Travel influencer Sophi Cooke’s mom, Pat, has a very different approach to long flights, which Cooke couldn’t help but share on TikTok. She just sits there.

If you’re like most people, your carry-on bag for a flight is full to the brim with a gazillion different ways to pass the seemingly interminable torture of a plane ride, especially if it’s a long international flight. But Cooke’s mom brings nothing at all, and her attitude really says something about the way all our electronic devices have changed our lives.

Pat prefers to sit silently on flights, including long international ones, without even a pair of headphones.

If you’re anything like me, just the very notion of this is making your skin start to itch, and your breath quicken. But that’s how Cooke’s mom rolls, every time, no matter how long the trip. Cooke shared a video of her mom, Pat, doing what she called “raw dogging” her flight to Europe with nothing to entertain her but … her own thoughts.

Over the footage of her mom just chilling, the influencer wrote that her mom’s “beige flag” is that she “raw dogs every flight, no matter how long.” Noting that the flight in question was nine hours long, she went on to say her mom had “no iPad, no headphones, no book.”

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Pat explained that rather than being entertained, she sits quietly on flights with her thoughts and just ‘chills.’

Pat really is doing something different here, and after the video of her “raw dogging” her flights went viral on not just TikTok but X too, Cooke made a follow-up video in which Pat explained why she prefers to travel in silence.

“OK, so here’s my rationale,” Pat said. “I’m 61-years-old, I appreciate the downtime.” OK, but what are you doing with those nine hours of downtime, Pat? “Think about your goals. Maybe your regrets, maybe your fantasies. And just chill!”

Though, to be fair, Pat added that even she relies on a few external stimuli: “Obviously, wine and chocolate.” (Now you’re talking!) But, booze and sweets aside, people on TikTok were definitely shaken up by Pat’s method. “Your mom is built different,” one person wrote, while another exclaimed, “Just alone with her thoughts?!” 

Not everyone was turned off by the idea, though. Many thought it sounded like a nice escape, with one person with ADHD saying they’d “love nine hours to think, reflect, and recharge!” And it turns out, science says Pat might be on to something, too.

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Pat’s approach and the reaction it garnered show just how uncomfortable we’ve all become with silence, and it’s harming our mental health.

If you’re of a certain age, you remember a time back before cellphones, when we all did quite a lot of what Pat is doing on her long plane rides. But now, nearly all of us have lost this skill. The minute more than a few seconds of silence go by, we pull out the phone or iPad and entertain ourselves. And studies have shown pretty conclusively that that’s really, really bad for us.

Psychologists say that the constant stimuli provided by our devices not only overstimulates us, exhausting our brains, but it also insulates us from life’s small uncertainties, like what to do with ourselves during the uncomfortable silence of a waiting room or, yes, even a flight, which makes even bigger stressors feel more difficult to handle when they come along.

Anna Shvets | Pexels

The data is pretty clear on how this is impacting us. A 2022 survey by the American Psychological Association found that more than a quarter of Americans are so stressed they can’t function, and incidences of anxiety and depression have been increasing for years.

When it comes to helping remedy this, mental health professionals say mindfulness practices are among the greatest tools we have, from meditation and breathing exercises to simply sitting in silence with your thoughts. It’s “raw dogging” life for a few minutes a day, if you will. (Medication and therapy help too, of course.)

Personally, I’m still never setting foot on a plane without my noise-canceling headphones and a minimum of 15 downloaded episodes of at least five different “Real Housewives” franchises. But we might all benefit from re-learning, or learning for the first time, how to just sit in stillness and silence like Pat does now and then.

And when all else fails, there’s always wine and chocolate.

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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.