How Does Environmental Noise Affect Our Health?

– “ I have to face with all kinds of industrial noise in our factory, sometimes I have the feeling of tinnitus after work.”
– “ I was writing an important document, but the office is filled with typing sounds, printing sound. It is so hard for me to concentrate.”
– “ I stayed up late yesterday for work and today I had to get up early, but it is so crowded on the bus and the engine is making noise all the time I couldn’t even take a short nap on my way to work.”
– “ I work in the train station in Shanghai, and everyday there are on average 170 thousands of visitors coming and leaving from here. I have to be in this kind of noise environment everyday, and I really feel fainted and dizzy sometimes.”

Have you ever experienced these situations? Do you have these feelings ? 

In our daily life, noise is everywhere, mostly coming from construction areas, transportation, industrial environment or even bad weather, such as strong wind and heavy rain. Many people don’t even notice the surrounding noise, especially in big cities, the noise is just like the “ background music ” of urban life. People usually may not pay too much attention to noise anymore, because it happens everyday. We have become so used to a constant exposure, that noise has turned into our steady companion. However, noise is considered to be a type of environmental pollution, which is the third most serious pollution after air pollution and water pollution. Suffering from noise pollution over a long period of time will have negative effects on our health and can significantly damage our hearing.

Specifically, noise affects our sleep in a harmful way. 1/3 of our life is spent during sleep, making it a significant part of our life. It helps us to allay tiredness, recover energy and keep healthy. When sleep is disturbed, both work efficiency and health will be affected as well. According to a research, continuous noise can speed up the process of deep sleep to light sleep. It also makes people dream a lot, and shorten the time of deep sleeping.

In general, 10% people can be affected by a continuous noise of 40 dB; 50% people can be affected by a continuous noise of 70 dB. A sudden noise of 40 dB can wake 10% people up; when it reaches to 60 dB, it will wake 70% people up. Long-term interference with noise will cause sleeplessness, fatigue, hypomnesis, and neurasthenia. Especially in high noise environment, the incidence of these diseases can be 50%-60%.

In addition, noise is bad for our hearing. A constant noise exposure might cause tinnitus, deaf and hearing loss. Usually when the noise is over 55 dB, people will feel annoyed. If people are long-term in touch with noise over 85 dB, the possibility of being deaf after 40 years is 20%.

HOW QUIETON EARPLUGS CAN HELP DEALING WITH LOW FREQUENCY NOISES (i.e TRAFFIC NOISE, FACTORY NOISE, ENGINE NOISE…)

QuietOn with Active Noise Cancelling technology make a big difference at low frequencies, such as the hum of airplane engines, construction sites or normal background noise. For instance, airplane cabin noise sounds like a faint hum while wearing QuietOn earplugs. The earplugs significantly reduce stress levels caused by constant airplane cabin noise, traffic noise, or industrial noise.

References:

http://www.twoeggz.com/picture/6815516.html

http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-144-562522-1.shtml

http://www.haoshuimian.com/AboutSleepInfo.aspx?id=25