Noise pollution hurts the heart • Hacker News Board

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#181

Post by pims » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

ricardobayes wrote: post #169

pims wrote: post #71

I've been suffering from tinnitus and hyperacusis for over three years. It led me to read a bit about hearing in general, and more and more studies show that most of the hearing loss we experience as we grow old is nothing natural but the result of the years of abuse we inflict upon our ears in our everyday lives ( https://www.jneurosci.org/content/40/33/6357 ). Even though my situation is specific, this article does…

Some European countries like Austria have been doing this for many years. Roadside noise level measurements with harsh penalties. If you exceed the limits, they take the licence plate off.

Lucky them, here in France we're probably far from ever seeing such laws given the high percentage of bikers who simply don't care about making harmful levels of noise even right next to small kids.

I've considered reaching out to my neighborhood council about it, but I'll probably have moved again due to motorcycles before it goes up to the city/county/department/region...

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#182

Post by johnchristopher » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:30 PM UTC

dazc wrote: post #157

johnchristopher wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have stopped explaining people how my neighbor's friends honking when coming in and leaving drives me up the wall. There's the sound and then there's the rage from "that was fucking useless to do, you just spent 15 minutes saying goodbye on the doorstep, it 11PM, please be quiet" but I am the grumpy one. So I say nothing anymore. Fun thing is, when I am in the city, I like opening the windows in summer and car nois…

Maybe it's the lack of consideration that annoys you more than the noise itself?

Definitely, should have written it down in my comment rather than describing my experience. This is a huge aspect of what grinds my gears.

But there's also some speech patterns that get on my nerves in public transport and it's not really (at least most of the time) a lack of consideration from the people though (but it happens way less often).

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#183

Post by vladvasiliu » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:33 PM UTC

belly_joe wrote: post #2

I feel the sound -> stress connection palpably. Especially sudden loud noises like a horn honking cause me to feel upset for a long while after being startled. Seems like a convincing argument to me for car-free spaces, although honestly I just wish we had stronger social norms against unnecessarily using a car's horn.

This was interesting for me, too. At the end of 2017 I moved into a new apartment, with a great view on a very busy road. I immediately felt much more "off". Maybe stressed in a way, but since I'm not usually the stressed kind, I had a hard time identifying the feeling.

At around the same time, the AC in the office developed a constant hum. This drove me nuts.

When I went to my parents' house in the suburbs, I could hear the silence and really, really enjoy it. I realized that basically, during a regular day, I could never get to spend a moment in silence. There would always be some kind of noise: traffic outside my apartment window, metro / bus / traffic during the commute, random people talking / AC hum at the office.

This made me wonder whether all the people that I see around me being constantly angry and "on the edge" might be that way in part because they basically never catch a break. They are constantly under this continuous noise. And I don't think we can really get used to it. I remember a friend said that I'd get used to the noise when I would complain. It's more than 3 years later, and it still annoys to me no end. I may sometimes forget the noise is there, but I think it still has its effect on my stress level. It's not like getting used to lifting weights or something to which the body adapts.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#184

Post by elicash » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:36 PM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #176

elicash wrote: post #40

A bit unrelated, but I'd love to use a Zillow-like platform but filtering homes for noise pollution, light pollution, air pollution. (Also climate and flooding.) Most people wouldn't use it, because they've basically decided which city/town (bc of work/family) and are just trying to narrow down which home. But it'd be very useful to me, personally, as someone who can do my job from anywhere. Also, I'd imagine it's im…

air pollution is highly localized, e.g. near (downwind from) freeways. Not enough people have purpleair sensors to make this a reality.

You could have a mixture of exact scores like for whole cities https://aqicn.org/map/usa/ > and then combine that with localized scores based on things like being near a freeway.

Walk Score isn't an exact science, but is still a useful measure.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#185

Post by thethethethe » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:37 PM UTC

I spent a year living in a house on a load road and it was awful. The worst part was the inconsistency. Every ten minutes or so a really load motorcycle or truck would drive by and shake the entire house. It was a constant distraction and it would wake me up several times a night. I left as soon as my lease up. I could see this environment taking years off your life if you in it for many years. In addition to the noise, diesel fumes would waft into my room if left the window open on a hot day. I will never live on a load road ever again, no matter how “nice” the pace is.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#186

Post by mikestew » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:37 PM UTC

khafra wrote: post #64

LurkersWillLurk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the city council is oppressing anyone by having the police issue citations to people who wake me up at night with their obnoxious mufflers. The personal satisfaction from having a loud muffler is actually less important than my ability to sleep at night.

The Coase Theorem suggests that, with sufficiently frictionless microtransactions, people who prefer to make noise and people who prefer not to hear noise could all be happier. Maybe a phone app with a decibel-meter and a distance metric to each other such app within hearing distance, with pre-authorized amounts to transfer for each decibel level created/experienced?

Well, if we're willing to go the financial incentives route, we could just slap their ass with a $250 ticket when they ride through town with loud pipes. No need to get all complicated with phone apps and tracking such.

And the "Didn't-Think-This-Through-Did-You" Department asks if one really thinks the Loud Pipes Save Lives and Freeduhm! crowd is going to use a location-tracking app? If the answer is yes, boy, has the head of that department got some bad news for you.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#187

Post by FooHentai » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

TheCapn wrote: post #114

FooHentai wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not so sure about that, nature is often loud AF. Agriculture, too.

Have you experienced it? I live rural and actually close to railway/highway but the comparison to urban noise is not even close.

Lol yes. I'm currently avoiding opening up doors/windows because the cicadas are sufficiently loud that I've had ringing in my ears every night for the past week.

Then I see the downvotes on my earlier comment and wonder just what image people have of rural living. Last year I didn't get a wink of sleep on an overnight camp because bullfrogs went hard out the entire night.

Also I'm not sure how this became a binary comparison of the densest urban environments or the sparsest rural retreats. The suburbs exist and that's actually where most people live.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#188

Post by Zebfross » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

pims wrote: post #71

I've been suffering from tinnitus and hyperacusis for over three years. It led me to read a bit about hearing in general, and more and more studies show that most of the hearing loss we experience as we grow old is nothing natural but the result of the years of abuse we inflict upon our ears in our everyday lives ( https://www.jneurosci.org/content/40/33/6357 ). Even though my situation is specific, this article does…

Just a PSA. I thought I had tinnitus a while back because that’s the first search engine hit on “ringing in ears”, but it turns out it was just ear wax touching my eardrum. If it happens to anyone else, it may be easy to fix.

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#189

Post by kingnothing » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

This is bringing several interesting questions to my mind.

I wonder if the quality of noise has any bearing. For example, if you listen to pleasant music all day at work in an open plan office, does it have the same negative health effects as if it was road noise?

Do the deaf suffer the same effects of being exposed to noise? As in, is it a physiological effect of being near something loud or does your brain have to process the sound?

Re: Noise pollution hurts the heart

#190

Post by GloriousKoji » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #156

nothinggoesaway wrote: post #129

Folks with sensitivity to sound: consider supplementing chelated magnesium. When I tried magnesium glycinate to help with sleep, I happily discovered my daytime sensitivity to loud sounds improved too. Turns out this is common: https://psychcentral.com/blog/living-with-extreme-sound-sens... > In my practice, 85 percent of my patients came to me with a severe magnesium deficiency. A deficiency in this mineral often le…

Why chelates specifically? As opposed to, say, magnesium citrate.

I often hear that Chelated magnesium has the highest bio-availability of all the different types of magnesium supplements. One might think they can just take more magnesium citrate to compensate but then it might be a full on laxative at that point.