Noise: a Health Hazard More Pervasive Than Second Hand Smoke
Posted by Chris O' Brien on Mon, Mar 26, 2012 @ 11:42 AM
Despite the fact that the health effects of noise on most of the earth's population are demonstrably serious, noise pollution continues to be largely ignored by the environmental agencies, world governments, and most of the individuals it is harming. Second hand smoke earned a long, vocal, and eventually effective campaign to raise awareness and eventually create change. Second hand noise needs such a campaign.
Noise pollution is damaging our hearing, stressing us out, contributing to heart disease and interfering with our ability to sleep, concentrate, and be productive. It has proven to interfere with childrens' ability to learn. People who suffer from mild to severe forms of mental illness - from depression to schizophrenia - suffer heightened symptoms when exposure to noise is chronic, which is the case in most cities, areas adjacent to highways or near airports, in mixed-use communities with industrial plants and night clubs intermingled with residential neighborhoods.
Below is an article by A.J. Jacobs excerpted from the Wall Street Journal about his recent realization of the seriousness of noise pollution's damage to our hearing and health. The article describes an epiphany-like awareness of the effects of continual noise when it occurs to him that his three small sons, adorable noise-makers in their own right - are facing lifelong exposure to unhealthy noise levels, without even leaving their home. Jacobs makes many excellent observations in the article, but my favorite really hit home:
"A decibel level above 85—the sound of a lawn mower—can cause permanent hearing loss. My son's tantrum over missing the last five minutes of "Bubble Guppies" registered at 91, a subway car as it entered the station hit 110."
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Unsafe
Noise is one of the great neglected health hazards of our time - the second hand smoke of our ears.
By A.J. Jacobs
My wife and I recently took our three sons to Benihana for dinner. It's their favorite restaurant, thanks to the unbeatable combination of airborne food and machete-size knives.
But what I noticed was the noise: the hiss of the soy sauce on the grill, the escalating chatter of the crowd—and our young sons, who are loud beyond comprehension. Each carried a little plastic trumpet from a birthday party, so it was like being followed around by our own private South African soccer game. We finally pried the ghastly instruments from their hands.
I've started to become aware of just how loud our world is. Spend an hour listening. The chirping text messages, the droning airplanes, the flatulent trucks,the howling cable pundits, the chiming MacBooks.
And noise is no minor nuisance. It is one of the great underappreciated health hazards of our time - the second hand smoke of our times.
Noise pollution doesn't get the attention of A-list diseases, but there are a few crusaders raising their voices against the onslaught. One of them is Arline Bronzaft. a professor emeritus at the City University of New York.
What's the problem with this high-decibel world? "The most obvious one is hearing loss," Dr. Bronzaft says. Some 26 million adults are walking around with noise-induced hearing loss, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Noise also has a surprisingly potent effect on our stress level, cardiovascular system and concentration. In Paleo times, a loud noise signaled a threat, so noise triggers the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which raises blood pressure.
A University of British Columbia review of 6,300 people who work in noisy jobs found that they suffer two to three times more heart problems than those who work in quiet settings. A former World Health Organization official estimates (with a bit of alarmism) that noise-induced strain may cause 45,000 deadly heart attacks a year.
Noise also wreaks havoc on the brain. Dr. Bronzaft conducted a landmark study at a public school in Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood, published in the journal Environment and Behavior in 1975. Some of the classrooms directly faced an elevated subway track. Every five minutes the students heard a train rattle by. Other classrooms were tucked on the opposite side of the building, away from the noise. The difference? By the sixth grade, the kids on the noisy side were nearly a year behind. Since then, her conclusions about the effects of noise on concentration have been backed up by a pile of other studies, on both students and adults.
After meeting Dr. Bronzaft, I pledged to turn down the volume on my own life. I started in my kids' room. I dug out all of their beeping, yammering electronic toys and spent a half-hour putting masking tape over the plastic speakers
 Getty Images
Just how loud is that tantrum? The decibel meter says: ouch.
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"What are you doing, Daddy?" asked my son Zane. "Just fixing the broken toys," I half-lied. It was a smashing success, at least from my point of view. You can still hear "Chicken Dance Elmo" demand that we "flap our wings," but he sounds like he's submerged in a bathtub, which is what I'd really like to do to him.
Next up, ear protection. I tried rubber earplugs for a week, but I found them uncomfortable, so I shelled out for Bose noise-canceling headphones. On a plane trip to Atlanta, I slipped them over my ears, clicked the power switch and…well, the world didn't go silent. But the headphones did turn the volume down from a 10 to a 7. Life took on a sort of dreamy, uterine feel.
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In the next few weeks, I started to wear my headphones more and more—big silver-and-black earmuffs. My wife, Julie, has taken to calling me Lionel Richie, because I look like I just walked out of the recording studio for "We Are the World." She remains skeptical, though, so to prove just how perilously loud our lives are, I ordered a decibel meter that I now take everywhere.
A decibel level above 85—the sound of a lawn mower—can cause permanent hearing loss. My son's tantrum over missing the last five minutes of "Bubble Guppies" registered at 91, a subway car as it entered the station hit 110.
I tried to get a reading in an argument with Julie about whether or not I misplaced her Time magazine, but when I put the decibel meter near her mouth, she refused to talk. As the physicist Werner Heisenberg discovered about the quantum world, taking measurements can mess with reality.
By A.J. Jacobs, Wall Street Journal, 3/24/2012.
—Adapted from "Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection" by A.J. Jacobs, out in early April from Simon & Schuster.