in cortisol levels and improvements in emotional clarity. You aren't numbing yourself — you are allowing unresolved thoughts to surface, process, and settle.

This might be uncomfortable at first. Silence doesn’t distract. It confronts.

But confrontation is often where calm begins.

We have learned to treat silence as a problem to solve.

Waiting? Put on a podcast. Training? Add music. Driving? Fill the space. Thinking? Distract it.

In hyper-productive cultures — and Dubai is one of them — silence feels unproductive. Like wasted time. Like vulnerability. But from a neurological perspective, constant audio input keeps the brain in a reactive state, not a reflective one.

When I stopped listening to music, I noticed how often I was using it to regulate my mood instead of understanding it. Music was helping me cope — but also preventing me from listening to myself.

That doesn’t mean music is bad. It means it is powerful. And powerful tools need boundaries.

There is no moral superiority in silence. Some days, music is exactly what you need — to push, to heal, to feel. But letting music become a constant background to life removes its impact and dulls your internal signals.

Now, I choose.

Hard intervals? Music sometimes.

Long endurance rides? Mostly silence.

Running? Breathing, steps, city noise.

Driving? Often quiet — surprisingly therapeutic.

And the result isn't less emotion, but more control. Less chaos. More rhythm.

No soundtrack doesn’t mean no feeling. It means the feeling comes from inside.

And in a world constantly telling us what to hear, how to feel, when to react — choosing silence might be one of the most radical forms of self-respect.

Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do for your brain is simply not press play.