Drowning in Decibels: How Noise is Hurting Your Health and What You Can Do About It
Could that background noise be contributing to your burnout? Probably.
We often don’t realize just how much noise we are exposed to during our daily and nightly routines.
We might at first notice the traffic or the buzzing of a light bulb or the office printer or the hum of an air conditioner or the planes overhead but if we are exposed to them frequently enough, we get used to it. And if asked, you might think it no longer affects you.
It does. And it’s increasing your chronic stress, which increases your risk for burnout.
Similarly, many need, or think they need, background noise, to focus. And while certain frequencies (don’t worry, I’ll elaborate on what the hell this means) can improve focus, most are choosing TV or music or radio or podcasts that actually hurt our focus and add to the noise pollution that’s hurting our health.
Here’s the deal, it is super tempting for me to nerd out on you and start talking about the brain waves (Delta through Gamma), and the research on how brainwave training can help us, and the latest research on noise pollution in the United States and around the globe.
But, frankly, those have been written. What you’re most likely here for is to know what the hell to do about them so you can protect your health, decrease your risk for burnout, and perform at your best professionally and personally.
If you do want to nerd out, though I have links below to excellent articles to start with.
What Noise Are We Talking About?
Pretty much all of it. Start to pay attention to the sounds around you as you move through your day. The alarm clock, the coffee maker, the dishwasher, the sounds that come from making your breakfast, the coffee shop, the sound of the receipt being printed or the ding that the transaction is complete. The sounds of the coffee being made, and your name as it’s called out. The commuters around you—people, subway cars, trains, busses, cars, planes. Colleagues going about their work. Office equipment being used or sitting idle, the coffee maker or microwave in the break room. That little gurgle the 5-gallon water dispenser makes when someone is filling up their cup or bottle. The phone ringing, email notifications, chat notifications, social media notifications, all the notifications…Someone calling your name down the hallway or opening the door to your office your neighbor’s office.
The background noise you’re playing to drown out the unwanted noise around you so you can work…
Then all those sounds as you leave the office to grab lunch and the sounds of getting and eating lunch, and then returning to the office, rinse and repeat, and then leaving office to return home. Then the sounds of home. Making or ordering dinner, eating dinner, watching TV, still the phone notifications from apps or emails or texts or calls or all of the above.
The buzz of the electric toothbrush.
Only to finally be in bed to hear the hum of the humidifier or the fan or the space heater or the AC or the central heater.
The background noise you’re playing to drown out the unwanted noise around you so you can sleep…
Even if you work from home, you are exposed to noise while working.
Now, look, silence is impossible to find. As Michael Easter noted in his book The Comfort Crisis, even in nature and space, silence doesn’t exist.
However, we used to be a lot closer to experiencing silence than we are today. And that state, the state of let’s call it, quieter, is what our mind and body prefer. It puts us in a state of comfort. Or at least it used to. As Easter wrote, “We have in fact become so used to living with noise that most of us now find comfort in constant blare, according to a scientist in Australia.”
What Noise Are We NOT Talking About?
Quick aside here. If you listen to sleep stories or music that have been designed to facilitate sleep, I’m not talking about that necessarily. Nor am I talking about the sounds that you might listen to as part of brainwave training from apps like BrainWaves or under the care of medical providers in this field.
How is Noise Harming Me and My Performance?
There’s the obvious, hearing loss and tinnitus.
Then there’s the less obvious:
• cognitive impairment
• sleep disturbances
• speech interference
• lost productivity and achievement
• hindered cognition and learning
• frustration
• anger
• metabolic disturbances
• increased stress hormone levels
• increased blood pressure
• increased heart rate
The latter two can lead to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke, arterial hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and myocardial infarction.
Then there’s an increased risk of depression and anxiety, which increases the risk for unhealthy coping through alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and food, to name a few.
And then there’s premature death stemming from all of these.
Which begs the question, what can you do about it?
What Actions Can I Take Easily?
I say easily because let’s face it, we can’t just quit our lives and go live in the middle of nowhere with no way to provide for ourselves…I don’t know about you but my wilderness survival skills aren’t that great.
So what simple steps can you take to decrease the cacophony invading your current life?
Start by simply becoming more aware of the sounds around you. Ask yourself, how they are making you feel. The ones that seem most bothersome (either because they are interfering with your performance or they are driving frustration, etc.) are the ones you will want to address first.
Depending on the context, you might try noise-canceling headphones or trying earplugs. You can add insulation to rooms through rugs, carpets, or curtains. You can turn devices off or automate them so that they only operate during certain times of the day.
You can also turn down the volume of the sounds you are opting into, such as TV, radio, social media, video games, podcasts, and audiobooks. You can also turn them off more regularly. Quiet time is critical to our health and performance. Critical. If quiet feels uncomfortable for you at first, you aren’t alone. Remember that quote from Easter’s book? Start with a few minutes and increase as able.
Experiment with your options and see what works best.
FURTHER READING
Noise Could Take Years Off Your Life. Here Are the Health Impacts - The New York Times
Understanding Frequency - Brainwaves Blog
SOURCES
Noise Could Take Years Off Your Life. Here Are the Health Impacts - The New York Times
Clean Air Act Title IV - Noise Pollution | US EPA
Environmental Noise-Induced Effects on Stress Hormones, Oxidative Stress, and Vascular Dysfunction: Key Factors in the Relationship between Cerebrocardiovascular and Psychological Disorders - PMC
Cardiovascular effects of environmental noise exposure | European Heart Journal | Oxford Academic
Understanding Frequency - Brainwaves Blog