Try to think of the last time you sat in complete silence. In today’s world, we’ve become accustomed to living life the noisy way. Whether it’s the sound of traffic, the ding of a notification, or the people chattering across the street, silence has become the ultimate luxury.

Unwanted noise may just be the toughest form of sensory overload. If a sight bothers you, you can turn the other way. Unpleasant taste? Spit it out. But noise… Noise is enveloping. It is “the most impertinent of all forms of interruption,” as German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer put it.

The fight against noise. Humans have been chasing noise control since long before our time. In 60 BCE, the Greek colony Sybaris recorded the first-ever law against noise, with those who made excessive sound in their day-to-day work ordered to live outside the city walls. This included potters, tinsmiths, and tradesmen — offering one early example of how noise came to be associated with the working classes and used to justify or reinforce class segregation.

The 20th century only saw the anti-noise crusade broaden: At the turn of the century, NYC socialite Julia Barnett Rice founded the aptly named Society for the Suppression on Unnecessary Noise. Through the society, Rice sought to highlight the negative health effects of exposure to noise — particularly for New York’s poorest. Rice’s campaigning — which involved forcing New York’s wealthy to listen to graphophone recordings of the city’s loudest streets from the comfort of her quiet mansion — led to the establishment of “quiet zones” around schools and hospitals, presaging US zoning rules that would protect parks and other public spaces from excessive noise.

Today, silence is still sought after. In a modern world marked by dense urbanization, significant industry, and of course our favorite noisy distraction — traffic — being quiet is increasingly associated with premium products or experiences. Take air conditioning, for example: “You go into a hotel room, and the air conditioner makes a lot of noise,” says Tom Hanschen, a corporate scientist for US multinational 3M. “What does that tell you? It’s cheap. Quietness is a sign of quality.”

Cars offer a good example. Ensuring a quiet cabin is one of the key means by which carmakers raise the value of their vehicles — particularly when they can offer F1-level horsepower at the same time. This kind of silence is associated with luxury in part because it’s really difficult to copy in cheaper vehicles — sound-absorbing insulation, expensive engineering, and tricks to make vehicles more aerodynamic are quite difficult to translate to vehicles selling at a cheaper price point, Wired writes.

It’s not just physical products that reflect the value of silence, though. Take exclusive airport lounges, for example. These are only accessible to first-class travellers or those who have purchased a pricey membership. Part of the promotional nature of these lounges is the idea that once a guest enters, they become segregated from the noise in the airport — highlighting, again, the classed nature of access to silence. American Airlines markets its exclusive “Admirals Club” as “an oasis of peace — away from all of the airport hustle.”

Silent retreats offer another — very explicit — example of how much we value quiet. Amid the growing trend of wellness retreats, silent retreats have emerged as a big ticket option for those that want to turn off everything — including their (and others’) mouths. Ranging from several days to weeks at a time, and organized by professionals or by individuals as ad hoc stays at monasteries, for instance, the rise of the silent retreat indexes a deep-seated desire — particularly among the well-off — to disconnect and reorient their relationship to an outside world moving at warp speed.

Despite the hype, the research indicates silence actually is quite good for you. A well-established body of research has shown that excessive noise increases stress hormones, blood pressure, and likelihood of chronic illnesses. Researchers in Denmark — which collects some of the most comprehensive data on its citizens’ health — have found correlations between road noise and greater cases of diabetes and higher cardiovascular, respiratory, and cancer mortality.

Silence’s benefits extend beyond our physical health. Matthew Crawford, author of TheWorld Beyond Your Head, believes that the absence of noise should be treated as a vital resource as part of the common good — like water and air. “As clean air makes respiration possible, silence, in this broader sense, is what makes it possible to think,” he said.