Noise damaging our health

I, too, hate light pollution and try to turn all lights off, especially outdoor lights. Darkness is natural, necessary and healthy.

I hate noise but often I find other people consider me odd for being like this. I’ve known instinctively that it’s bad for you, for years. It’s the best bit of news today and needs to be taken seriously.

We moved to a new estate in a town and it’s so much quieter than when we lived in a village!

Regular noises can often be ignored as they have a pattern to them, but odd noises at irregular times are often more difficult to ignore. I dont sleep very well due to my back problems mostly but I have the wonderful J S BACH to cheer my day. So if I am awake very early the Bach before 7 (about 10 to 7 am ) gives me an opportunity to "restart" my day, and ignore what went before. It is always calming and cheering for me. So again at night, if I cant get off to sleep , more Bach is my answer to many things, so I "Take one Bach!" at any stressful time and it is my go to on all occasions. Fortunately there are so many different pieces to listen to , I never get tired of his music!

/ meant to say, heavily laden planes, flying low, is unusual so wake us,
- they are not passenger planes which fly high above us here soundlessly

AuntieE - yes this is interesting - where we live there are bright lights outside since January on all night for security.
We have blackout blinds, heavy curtains, anti glare film on
the glass, still the light penetrates, birds singing all night.
We have eyemasks too, but still our sleep is disturbed.

Can you provide links to any articles which may provide relief?

Noise too of course, sudden, loud hard noises ie car doors slammed at 2.13 am, or this week we. noticed, heavy planes flying low overnight wake us. We are in an area of airfields.
OH woke startled, ‘are we at war?’

We can become acclimatised to noises its true but screeching screaming! children never, hard wired as we are to sounds of distress and alert, that we are instantly adrenaline fuelled, as in young women in the road late at night, screaming, are they high spirited or in mortal danger.
Screaming without fear should be an offense, it is certainly offensive (to ears)

We lived for a while near an airport, neighbours would carry on a conversation when a plane passed over but all you could see was their lips moving, the noise of the plane completely obliterated all other noise but the neighbours really didn't seem aware.

We have incredibly loud neighbours. The children scream and yell all the time when in the garden. Their garden is very long, if the children play down there, the parents will shout and yell to get their attention. Oh, and they have a dog that barks and barks. I dread weekends and school holidays.

I am surprised that you didn't all know this, as the facts have been available for twenty years or so.

I find it quite fascinating, but also a little worrying, that it seems entirely to depend on which country you live in, which of this kind of research is made available to the general public and when.

Do you know in the UK that artificial lighting outside after dark, damages the health of nocturnal animals, and even of some animals and birds that are awake during daylight, and may even be detrimental to human health? There is focus on this in the Scandanavian countries.

I was brought up in a city but don't like being there now. I live in a rural area where sometimes you can actually hear the silence.
The only disturbance is occasional barking from neighbours dogs.

I live in and enjoy relative quiet until kids start wolloping a football on a grassed area where it is prohibited. Parents just say the kids need to play, most of them don't live immediately close to the noise. If I link in to the noise I do find myself being anxious and can't sit down and relax. By the way, adults often join in to play too. Persistent noise, to a certain level, becomes the norm, intermittent I feel is worse and is more noticeable.

The only time I like quiet is when I’m trying to sleep - even then , I often watch something on my iPad and fall asleep. It’s 1.30a.m and I’m wide awake

The noise the wheels on my suitcase made on the pavement as I walked down from Weimar station to the city centre was so embarrassing that I ended up carrying it.

Re new housing estates, people lived and still do, happily, in rows of terraced house cheek by jowl, a lot choose that type of house, maybe they become friendlier with their neighbours.
I don’t mind some noise and often have the radio on low if I’m in the house on my own, but our garden is generally peaceful.

Oh...I love a bit of bustle around me. I like silence for sleep, but I like the sounds of my high street as much as the sounds of my park.

ViceVersa

I need peace and quiet. I love my GS to bits, but he literally (and yes, I do mean it literally!) never stops talking when he is here, so when he goes home, I find I really need to just sit in a quiet room and decompress. Children screeching and screaming really sets my nerves on edge too. I couldn't live in a city either.

Don't children make a noise in the countryside?

This reminds me of years ago staying in a lively holiday resort. I got talking to a Welsh farmer who said he loved going there for the peace and quiet, especially at night.
'But you live in the country,' I said.
'Oh it's so noisy though,' he replied in his lovely Welsh accent, 'because of the sheep! They keep me awake all night with their constant bleating...'
I've never forgotten that conversation.

Where I live now is the quietest place I've ever lived and I admit to loving it. It isn't in the countryside though, we are minutes away from a busy motorway junction but are surroundered by trees which I think helps to cushion the noise.

Maybe this is why I feel the healthiest I've ever been?

Sometimes in department stores you find yourself between two departments and can hear two different types of music at once. How the people who work there don't go mad is beyond me.

I don't like buskers either, with their tinny renditions of hackneyed 'choons'. I agree, I encountered one the other day he was singing "I never felt more like singing the blues" having to listen to him I felt the same way.

Christmas songs in shops annoy me particularly, they put on the same old selection of old Christmas pop songs every year from September onwards.

I agree, Mum2three. Whenever I go to London, I am astonished at how people have to live cheek by jowl with each other, and all their annoying habits. Everything is so tiny and crammed in. I’ve been spoilt by having the wide open spaces of Scotland to live in.

Dogs barking is one sound that really sets me on edge, I can feel my heart rate increasing even as I type this! I’ve lived in noisy cities that have 24 hr noise, with air conditioning and traffic etc and you do become accustomed to it to some degree. When we came home for holidays I used to not be able to sleep for the first few nights because of the absolute silence. I remember one time thinking I’d gone dead because I really could not hear a single noise.

Music in shops drives me insane, it makes me hurry though and get out asap to get away from the cacophony. I don’t like most buskers either, with their tinny renditions of hackneyed ‘choons’.

I agree too mum2three. As you drive along the motorway you see housing estates going up feet from the hard shoulder with only a fence to protect them from what must be a constant and deafening roar.

I couldn’t agree more mum2three.

This is something which the government needs to bear in mind when planning their vast estates. People have a need for nature and natural sounds. Having people crammed in together in small spaces creates stress and disharmony. I think a lot of the so-called mental health problems are rooted in stress caused by other people.

I don’t like it too quiet I d rather hear noise than silence to me silence is the grave I go to sleep with the radio on I can live with either, but my preference would be some noise obviously not loud machine type noise but background noise is fine

Apparently, wheeled trolleys and cases have been banned
in Barcelona city because of the trundling sound. Anyone who has walked along a hard surfaced corridor between trains and the Underground will be aware of the noise of these cases even on a smooth walking surface.

I like quiet ,too . However, when my Dad came to live here in Australia aged 80 we had to find him a house near a road because he hated the quiet having lived in inner London for his entire life. Horses for courses I suppose.