During prehistory humans lived in a relatively quiet world free of frequent assaults by noise. Think of a place that was peaceful and punctuated only from noises like the rustling of the wind, babbling brooks, the ocean surf, the growls and cries of animals, thunder, rain, waterfalls, rockfalls, avalanches, and volcanic eruptions. Let’s move to our time. What daily sources of noise annoy you? How much do they interfere with your peace of mind, your concentration, your sleep, and your quality of life? If you live near a highway its ceaseless noise from cars, trucks, and emergency vehicles. Those who work in offices are subjected to endless human chatter. If you live in or near an industrial zone noise comes from the operation of machines as well as transporting supplies, products, and waste. Live in an urban center and it’s crowd noise, blasting of music in the street, the noise from restaurants, bars, and clubs, taxis, Uber, Lyft, construction cranes, delivery trucks, garbage trucks, police and fire truck sirens, and so on. How about the 24/7 noise of planes landing at and leaving airports? How about the tidal wave of noise from stadiums that house sporting events, music concerts, and monster truck displays. It turns out we have much more to fear from environmental noise than damage to our inner ears with hearing loss. Still worse is how people react to these noises. We go into fight/flight, release adrenaline and cortisol, and suffer the ill health effects of chronic stress. These include anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, metabolic syndrome with weight gain, and blunting of the immune system with more frequent colds, flus, and infections. This has to be taken seriously. Although we can’t make the noises stop or afford to move to a quiet country residence like Camp David, we can manage our exposure and find ways to relax after exposure. There are places to go where we can enjoy quiet and reset our nervous system. If you want to do this inside you can set aside a quiet room in your home where sound is muffled by drapes, carpeting, rugs, wall hangings, and the like. You can sit down or lie down in this room and create white noise with a fan or listen to melodic, soothing sounds from sources like Youtube that play nature sounds, meditation music or Native American flute, To more fully relax you can add gentle 4 square breathing or 4-7-8 breathing. If you want to relax outside you can go to a hilltop park, a pond in an urban park, an urban botanical garden, a forest trail or a lake, Finding a way to shield yourself from noise or leave it behind combined inducing inner calm will downregulate your sympathetic (fight/flight) nervous system and activate your parasympathetic (calming) nervous system. If you do this consistently even once a day your mood, attitude, and physical health will improve.
