Common perception vs. academic research on noise stress



Noise pollution is one of the most underrated pollutants in our lives. We might love karaoke, or concerts, disco, and so on. Of course, we all have our earplugs, we listen to music when commuting, or basically almost every time we are by ourselves.

Because earplugs or loud public transportation/traffic is so common in our daily lives, noise stress can be an invisible danger for our health. 

In fact, research shows that noise stress can lead to physical and mental impairments, including chronic sleep disturbance, cardiovascular disease, or even premature deaths.

In a heavily technological world, we will have to learn how to navigate a noise-stressing society. What we need is:

  • to mitigate "invisible noise stress" voluntarily as much as possible (individually)
  • to eliminate unnecessary noise pollutants in public sphere (collectively)
  • to identify individual and collective issues and devising their solutions accordingly. 



written by Ken.

Links consulted 

・How does environmental noise pollution impact my health? (2023, July 10). European Environment Agency’s Home Page. https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/about/contact-us/faqs/how-does-environmental-noise-pollution-impact-my-health#:~:text=The%20EEA%20estimates%20that%20environmental,people%20suffer%20chronic%20sleep%20disturbance

・Millar, H. (2020, December 22). What are the health effects of noise pollution? https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/noise-pollution-health-effects#physical-health. 

Comments

Vivi said…
I never thought of noise as something dangerous to my health. Since I was little, big trucks and bousouzoku motorcycles had always made noise in front of my house. Because of this, whenever I am watching TV or listening to music on my phone, I tend to raise the volume higher than it should be. I could guess that noise causes migraines and hearing loss, but I didn't that it could actually cause you to die. From now on, I will make sure to keep the volume on my headphones as low as possible.
July 16, 2024 at 12:38 PM
Kanako said…
I never realized that noise could affect our health that much and is a serious problem. But I do always get annoyed whenever I hear the really loud noises of motorcycles and trucks with big screen ads on them. But I didn't know that those sounds and the stress coming from them could actually inflict diseases and hearing impairments. In Japan, it is not considered something that they have to improve on, and a lot of people don't even see it as a problem. But reading this post made me think we really have to do something about it.
July 16, 2024 at 4:50 PM
Shimo said…
I didn't know that noise pollution is one of the social problems. I feel sometimes in my neighborhood that loudness of motorbikes or construction or something like that, but also listening to music with earplugs has the potential to be dangerous for our health was a surprising fact. When I feel some noise in my neighborhood, I just feel it’s noisy and I don’t feel the danger of bad effects to me physically and mentally, so after read your survey, I have to care about invisible noise stress and I will turn down the volume of my earplugs when I listen to music from now on.
July 24, 2024 at 11:17 AM
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