Every extra decibel matters – The Times of India Blog

A recent paper by Jennifer DSouza and colleagues [1] analyzed the effect of long-term urban noise in Western cities, on blood pressure and found that for every 10 dBA increase in noise, there was an increase in systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

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Noise pollution is ubiquitous and affects all of us to some degree or the other, in one way or the other.

A few years ago, I went to a discotheque/dance pub in Bandra with a visiting niece and her husband. They played trance music in an enclosed room and a couple of hours later when we left, my ears were ringing.and continued to ring till the next evening. Clearly, I had killed some of my auditory sensory cells that day.

This was an example of extreme exposure to loud noise, but even the noise that pounds us on a daily basis can cause harm. The older I grow, the less I can stand people honking or playing loud music or for that matter using loud ring tones on mobile phones. I now wear a pair of AirPods Pro whenever I am in the car and restrict my outdoor walks and runs to the morning, when the din is far less. A secret? I carry and often wear my earphones at weddings and other events, especially in halls where loud music is being played or performed. Hell, I even carried them to the horrible U2 concert two years ago in Mumbaihorrible because the sound was so terrible, it made U2 sound worse than a college band getting together for the first time. The AirPods helped dampen the screechy sound and actually made it easier to listen to them.

Sixty five dB is the upper daytime limit in commercial areas, 55 in residential and 75 in industrial zones. Inside our homes and living areas, 30 dB is the maximum level of sound that the WHO and other bodies recommend [2].

Consistent exposure to noise above these levels is harmful.

The harm can be broadly divided into two verticals. The first is direct, where the noise affects our hearing. Hearing loss is a profoundly disabling condition and creates problems, not just for you, but also for those around you, who then have to adapt to your inability to hear. Modern hearing aids make a huge difference as do cochlear implants, even in the elderly, and I will write about this in detail in the future. But suffice to say, if we can take steps to prevent hearing loss in the first place, by limiting or reducing our exposure to loud noise, that would go a long way in our atmasvasth quest to live long, healthy. The temporary ringing that I experienced after my exposure to loud trance music, is medically called tinnitus and if this becomes permanent or continues for a long period of time, it also affects our health adversely.

The other health problems with loud noise are the more insidious changes of noise sickness. The first is raised blood pressure, where the causal data is becoming more and more robust as in the recent article that I started this piece with.

Loud noise also affects sleep and poor sleep, in turn, is associated with a reduction in healthspan and lifespan. Noise sickness includes increasing annoyance levels and irritability, poor mental well-being and increasing risk of cardiovascular disease, apart from high blood pressure.

Unfortunately, the quality of evidence for these outcomes is not robust and though it seems quite obvious that loud noise is harmful, a lot more research needs to be done to show cause and effect and then to determine whether measures taken to reduce noise levels improve these outcomes.

As Danah Boyd says, Uncertainty is central to the scientific process. But in a public policy context, uncertainty can be politicized to undermine scientific consensus, [3] as has happened with cigarette smoking, ultra-processed foods, Covid-19 vaccines, etc.

Surprisingly and thankfully, most governments and policy makers are not waiting for the results of high quality research, but based on common sense, laboratory tests and guidance from the WHO, have already instituted measures and laws to reduce noise levels to the lowest possible.

Legislation though is just a start, because what is more important is enforcement. While we are often able to reduce decibel levels related to firecrackers or festival music through a combination of enforcement and social and peer pressure, reducing noise due to honking, especially in Indian cities, seems to be an impossible task at this point in time. All our major cities have outdoor noise levels beyond prescribed norms and Mumbai and Delhi are also among the noisiest cities worldwide.

So how does this affect you and I and what can we do. At a community level, we should try and put pressure whenever and wherever possible, on noise polluters around us to reduce noise levels. Often, those who create noise (pandals, commercial ventures) may not even be aware of the problems they are causing and just talking to them sometimes produces positive results, without having to take recourse to the law. Loud noise affects all of us and often the perpetrators themselves are willing to reduce noise levels for their own well-being.

At an individual level, you can start by not honking and by training your drivers and chauffeurs not to honk. You can also request taxi drivers to not honk and perhaps even give them an incentive (an additional Rs 50 or Rs 100), if they can manage the ride without honking. Apart from not honking, you can also make sure that you are not the one adding to the noise pollution at home or at work.

And lastly, you can reduce your own exposure to noise by wearing headphones and earphones, preferably noise cancelling, whenever and wherever you believe there will be undue loud noise. I started with a pair of Bose noise cancelling headphones many years ago on flights. Nowadays, I make sure my AirPods are always near me and use them liberally. Most noise cancelling headphones reduce decibel levels by 20-30 dB, which can mean the difference between staying sane and being annoyed and distracted and irritable.

In our atmasvasth quest to live long, healthy, it is a good idea to reduce our exposure to noise. And even if the medical evidence related to specific harmful effects and adverse outcomes is not as robust as with other factors such as physical activity, food, smoking, etc, the lower the noise levels, the more peaceful our lives will be.

Footnotes:

1. DSouza J et al. Hypertension 2021;78:18012. https://cpcb.nic.in/who-guidelines-for-noise-quality/3. https://zephoria.substack.com/p/statistical-imaginaries

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Every extra decibel matters - The Times of India Blog