'A violinist tried it and hammered on the door after a few seconds, demanding to be let out because he was so disturbed by the silence'

My quest started when I was in the New York subway. My children were whining, four trains came screaming into the station at once and I put my hands over my ears and cowered – the noise was deafening.

In cities, the ever-present dull background roar of planes, cars, machinery and voices is a fact of life. There is no escape from it and I was beginning to be driven mad by it.

In an attempt to recapture some peace, I decided to go on a mission to find the quietest place on Earth; to discover whether absolute silence exists. I travelled to a Cistercian monastery, an American Indian sweat lodge and a nickel mine 2km underground – all very quiet but not the holy grail of silence. The one place I was most excited about visiting was the anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minnesota.

This is a small room, massively insulated with layers of concrete and steel to block out exterior sources of noise, and internally lined with crosshatched buffers that absorb all sound. Even the floor is a suspended mesh to stop any sound of footfalls. If a soft whisper is measured at 20 decibels, the anechoic chamber is 1/16th of that. It is the Guinness World Records's quietest place on earth – 99.9% sound-absorbent.

Ironically, far from being peaceful, most people find its perfect quiet upsetting. Being deprived of the usual reassuring ambient sounds can induce fear – it explains why sensory deprivation is a form of torture. Astronauts do part of their training in anechoic chambers at Nasa, so they can learn to cope with the silence of space. The presence of sound means things are working; it's business as usual – when sound is absent, that signals malfunction. On 9/11, despite being out of mobile phone reception, a huge number of hikers abandoned their walks. They hadn't heard about the terrorist attacks; they were just spooked by the lack of aeroplane noise and sensed something was wrong.

I had heard being in an anechoic chamber for longer than 15 minutes can cause extreme symptoms, from claustrophobia and nausea to panic attacks and aural hallucinations – you literally start hearing things. A violinist tried it and hammered on the door after a few seconds, demanding to be let out because he was so disturbed by the silence.

I booked a 45-minute session – no one had managed to stay in for that long before. I felt apprehensive for two reasons: would I go stark, staring mad and tear off my clothes? Or would I simply be disappointed it wasn't as enjoyable as I'd hoped?

When the heavy door shut behind me, I was plunged into darkness (lights can make a noise). For the first few seconds, being in such a quiet place felt like nirvana, a balm for my jangled nerves. I strained to hear something and heard… nothing.

Then, after a minute or two, I became aware of the sound of my breathing, so I held my breath. The dull thump of my heartbeat became apparent – nothing I could do about that. As the minutes ticked by, I started to hear the blood rushing in my veins. Your ears become more sensitive as a place gets quieter, and mine were going overtime. I frowned and heard my scalp moving over my skull, which was eerie, and a strange, metallic scraping noise I couldn't explain. Was I hallucinating? The feeling of peace was spoiled by a tinge of disappointment – this place wasn't quiet at all. You'd have to be dead for absolute silence.

Then I stopped obsessing about what bodily functions I could hear and began to enjoy it. I didn't feel afraid and came out only because my time was up; I would happily have spent longer in there. Everyone was impressed that I'd beaten the record, but having spent so long searching for quiet, I was comfortable with the feeling of absolute stillness. Afterwards I felt wonderfully rested and calm.

My desire for silence changed my life. I found that making space for moments of quiet in my day is the key to happiness – they give you a chance to think about what you want in life. How can you really focus on what's important if you're distracted by constant background noise? If you can occasionally become master of your own sound environment – from turning off the TV to moving to the country, as I did – you become a lot more accepting of the noises of everyday life.

• As told to Emily Cunningham

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