Ever suspect that the annoying din of everyday life may be causing you to be more than merely annoyed? Increasing evidence, outlined in this article in yesterday’s Washington Post, suggests that noise may be activating the natural stress response in humans:
As a result of that hormonal activation, children near the working Munich airports had significantly higher blood pressure than children in quieter neighborhoods — adding to their risk of having a heart attack or stroke later in life. Similar impacts have been documented among adults near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and Stockholm’s Arlanda airport, where chronic noise as low as 55 decibels correlated with more doctor visits, high blood pressure and treatments for heart troubles.
Whether traffic noise actually increases one’s chances of having heart disease or a heart attack has been harder to determine, because such studies require large numbers of people. But the evidence for at least a modest effect is growing.
This would be consistent with evolutionary psychology theory and the “fight or flight” response. A loud noise is a unique event in nature — and usually is a sign of something dangerous (think “tree falling” or “waterfall” or “thunder and lightening”). While man went ahead and made all kinds of devices that make a lot of noise (airplanes, leaf blowers, etc.) and serve a useful purpose, we never stopped to consider what these innovations do for our well-being.
We just assume, “Well, we’ll adapt.” I guess some people do. But research such as this suggests a lot of people also don’t adapt very well (even decades after the introduction of the jet engine). Maybe it’s time to take a second, serious look at how much noise we allow in our everyday environments.
Noise may be the tip of a very large stress iceberg.
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4 Comments to
“Noise Activates Our Stress Hormones”
It’s certainly a very big stress issue for me. It greatly affects my quality of life. Sound is a great pleasure to me, but I also have to listen to it to do my work, which I do from home. I have no head room, no air space, no peace, no escape. I keep moving, the noise keeps increasing.
Many noisy devices such as airplanes could be muffled. However, I think the biggest source of noise today is recreational noise made for the fun of it: modified mufflers and boom audio. These are broadcast a great distance day and night and affect many people. I moved to a small town for quiet but it has been unregulated hell and I am working hard to get back to civilization. There is no “away.”
The only escape is to live in a rural area…far away from anything…surrounded by stuff that muffles sound.
That..
or…
Figure out some technology, that will insulate you from any noise… any EMF or frequency.
Then, find some way to spend most of your time within that environment. like computer work or what have you.
I can tell you living in a rural area does wonders for your stress level. Because its not just the absence of engine noises…. its the fact that the sound of nature actually is stress-RELIEVING.
We are coming into some interesting times now. Techology is almost the next evolution. Just like we are killing the apes..now technology is killing us.
You need to be above all this…and understand it all… only then can we think of ways to seperate ourselves from the madness.
I work in loud factory and the stress and noise has led to depression and loss of qualty of life with myself and fellow employee’s. Our nurse was retired for speaking up on this issue. oh this is a major soda company
My neighbor uses his chainsaw so much, and it just adds to my stress making it seem almost impossible to deal with
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 6 Jun 2007
