Noise Causes Stress That’s Bad For The Heart

Noise Causes Stress that’s bad for the Heart

 It’s long been thought that stress somehow contributes to heart attacks and new evidence suggests that road traffic noise can be a major cause of stress, and endorses the view that noise causes stress that’s bad for the heart and arteries.

Incredible though it may seem a NewYork research study claims that: if you live too close to road noise, your risk of having a heart attack jumps by 12 per cent per 10 decibels of sound.

It goes on to say:

“What is striking is that the increase in risk spans from 42 decibels to 84 decibels,”

according to the recent study’s author, Mette Sørensen from The Danish Cancer Society’s Institute of Cancer Epidemiology.

She goes on

“Traffic noise provokes a stress response, spiking your blood pressure and heart rate and depressing your immune system. It can also disrupt your sleep.”

Other studies link living close to traffic noise to higher BMI, (body mass index).

“If you live in a city, it’s not always possible to move far, far away from the hustle and bustle—and all the honking and hollering. But you can reduce your exposure and slash your risk by doing simple things like choosing a bedroom away from a busy street. Earplugs might work for some people, but not if you have small children. Instead, invest in indoor insulation to help soundproof your pad, such as triple glaze windows to help muffle road noise.”

Certainly excessive noise is one of the disconcerting and under recognized evils of our modern society, especially in towns and cities. It seems difficult though to get youngsters to appreciate the risks to their ears of playing music too loud on their mp3 players and there really should be a government awareness campaign about this otherwise we shall see a preponderance of half-deaf middle aged people within a generation or so.

Now we find that noise can also affect our health in even more serious and subtler ways. Certainly noise reduction is one of the advantages of double glazing that’s often under estimated, and it’s interesting to see that America is bringing triple glazing to the attention of the world!

Increasing evidence suggests that noise pollution is another problem that we have to face these days, and, knowing that noise causes stress that’s bad for the heart, there is a strong motivation surely to try to reduce general noise levels around you.