In our daily lives, sounds are ubiquitous: melodious singing, clear bird calls, captivating music, the intoxicating sound of running water... Beautiful sounds bring peace of mind and a sense of well-being, helping to relieve stress and promote health. However, there's another type of sound that's less pleasant: the clamor of conversation, the roar of engines, the hum of lathes, the sounds of drilling during renovations... These sounds not only negatively impact our hearing but also our mood and emotions. This is noise.
In recent years, urban noise pollution in China has become the third most common urban hazard, after air and water pollution, increasingly impacting people's quality of life and well-being.
Multiple Harms to the Human Body
Impact on Hearing: According to a study by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), working in an environment with a noise level of 90 decibels for 30 years can increase the risk of deafness by 18%.
Impact on Sleep: Even relatively mild noise levels of 40 to 50 decibels can disrupt sleep. A sudden noise level of 40 decibels can wake 10% of people, while a sudden noise level of 60 decibels can wake 70% of people. Long-term exposure to environmental noise can disrupt sleep, causing insomnia, fatigue, memory loss, and even neurasthenia, seriously impacting normal life.
Effects on the cardiovascular system: Studies have found that long-term exposure to noise can increase blood pressure, especially in workers with a family history of hypertension.
Effects on mood: Long-term exposure to noise can cause negative emotions, leading to tension, depression, fatigue, and anger. This not only affects a person's physical and mental health, but also interpersonal relationships.
Avoid noise in daily life.
How can you protect yourself from the effects of noise? Remember the saying: "Three decibels doubles the energy; halve the exposure time."
First, if you're a worker exposed to noise hazards in your workplace, be aware that noise energy increases logarithmically. Although the noise level of 88 decibels is only 3 decibels higher than 85 decibels, its energy is doubled. Similarly, 91 decibels has doubled the noise level of 88 decibels. According to currently accepted work noise standards, exposure to 85 decibels for eight hours a day generally won't significantly affect hearing. At 88 decibels, exposure is limited to four hours, and at 91 decibels, two hours.
Secondly, in daily life, it's important to assess noise intensity. Normal speech is between 50 and 60 decibels, while loud voices can reach 80 to 90 decibels. If you have trouble hearing people around you in a work or living environment, you can assess the noise level and protect yourself by reducing your exposure.
Third, we must strengthen protection in daily work and life. For example, workplaces should establish relatively quiet, soundproof rooms so workers can escape the noisy environment during breaks; wear earplugs when working in noisy environments to reduce the impact of noise on the body.
Fourth, we must reduce or minimize the sources of noise pollution. For example, in the workplace, we must strengthen isolation of noise sources to minimize workers' exposure to noise; during home renovations, we should rationally allocate time for drilling and other tasks, avoiding work during lunch breaks and at night; and when driving, we should avoid honking the horn for extended periods to reduce noise emissions.
Noise poses multiple risks to the human body. If it's impossible to reduce the noise intensity in daily life, we must strengthen self-protection and reduce the time spent in noisy environments.
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