TThe world is getting louder. Population growth means more traffic and construction; the onward march of technology means more bells, whistles, and the rattle and hum of the server farms that keep it all running. In an environment where 46% of people say they’ll happily watch videos without headphones in a public place, even nature is struggling to keep up: city birds often sing louder, longer, or at a higher pitch than their country cousins. “The day will come,” Nobel prize-winning bacteriologist Robert Koch reportedly once said, “when man will have to fight noise as inexorably as cholera and the plague.” That day might be here: the European Environment Agency (EEA) estimates that at least one in five Europeans are now exposed to noise levels considered harmful to their health, with that number projected to increase.
So what’s the actual issue with society’s volume going up? The perils of pneumatic drills and emergency service sirens are obvious: both operate close to the 120 decibel level that can damage hearing over very short exposures. What’s more insidious is the background noise that many of us have to learn to live with: roads, railways, and even loud stereos, all of which can cause problems over time. “The EEA recently estimated that in the UK, 9.5 million people are exposed to harmful levels of road noise, 1.2 million to harmful railway noise, and 1 million people to harmful aircraft noise,” says Charlotte Clark, professor of environmental epidemiology at St George’s, University of London. “In the UK, these levels are estimated to cause more than 6,000 new cases of ischaemic heart disease, 1,000 premature deaths, and 750,000 cases of sleep disturbance each year. These are likely to be underestimates.”
Part of the problem is simply how stressful it is to live with a constant din, even if it’s relatively low-level. We’re often powerless in the face of noise, whether it’s a drum‘n’bass-loving neighbour, someone watching TikTok on the bus, or leaf blowers in the street outside – and that can come with a cascade of effects. “Living with noise day to day is annoying, and annoyance is a stress response,” says Prof Clark. “If experienced over time, the stress hormones released affect mood and can cause a range of biological changes to the body that influence cardiovascular health. Over the long term, chronic noise exposure is also associated with an increased risk for hypertension, strokes, and dementia. It’s estimated that aircraft, road, and railway traffic noise is associated with a 2-3% increase in depression risk per 10 decibel increase.” Decibels are measured logarithmically, so if something increases in volume by 10dB, it’s effectively about twice as loud.
Even when we’re asleep, noise can affect us. Obviously, it affects our ability to drop off, but it can also fragment sleep, nudging us away from restorative REM slumber and towards more time spent in superficial sleep stages. “When you sleep, your
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