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Shout out for peace and quiet
Green solutions to noise reduction could improve our mental and physical wellbeing.
Curran, James http://theecologist.org/2019/mar/07/shout-out-peace-and-quiet
Publisher: The Ecologist
Date Written: 07/03/2019
Year Published: 2019
Resource Type: Article
Noise is a cause of stress with physical and psychological effects on people and also harms the environment. Noise reductions needs to be made part of solutions such as industry standards and urban planning.
Abstract:
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Excerpt:
It would be in everyone's interest to tackle the various causes of stress. Many are related to work situations, many to personal and financial circumstances, but a proportion is attributable to environmental noise. Noise can be defined as unwanted sound. The descriptor "unwanted" immediately suggests that there will be an emotional or psychological response to the intrusion of noise into our lives....
The mechanisms for noise impact on human health and wellbeing remain uncertain. Noise will cause both psychological and physiological distress, disturbing homeostasis and increasing allostatic load. That means the internal balance within the human body, controlled by the nervous system and by hormones, is thrown out, resulting in elevated or fluctuating endocrine and nervous responses....
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recently issued a set of guidelines and thresholds for environmental noise. For example, it is recommended that human exposure to road noise should be limited to no more than 53 dB as an average. Above that level then there will be negative health impacts. At night, the level should not exceed 45 dB in order to maintain relatively healthy sleep patterns. For rail noise there are marginally different thresholds, 54dB and 44 dB respectively. Of course, industrial noise is already regulated by existing legal controls so should not be creating additional problems to any significant extent.
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