Noise

I could not hear a pin drop as I sat in this observation tower for over an hour. Except for the occasional and very unnecessary cackle of a family playing antakshrir in the middle of protected wildlife reserve (not sure how to spell that, but people sing and start with the last letter blah blah). You realise how noisy our everyday environment is. Life is noisy in urban settings: the din of traffic, music and videos blaring from mobile speakers and loud speakers, public conversations, horns, revving engines, televisions, private processions in public spaces, wedding parties, death processions, neighbourhood skirmishes. The list is endless and real. I would add my life includes an added personal stressor: a gym. No music. But lots of metal on metal. Rubber on cement. It’s quite common in industrial settings. Hence their use of headphones to muffle all the ambient noise. But not an option in our gym.

There never is real quiet. And it leaves you uneasy. I could never tell if it was mental or physical. Turns out it is both. I feel naive to not have taken this more seriously.

I never looked up how sound affects sleep or health until now. Unsurprisingly it does. A lot.

Turns out literal noise is counterproductive to quality sleep and good health. There are a tonne of studies out there that validate this idea. Almost none seem to suggest otherwise.

Takeaway

Urban dwellers are excited by the idea of living in quieter, calmer and picturesque settings.

The idea that we can control our auditory environment feels impossible. And I have no evidence to suggest otherwise except to point to obscure places in Japan, Scandinavia and elsewhere.

Cities are loud. Cities are dense. And perhaps we need to re-examine what is economically so unique about the urban construct that requires density instead of sprawl. And then see if sprawl can help.

But until then noise cancellation headphones, keeping my hands off the horn and lots more crash pads in my gym are the way to go.