I can’t bear noise any more. I must be getting old. Whereas I used to have music playing at full blast at all times, or at least a television set on somewhere in the background, I now long for peace and quiet. Sometimes I could kill for some tranquility, like when they decided to dig up my road in the middle of the night. The sound of a pneumatic drill must surely qualify as torture, noise pollution is barely apt for such a horrific din! Or when lorries screech on the brakes or when young men on bikes decide to race down my street or or... The sources of unwanted noise have become limitless in modern city life.
Noise is such a blight that I now carry pain-killers in my handbag when I go out for dinner in anticipation for the headache that will surely come after an evening spent screaming in order to get heard. And I’ve tried out every brand of earplug on the market; I find wax plugs work best for me. Don’t tell anyone but I even wear them when I use the vacuum cleaner! My intolerance to noise has got so bad, I think I must be turning into my mother!
I thought noise was just a nuisance, something we all have to live with. What I did not realize is that noise kills.
Preliminary findings from a World Health Organization (WHO) study point to an alarming link between noise pollution and premature death. In Europe alone it is estimated that long-term exposure to traffic noise may account for as many as 210,000 deaths a year from ischemic heart disease, essentially strokes and heart attacks.
The key as ever is stress. Noise causes chronic stress, the kind that keeps you constantly on edge. It means that you never quite switch off; even when you sleep you maintain a level of alertness that reacts to noise in the environment. Stress leads your body to release stress hormones and if the level of these hormones is constantly elevated it results in long-term physiological changes. These make you more susceptible to heart disease and high blood pressure and also weaken your immune system. In short, constantly being exposed to noise can be life threatening.
The effect of noise on sleep is debilitating. The WHO findings suggest that at least two percent of Europeans suffer from seriously disturbed sleep as a result of noise pollution. Another 15 percent of Europeans report suffering severe annoyance due to noise. It’s bad enough for us adults; it is even worse for children. Listening to loud music on mp3 players and personal stereo systems, as well as the loud music that is played in venues popular with children and teenagers, destroys their hearing: Nearly two percent of 7-19 year olds in Europe are reported to suffer from hearing loss due to exposure to leisure noise. That is almost 7000 youngsters a year. More over exposure to traffic and other forms of noise pollution also slows down their ability to learn.
Just how much noise does it take? Sound exposure is measured in decibels. A noise level of over 35 dB is enough to cause general annoyance, 42 dB will keep most of us from sleeping, 55 dB will have a negative impact on children’s ability to learn, 75 dB will have you screaming to get heard. In Europe it is estimated that about 40 percent of the population is exposed to daytime levels of noise exceeding 55 dB whilst at night the percentage drops only to 30 percent. In other words, more than one in four people are exposed to levels of nighttime noise that will severely disturb their sleep. Is it any wonder people are so stressed?
But what is worse is that if these are the levels in Europe, can you imagine the noise levels in densely populated cities in developing countries?
We all know that noise is annoying. It keeps us from sleeping. It makes us irritable and short-tempered. It drives us to distraction as the saying goes. It also keeps children from learning and damages their hearing. Yet we do not take noise pollution nearly as seriously as we should. Perhaps these findings will provide a much-needed wake-up call not just to stressed out city-dwellers but to policy-makers the world over. Perhaps we will finally get some peace and quiet.
