Is background noise harmful? Why is noise dangerous?

Today, the way of life forces people to constantly stay in noisy environments. Working in factories and offices, living in crowded cities with the hum of constantly moving cars and people. Many do not attach serious importance to this, and then they wonder why fatigue sets in so quickly, attention is scattered, efficiency decreases and insomnia torments. Everyone has heard about the negative impact of noise on the human body, but few know how adverse the consequences can be.

Noise is a chaotic system of sound waves of different strength and amplitude, randomly changing in time. For a comfortable existence, people need natural sounds: the rustle of leaves, the murmur of water, the singing of birds. This helps a person not to feel isolated from the outside world. However, the development of the industry, the growth in the number of vehicles have led to an increase in the noise level in the domestic environment.

Impact of noise on human health

People constantly hear sounds: an alarm clock in the morning, traffic noise, telephones, televisions, household appliances. Most of them people do not pay attention, but their impact does not pass without a trace for the body. Today, the impact of noise on human health is being actively studied, as it has become a serious problem.

The researchers concluded that increased noise levels cause the following:

It is worth paying attention to the effect of noise pollution on human hearing. With an increased level, hearing sensitivity worsens after a year and a half, with an average - after 4-5 years. It happens slowly and imperceptibly. The first indicator is when a person, being in a company, ceases to distinguish between voices, does not understand what caused the laughter of colleagues. It happens that such diseases lead to social isolation, and sometimes become the cause of the development of persecution mania. Workers in factories and industrial plants are exposed to this, despite the fact that, according to the law, measures must be taken in such places to limit noise pollution.

It is no less harmful to regularly spend time in nightclubs and discos, as a rule, in such places there is an increased noise level. With constant high-power sound exposure, there is a high probability of hearing loss and disturbances in the functioning of the central nervous system. Teenagers are most affected by the negative effects of noise and loud music on the body, because due to their age they are not aware of the possible consequences.

Noise pollution: what level is safe?

Noise with a power of 20-30 dB is considered comfortable and harmless - a natural sound background. An increase in this indicator has an adverse effect on human health. For example: the risk of heart disease causes a noise level of 50 dB or more - a street with not too busy traffic. For a person to become irritable and even aggressive, a volume of 32 dB is enough - a whisper.

In this case, the individual characteristics of people should be taken into account. Some people are immediately annoyed by the slightest soft sound, and someone has been in noisy places for a long time without any problems. Despite this, it has been proven that living in an urban environment for more than 10 years increases the likelihood of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases.

Noise level constantly heard by a person:

office work - 50 dB;
human speech - 45-65 dB, scream - 80 dB;
highway - 55-85 dB;
vacuum cleaner - 65-70 dB;
metro - 100 dB and so on.

It is worth noting that the "tipping point" of noise pollution is 80 dB, everything that exceeds this figure causes serious harm to the human body. Today, the noise level in cities greatly exceeds the permissible norms. Although in developed countries serious sanctions are provided for non-compliance with the rules of silence. In Russia, such a law has also been adopted: you cannot make noise from 22.00 to 06.00. However, this does not prevent some people from regularly organizing night discos at home,.

In other states, such violators are dealt with more decisively. So, in Spain, the owner of a nightclub received a prison term for regularly disturbing the peace of his neighbors. The lawsuit was filed by residents of nearby houses, in which noise pollution exceeded 30 dB. In England, the owner of an amusement park was fined a large amount. A family who lives 100 meters from the establishment wrote a statement, claiming that the constant noise and screams turned them.

Effect of noise on human performance

In addition to the harmful effects on the human body, the harmful effects of noise on performance have been proven. This issue has become the most acute in recent decades. Therefore, standards have been developed for organizations for the level of noise pollution from equipment and devices, since working in such places implies a health hazard. Researchers, studying this area, concluded that increased sound background reduces performance by 15%, and the incidence, on the contrary, increases by almost 40%. This makes you wonder what is better: to create comfortable healthy working conditions or regularly pay sick leave.

Since the noise affects the cerebral cortex, the person becomes too excited or inhibited. In both cases, this interferes with full-fledged work, distracts attention and causes rapid fatigue. The work becomes unbearable and the quality of its performance falls. However, it has been proven that not all sounds have such an impact on working capacity. According to neurologists, calm is quiet and contributes to productivity.

How to protect yourself from the influence of noise and loud sound?

Today, modern technologies make it possible to reduce the adverse effects of loud sound and noise on the human body. So, in the apartment you can install soundproofing and double-glazed windows - this will save you from noisy neighbors and a busy roadway. Earplugs are useful as a handy tool, you can sleep peacefully in them without being annoyed by extraneous sounds. Noise-canceling headphones will help you concentrate while working or by blocking extraneous hum.

At the same time, it is worth knowing that complete silence affects a person no less depressingly: and anxiety, causes annoying thoughts, and sometimes becomes. Therefore, you should protect yourself from noise in moderation.

The main thing is to constantly monitor your well-being and try to listen to pleasant sounds more often: your favorite music, the crackle of a fire, the melody of the sea and rain. It is worth assessing the level of noise around and think about how to protect yourself from it. Let useful information and recommendations help you stay fit, healthy and healthy for as long as possible.

As a physical factor, noise is mechanical oscillatory movements of an elastic medium propagating in waves, usually of a random nature.

Modern science has confirmed that noise really has a negative impact on human health. Neurosis, insomnia, high blood pressure, hearing loss are the most common consequences of "noise pollution".

Under the influence of noise, coordination of movements is disturbed, labor productivity decreases. In connection with the common etiology of clinical disorders, the term "noise disease" appeared in the medical literature.

In everyday life, noise is understood as various kinds of unwanted acoustic interference in the perception of speech, music, as well as any sounds that interfere with rest and work. In production, noise is created by various engines and mechanisms.

Doctors say that the harmful effects of noise on the human body begins to manifest itself when the sound strength exceeds 70 decibels. Noise of 110-140 decibels causes pain in the ear.

Hearing disorders. Exceptionally high noise levels (greater than 120 dB) can lead to acoustic trauma and severely impair hearing in one moment. With a much higher intensity of sound, you can completely lose your hearing. But a more common consequence of working at elevated noise levels is a gradual and subtle hearing loss.

Cardiovascular diseases. Noise negatively affects the cardiovascular system, which most often leads to the development of hypertension or hypotension, and jumps in blood pressure. Vascular disorders, coupled with the negative effect of noise on the brain, can cause severe headaches and vascular spasms.

Hormonal disorders. High noise levels can disrupt the brain and nervous system, leading to endocrine disorders. Which, in turn, causes or catalyzes diseases such as diabetes, thyroid and reproductive system diseases.

Influence on the psyche. The highest level of noise affects the psychological state of a person. The most common consequences are: decreased concentration, inability to concentrate, memory impairment, depression, including hidden, chronic stress, sleep disturbances, significant mood swings during the day, inability to fully relax in free time, increased likelihood of developing phobias, panic attacks.

Low tone and immunity. Since intense industrial noise affects the entire body, the most common consequence of its influence is a reduced tone of the body, a constant feeling of fatigue, poor immunity, which means an increased risk of infectious diseases, colds.

Our life is filled with a variety of sounds, and absolute silence is something unusual. We do not even perceive our life without sounds. However, the constant noise is tiring.

The dangers of noise have been known for a long time, but not much research has been done in this area. However, some studies have shown that loud noise is a great danger, especially when combined with dust and vibration. At the same time, silence is not the most useful state for a person.

Scientists have long noticed that the noise of nature has a calming effect on humans. Today there are even sanatoriums in which treatment carried out with the help of birdsong, the sound of the surf or rain. It has been noticed that such therapy successfully copes with headaches, insomnia, and tones the body. Japanese inventors even came up with a pillow that imitates the sounds of rain.

Thus, noise has a double effect: it is necessary and harmful at the same time, it all depends on the source of the noise.

Scientists have found that when a person is engaged in mental work, he reacts more strongly to noise. At the same time, young people are less sensitive to noise. But for young children, noise has a particularly harmful effect, it can make them capricious, irritable, shy, their sleep is disturbed and their appetite worsens. Evaluating the noise in schools, it was found that even the noise of 65 dB significantly reduces the attention of children and leads to a large number of errors.

Human hearing is designed in such a way that it is very vulnerable to the effects of noise. The maximum sensitivity level of our ear is 130 dB. Most of all, the human ear is sensitive to high tones, and with age, susceptibility decreases. It is worse when hearing is reduced not due to age-related changes, but due to the influence of negative factors. There are millions of hearing impaired people on Earth, and noise is to blame.

Observations of workers in noisy industries have shown that prolonged and severe exposure to noise causes frequent headaches, increased irritability, decreased performance, dizziness and gradual hearing loss. In young people, the love of loud music, especially "heavy metal", causes partial or complete hearing loss over time. By the way, they even develop something similar to a drug addiction to loud music, they develop a need to constantly be surrounded by loud music, normal volume already seems insufficient to them.

And although our hearing organ is able to get used to any noise, adapt, this does not mean that such a process will protect us from hearing loss in the future. Of course, a person can get used to the constant noise of trains, the roar of planes, loud music, but, in the end, this will lead to hearing loss, and the nervous system will also suffer. Prolonged exposure to noise causes disorders of the nervous system, since sound waves act not only on the hearing organs, but also on the entire body as a whole.

Man has always lived in a world of sounds and noise. Sound is called such mechanical vibrations of the external environment, which are perceived by the human hearing aid (from 16 to 20,000 vibrations per second). Vibrations of a higher frequency are called ultrasound, a lower frequency - infrasound. Noise - loud sounds that have merged into a discordant sound.

For all living organisms, including humans, sound is one of the environmental influences. In nature, loud sounds are rare, the noise is relatively weak and short. The combination of sound stimuli gives animals and humans time to assess their nature and form a response. Sounds and noises of high power affect the hearing aid, nerve centers, can cause pain and shock. This is how noise pollution works.

Noise pollution of the environment- this is the sound scourge of our time, apparently the most intolerable of all types of environmental pollution. Along with the problems of air, soil and water pollution, mankind is faced with the problem of noise control. Such concepts as “acoustic ecology”, “noise pollution of the environment”, etc. have appeared and are becoming widespread. All this is due to the fact that the harmful effects of noise on the human body, on the human body, on the animal and plant world are undeniably established by science. Man and nature are increasingly suffering from its harmful effects.

According to I. I. Dedyu (1990), noise pollution is a form of physical pollution, which manifests itself in an increase in the noise level in excess of natural noise and causes anxiety in the short term, and damage to the organs that perceive it or the death of organisms in the long term.

The normal noise of the human environment varies between 35-60 dB. But more and more decibels are added to this background, as a result of which the noise level often exceeds 100 dB.

A decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit of noise that expresses the degree of sound pressure. 1dB is the lowest level of noise that a person can barely pick up. Nature has never been silent, it is not silent, but silent. Sound is one of its most ancient manifestations, as ancient as the Earth itself. Sounds have always been and even monstrous strength and power. But still, the sounds of rustling leaves, the murmur of a stream, bird voices, a light splash of water and the sound of the surf, which are always pleasant to man, prevailed in the natural environment. They calm him, relieve stress. Man created, and more and more new sounds appeared.

After the invention of the wheel, he, according to the just remark of the famous English acoustician R. Tylor, without realizing it, sowed the first link in the modern noise problem. With the birth of the wheel, it began to tire and annoy a person more and more often. The natural sounds of the voices of Nature have become more and more rare, they disappear completely or are drowned out by industrial transport and other noises.
Aircraft and noise

All planes make noise, and jets make more noise than most. As a result, noise levels, especially around airports, are constantly on the rise as more jet aircraft enter the airlines and their power increases. At the same time, public discontent is growing, so that aircraft designers have to work hard on how to make jets less noisy. The roar of a jet engine is caused mainly by the rapid mixing of the exhaust gases with the outside air. Its volume directly depends on the speed of collision of gases with air. It is greatest when the engines are brought to full power before the aircraft takes off.

One way to reduce noise levels is to use turbofan engines, in which most of the intake air bypasses the combustion chamber, resulting in a reduced exhaust gas emission rate. Turbofan engines are now used in most modern passenger airliners.

Typically, the noise level of jet engines is measured in decibels (dB) of the actual perceived noise, which takes into account, in addition to the volume of the sound, also its height and duration.

Inside the ear

When a jet plane flies over you, it spreads sound waves around it in the form of fluctuations in the level of air pressure. These waves create vibrations in your eardrum, which transmits them through three small bones—the hammer, anvil, and stirrup—to your air-filled middle ear.

From there, the vibrations enter the fluid-filled inner ear, passing through the semicircular canals, which are in charge of your balance, and the cochlea. The auditory nerve responds to fluctuations in the fluid in the cochlea by converting them into encoded impulses. The impulses go to the brain, where they are decoded, and as a result, we hear a sound.

Impact of noise on organisms

Researchers have found that noise can destroy plant cells. For example, experiments have shown that plants that are bombarded with sounds dry out and die. The cause of death is excessive release of moisture through the leaves: when the noise level exceeds a certain limit, the flowers literally come out with tears. If you put a carnation next to a radio that is playing at full volume, the flower will wither. Trees in the city die much earlier than in the natural environment. The bee loses the ability to navigate and stops working with the noise of a jet plane.

A specific example of the impact of noise on living organisms can be considered the following event two years ago. Thousands of unhatched chicks perished on the Ptichya spit near Bystroe (Danube delta) as a result of dredging carried out by the German company Mobius by order of the Ministry of Transport of Ukraine. The noise from the working equipment was carried for 5-7 km, having a negative impact on the adjacent territories of the Danube Biosphere Reserve. Representatives of the Danube Biosphere Reserve and 3 other organizations were forced to state with pain the death of the entire colony of the variegated tern and common tern, which were located on the Ptichya Spit.

From the Survey Report of the Ptichya Spit dated July 16, 2004: “As a result of the actual survey of the Ptichya Spit (near the Bystroe branch) at the location of large colonies of the variegated (950 nests and 430 nests - according to the results of the survey on June 28, 2004) and the common tern (120 nests - according to the same records) on an area of ​​approximately 120x130 meters and an area of ​​approximately 30x20 meters, the remains of many hundreds of eggs of these species were found. The nature of their damage clearly indicates that the chicks did not hatch from them. The estimated start of hatching of the chicks of this colony was expected from 20 July. The most likely reason for the disappearance of the colony (not even adult birds are present in its place) is an excessive disturbance factor caused by nearby dredging equipment, as well as the boats serving it.”

After that, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has the audacity to declare that "The construction of the Danube-Black Sea canal does not violate the ecological balance of the Danube Delta." This was stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Konstantin Gryshchenko, in response to calls from EU representatives and a number of international environmental organizations to stop the construction of the canal until an environmental review is carried out (according to the newspaper "Voice of Ukraine").

Using this position of the Government of Ukraine, "Ministry of Transport", "Delta-Lotsman" and "Mobius" companies are not going to make any efforts to minimize the damage from the construction of the canal.

On the contrary, on July 17, a representative of "Delta - Lotsman" announced the imminent start of the demolition of trees and the berth of the reserve in the area of ​​​​the cordon Bystroye - that is, in the territory that is not deprived of the status of the reserve.

Thus, while the President of Ukraine speaks without a shadow of embarrassment in negotiations with the European Union about the harmlessness of the canal for the unique nature of the Danube Delta, the Ministry of Transport, Mobius and Delta-Lotsman are doing everything to protect there was nothing in the Ukrainian part of the delta.

To date, about 8,000 letters from all over the world have come to various authorities in defense of the Danube Reserve.

The impact of noise on humans

Prolonged noise adversely affects the organ of hearing, reducing the sensitivity to sound. It leads to a breakdown in the activity of the heart, liver, to exhaustion and overstrain of nerve cells. Weakened cells of the nervous system cannot clearly coordinate the work of various body systems. This results in disruption of their activities.

As already mentioned, the noise level is measured in units expressing the degree of sound pressure - decibels. This pressure is not perceived indefinitely. The noise level of 20-30 decibels (dB) is practically harmless to humans, this is a natural background noise. As for loud sounds, here the permissible limit is approximately 80 decibels, and then at a noise level of 60-90 dB, unpleasant sensations arise. A sound of 120-130 decibels already causes pain in a person, and 150 becomes unbearable for him and leads to irreversible hearing loss. Not without reason in the Middle Ages there was an execution "under the bell". The hum of the bell ringing tormented and slowly killed the convict. A sound of 180dB causes metal fatigue, and a sound of 190dB pulls rivets out of structures. The level of industrial noise is also very high. In many jobs and noisy industries, it reaches 90-110 decibels or more. Not much quieter in our house, where more and more new sources of noise appear - the so-called household appliances. It is also known that tree crowns absorb sounds by 10-20 dB.

For a long time, the effect of noise on the human body was not specially studied, although already in ancient times they knew about its harm and, for example, in ancient cities, rules were introduced to limit noise. Currently, scientists in many countries of the world are conducting various studies to determine the impact of noise on human health. Their studies have shown that noise causes significant harm to human health.

In the UK, for example, one in four men and one in three women suffer from neurosis due to high noise levels. Austrian scientists have found that noise reduces the life of city dwellers by 8-12 years. The threat and harm of noise will become more clear if we consider that in large cities it increases by about 1 dB annually. Leading American noise expert Dr. Knudsen stated that "noise is as slow a killer as it can be."

But even absolute silence frightens and depresses him. So, employees of one design bureau, which had excellent sound insulation, already a week later began to complain about the impossibility of working in conditions of oppressive silence. They were nervous, lost their working capacity. Conversely, scientists have found that sounds of a certain intensity stimulate the process of thinking, especially the process of counting.

Each person perceives noise differently. Much depends on age, temperament, state of health, environmental conditions. Some people lose their hearing even after brief exposure to noise of comparatively reduced intensity. Constant exposure to loud noise can not only adversely affect hearing, but also cause other harmful effects - ringing in the ears, dizziness, headache, increased fatigue. Very noisy modern music also dulls the hearing, causes nervous diseases. Interestingly, the American otolaryngologist S. Rosen found that in an African tribe in Sudan, not exposed to civilized noise, the hearing acuity of sixteen-year-old representatives is on average the same as that of thirty-year-old people living in noisy New York. In 20% of young men and women who often listen to fashionable modern pop music, hearing turned out to be dulled in the same way as in 85-year-olds.

Noise has an accumulative effect, i.e., acoustic irritation, accumulating in the body, increasingly depresses the nervous system. Therefore, before hearing loss from exposure to noise, a functional disorder of the central nervous system occurs. Noise has a particularly harmful effect on the neuropsychic activity of the body. The process of neuropsychiatric diseases is higher among persons working in noisy conditions than among persons working in normal sound conditions. Noises cause functional disorders of the cardiovascular system. The well-known therapist academician A. Myasnikov pointed out that noise can be a source of hypertension.

Noise has a harmful effect on the visual and vestibular analyzers, reduces reflex activity, which often causes accidents and injuries. The higher the intensity of the noise, the worse we see and react to what is happening. This list can be continued. But it must be emphasized that noise is insidious, its harmful effect on the body is completely invisible, imperceptible and has an accumulative character, moreover, the human body is practically not protected against noise. In harsh light, we close our eyes, the instinct of self-preservation saves us from burns, forcing us to withdraw our hand from hot, etc., and a person does not have a defensive reaction from exposure to noise. Therefore, there is an underestimation of the fight against noise.
Studies have shown that inaudible sounds can also have a harmful effect on human health. So, infrasounds have a special effect on the mental sphere of a person: all types of intellectual activity are affected, mood worsens, sometimes there is a feeling of confusion, anxiety, fright, fear, and at high intensity - a feeling of weakness, as after a strong nervous shock. Even weak sounds - infrasounds can have a significant impact on a person, especially if they are of a long-term nature. According to scientists, it is precisely by infrasounds, inaudibly penetrating through the thickest walls, that many nervous diseases of the inhabitants of large cities are caused. Ultrasounds, which occupy a prominent place in the range of industrial noise, are also dangerous. The mechanisms of their action on living organisms are extremely diverse. The cells of the nervous system are especially susceptible to their negative effects. Noise is insidious, its harmful effect on the body is invisibly, imperceptibly. Violations in the human body against noise is practically defenseless. Currently, doctors are talking about noise disease, which develops as a result of exposure to noise with a primary lesion of hearing and the nervous system.

Thus, noise must be dealt with, and not tried to get used to. Acoustic ecology is devoted to the fight against noise, the purpose and meaning of which is the desire to establish such an acoustic environment that would correspond or be in tune with the voices of nature, because the noise of technology is unnatural to all living things that have evolved on the planet. It should be remembered that the fight against noise was carried out in antiquity. For example, 2.5 thousand years ago in the famous ancient Greek colony, the city of Sybaris, there were rules protecting the sleep and peace of citizens: loud noises were prohibited at night, and artisans of such noisy professions as blacksmiths and tinsmiths were expelled from the city.

The fight against noise pollution

In 1959 The International Noise Abatement Organization was founded.

Noise control is a complex, complex problem that requires a lot of effort and money. Silence costs money and a lot of it. Noise sources are very diverse and there is no single way, method of dealing with them. Nevertheless, acoustic science can offer effective means of dealing with noise. Common ways to combat noise are reduced by the legislative, construction and planning, organizational, technical and technological, design and preventive world. Preference should be given to measures at the design stage rather than when the noise is already being produced.

Sanitary norms and rules establish:

maximum permissible noise levels at workplaces in the premises and on the territory of production enterprises that create noise, and at the border of their territory;
the main measures to reduce noise levels and prevent human exposure to noise.

Appropriate standards are in place and created. Failure to comply with them is punishable by law. And although at present it is not always possible to achieve effective results in the fight against noise, steps are still being taken in this direction. Special noise-absorbing suspended ceilings are installed, assembled from perforated plates, silencers on pneumatic devices and fixtures.

Musicologists offered their own means of noise mitigation: skillfully and correctly selected music began to influence the efficiency of work. An active fight against traffic noise began. Unfortunately, there is no ban on transport sound signals in cities.

Noise maps are created. They give a detailed description of the noise situation in the city. Undoubtedly, it is possible to develop optimal measures to ensure proper noise protection of the environment. The noise map according to V. Chudnov (1980) is a kind of plan for attacking noise. There are many ways to combat traffic noise: the construction of tunnel interchanges, underpasses, highways in tunnels, on overpasses and excavations. It is also possible to reduce the noise of an internal combustion engine. Jointless rails are laid on the railway - a velvet track. Actual construction of screening structures, planting forest belts. Noise standards should be reviewed every 2-3 years in the direction of their tightening. Great hopes for solving this problem are placed on electric vehicles.

Noise scale

Noise exposure level - Characteristic noise producers - Noise intensity, dB:

• hearing threshold- Complete silence - 0
• Permissible level- Noise of normal breathing - 10
• Home comfort - 20
• Sound volume norm- clock sound - 30
• The rustle of leaves in a light breeze - 33
• Volume norm during the day - 40
• Quiet whisper at a distance of 1-2 meters - 47
• Quiet street - 50
• Washing machine operation - 60
• Street noise - 70
• Ordinary speech or noise in a store with many customers - 73
• The buzz of voices in a crowded restaurant - 78
• Vacuum cleaner, highway noise with very heavy traffic, glass noise - 80
• Danger level - sports car, the maximum sound volume in the production room is 90
• Loud player music in a large room - 95
• Motorcycle, metro train - 100
• The noise of urban traffic, the roar of a diesel truck at a distance of 8 meters - 105
• The roar of a Boeing 747 taking off directly overhead - 107
• Loud music, powerful mower - 110
• Pain threshold The sound of a running lawn mower or air compressor - 112
• The roar of a Boeing 707 landing at the airport - 118
• The roar of the Concorde taking off directly overhead, a powerful roll of thunder - 120
• Air raid siren, ultra-noise fashionable electric music - 130
• Pneumatic riveting - 140
• death level- Explosion of an atomic bomb - 200

The impact of noise on the human body can manifest itself in different ways, but in all cases this effect is negative. Here, both the duration and the intensity of the influence of noise are important, at which a deterioration in the sensitivity of the hearing organs becomes noticeable to a greater or lesser extent, which is expressed in a temporal shift in the hearing threshold. This property of the organism can be restored after the cessation of exposure to noise.

However, there are some levels of noise perceived by a person, at which irreversible hearing loss occurs, which is expressed in a change in the threshold of hearing.

How does noise harm the body?

The negative impact of noise on the body can have medical, social and economic aspects.

The medical aspect is due to the property of such an impact that noise has a negative impact not only on the organ of hearing, but also on the nervous and cardiovascular systems, and the reproductive function of a person. A person is haunted by constant irritability, aggressiveness, sleep disturbances, and fatigue. Constant noise favors the development of mental illness.

According to statistics, the overall incidence of workers in noisy industries is about fifteen percent higher. The autonomic nervous system can suffer from even small sound levels (40 - 70 dBA).

In addition to the tympanic membrane, noise also affects the cortical and brain stem structures , which, taking into account the properties of the transmitted signals, results in the development of hypertension.

It is also known about the harmful effects of noise on:

• intestinal motility,
• all metabolic processes
• for immunity,
• especially the production of antibodies to counter various infections.

And sleep disturbances are caused by a decrease in the sensitivity threshold of nerve cells during the day. It has been proven that for many diseases, an additional factor in the development is just lack of sleep.

Although the intensity of noise definitely negatively affects the state of the body, but loud or harsh sounds are not the main destructive factor. Much more dangerous is less intense, but constant noise, and it doesn’t even have to be in the frequency range felt by the human ear. Sounds that are beyond the sensitivity of the human ear are also harmful. For example, infrasounds initiate a feeling of anxiety, pain in the spine and ears, and their prolonged exposure leads to impaired peripheral circulation. This condition is fraught with degeneration of organs and premature aging of the body.

noise sickness

To characterize noise and diagnose "noise disease" there are a number of indicators and symptoms. First of all, this is a decrease in auditory sensitivity. In addition, doctors pay attention to a decrease in acidity and a number of other changes in the function of digestion, neuroendocrine disorders and cardiovascular insufficiency.

It must also be taken into account, since very large population groups are exposed to continuous exposure to unpleasant sounds, which are concentrated in large cities. More than 60% of the population of metropolitan areas live in conditions of excessive and continuous noise.

In an economic sense, noise has a negative impact on productivity, and the treatment of diseases caused by noise requires significant social benefits. It has been proven that an increase in noise level by just a couple of decibels leads to a decrease in labor productivity by 1%, but at the same time, the time of effective work per shift is additionally reduced.

In general, it reduces labor productivity by 10%. Measurements showed an increase in the number of errors in written work by 29%, and a general incidence of 37%.

Noise of 130 decibels causes pain, and 150 decibels is already a lethal dose. However, this is rare, and a person involuntarily tries to avoid such places or leave them as soon as possible. The maximum permissible noise level, which a person not only withstands for some time, but also somehow functions at the same time, is a level of 80 decibels.