The detrimental effects of sound on health

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Hello my steemit community, welcome to my blog. Today I will be discussing something concerning our health that probably many of us don't take cognizance of, which is; the detrimental effects of noise on our health.
However before I go into the nitty-gritty of the topic, let me tell us about two incidences that happened recently which made me to decide to write about this topic.

A man went for a function (ceremony), and in his curiosity he sat directly in front of a mega speakers set for the ceremony. Not long the ceremony started that he started complaining of headache and he felt uncomfortable. On getting home his situation got worsening that he was rushed to a near-by hospital for treatment. After so much examination upon him, the doctor discovered that the man was suffering from the excessive sound that he heard which caused him a severe headache.

Another case was a woman who went to church for an important service, on getting there she sat closely to the loudspeaker for her to enjoy and be able to hear the proceedings of the service, as the service gets underway the woman started complaining as well but she decided to endured it till the end but later complained of hearing different sounds in her ears and this prevented her from sleep. This continues for couple of days before it was treated.

Now we need to ask ourselves what causes their problems? In our quest to know this we have to look at what is:

• Sound/Noise
• Sources of sound
• When will a sound be dangerous/hazardous to our health?

Noise is a sound that has an irregular progression and is unpalatable to the ear. Sound that has low frequency (< 20Hz) is referred to as infrasound. Sound at this level is audible to human ear and it doesn’t have any adverse effect to the sense of hearing. The normal low-frequency limit considered for human hearing is 20Hz. When pure sine waves are regenerated under ideal situation and at very high volume, listener will be able to hear tones as low as 12 Hz. Sound is measure in decibel (dBA).

Sources of sound/noise
Sources of sound/noise pollution includes: airport, traffic, religious houses, and factories, generating set companies, electrical appliances, public address system, and railway and air traffic.

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When will a sound be dangerous/hazardous to our health?
A sound becomes dangerous and hazardous to our health when its frequency is greater than 20Hz (ultrasonic) which is referred to as ‘ noise pollution’ , then at this stage the sense of hearing will be affected and it can lead to ear impairment and many other health challenges.

Effect of noise to health
These are the health challenges that results from regular exposure to continuous elevated sound levels. Elevated sound in workplace or noise from the environment can cause hypertension, hearing impairment, ischemic, sleep disturbance, pregnancy and birth defects, heart disease, annoyance, and sleep disturbance. Alterations in the immune system and defects from birth have also been attributed to excessive sound exposure.

Cardiovascular effects
Research conducted all over the world has shown that people that are residing around airport are susceptible to hypertension and other heart related ailments even after adjusting to socio-economic discrepancies, aging, smoking, hieght/weight. Noise has been shown to have effect on systolic blood pressure, viscosity of blood, level of glucose, total cholesterol and platelet count.

Recently a research was carried out in Sweden and it was found out that the predominant of hypertension was at high rate among people that were exposed to high power noise that was emanating from Arlanda airport in Stockholm between 55dBA.-72dBA.
In summary, it is evident that environmental noise contributes to hypertension and also that coronary heart disease may also be caused by environmental noise. An exposure to high noise may induce cardiac dysrhythmias and catecholamine secretion.

Psychological Impacts of Noise
Noise is unwanted sound. It occurs in the environment as a result of many activities. Aircraft, traffic, and neighbors can be sources of noise. There are psychological effects of exposure to excessive noise. Some relationships have been established between noise and psychological effects such as, psychiatric disorders, annoyance and effects on psychosocial well-being.

To buttress this point, exposure to high levels of noise has been established to cause changes in personality and uncontrollable violent reactions. Violent reaction has also been attributed to noise effect that are emanating from the environment. Addiction to loud music could as well be narrowed down to psychological impacts on people. A research shows that non-professional musicians were found to have addiction to loudness of noise more often than non-musician control subjects.

Pregnancy and birth defects
Studies has shown that birth defects could occur as a result of excessive sound exposure. Hattori and Ando (1973, 1977) in their research carried out at Osaka airport established that babies that were born around the airport have low weight compare to others. Tauscher (1978) in his own research that was carried out around Los-Angeles airport also reported that babies that were giving birth to in the environment have greater number of deformity ( birth defects).

However, it was not clearly verified whether these analysis reflect the socio-economic status of the group that were studied, and whether other factors such as: unburnt fuel, airborne metal particles, carbon monoxide and unburnt fuel in the atmosphere were also a contributing factors.

Rehm and Jasen(1978) and Knipschild et al (1981) in their researches carried found out that noise has an effects on birth defects and birth weight. There were positive relationship between noise exposure and a slight reduction of weight or an upsurge increase in the premature birth percentage according to their result .

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Noise and sleep
Evidences have shown that:

• Noise may cause non-sound sleep
• Noise may deprive someone from sleeping on time
• Noise may cause intermittent awakening
• Noise may hinder someone not to return to sleep once awaken
  Statistically it was estimated that the tendency of being awakened is 5% at 50dBA and 30% at 70dBA when sleeping in a noisy environment.

Motivation
A number of fact findings have identified the relationship between chronic exposure to aircraft noise and levels of motivation. The results are however not persistent. In the Los Angeles Airport Study, result shows that children that were exposed to aircraft noise were less likely to solve a life problem involving a failure or success experience and were more likely to relent in their pursuit. In a follow-up 1 year later, the same result was gotten which buttress the fact that noise-exposed children were less likely to solve a difficult life challenging problems, but the result that the same children are more likely to quit on a difficult puzzle was confirmed.

Annoyance
Studies have consistently shown that people that are exposed to chronic environmental noise are easily pissed off or get annoyed easily. In London, people subjected to questionnaire were interviewed and it was evident that their level of annoyance is very high based on their exposure to noise. Consequently, a year later the same result was gotten, suggesting that annoyance effects from noise are not just assumed but verified.

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In conclusion it could be inferred from different fact findings and researches that exposure to environmental noise could be dangerous to our health and could affect our productivity. So please stay away from noise/sound.

Thanks for reading.

Please note: all pictures used in this post are labelled for free usage.

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