Noise Pollution Is Everywhere: 5 Tips To Help You Turn Down The Volume

Florence Nightingale was onto something back in 1859 when she wrote: “Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care which can be inflicted upon either the sick or well.” In today’s age of car horns, fire alarms, lawnmowers, and crowded bars, loud noises can feel inescapable—as can their health effects. Unwanted sound exposure is now the source of pollution with the second largest impact on our well-being, after only air pollution. 

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That said, living in total silence is unrealistic (not to mention, unappealing) for most of us. Thankfully, there are ways to enjoy a sonically rich life without sacrificing your hearing, setting off your stress response, or derailing your sleep.

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Listen up to learn what noise pollution is and why it can be harmful, how to identify it, and how to fight “unnecessary noise” while still doing all the things you enjoy.

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Noise pollution: What is it and why is it harmful?  

Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, noise is in the ear of the listener. “Sound” turns into “noise” when it becomes unwanted or disturbing to those hearing it. And “noise pollution” happens when the noises in an environment start to directly or indirectly harm people’s health and safety. 

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If you’ve ever heard ringing in your ears after leaving a concert, woken up to the sound of a honking car, or been shocked by the roar of your neighbor’s lawn mower, you’ve experienced noise pollution. 

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Occasional exposure to noise is inevitable and nothing to stress about. But when loud noises become inescapable, they can trigger hearing loss and other mental and physical health concerns. According to the World Health Organization, at least 392,000 healthy life years are lost annually due to transport-related noise pollution in the EU alone. This is partially explained by the fact that noise pollution is associated with cardiovascular complications like heart disease, heart failure, and stroke. When it strikes at night, it can also disrupt sleep quality.

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Unpleasant loud noises also take a toll on mental well-being, with research showing that they can set off a fight-or-flight response and increase our vulnerability to stress (potentially paving the way for hormonal imbalances like insulin resistance and diabetes). If the noise in question is out of our control, it can also contribute to feelings of helplessness that may increase our vulnerability to mental health problems. One study tracked nearly 10,000 children over a decade as they transitioned from adolescence to adulthood and found that those who lived in urban areas and were exposed to high levels of noise pollution tended to be more likely to struggle with anxiety when they got older. 

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Finally, noise impacts our ability to learn and process new information. Seminal research conducted in 1975 in a New York City public school found that schoolchildren in classrooms with more noise from surrounding train tracks tended to perform worse on reading tests and be up to 11 months behind their classmates in quieter rooms. This finding was supported in a more recent study involving two groups of students in Munich: one group attended school near an airport that was closing and the other went to school near an airport that was opening to take its place. Collecting data before and after the switch, researchers found that the noisy airport environment seemed to ding the student's long-term memory, speech perception, and reading abilities.

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Noise is a concern for later-life cognition as well, with some evidence suggesting that it may be associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

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This is just noise pollution’s impact on humans: When natural ecosystems are burdened with more anthropogenic (people-made) noise, animals also suffer. And as you might remember from the initial COVID lockdowns, when human noises quiet, the sounds of nature tend to become more pronounced.

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Noise pollution tends to go hand-in-hand with air pollution, as high-emitting devices like combustion engines tend to be quite loud. People who live in less wealthy neighborhoods and those who work in construction and manufacturing industries tend to bear the brunt of noise pollution, though it can impact anyone.

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Okay, so how do I avoid it?  

The key to protecting yourself from noise pollution is to manage the sources of sound that are within your control (ie. the volume of music you listen to) and do your best to avoid the ones that aren’t (ie. street traffic). 

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A good rule of thumb is to try to keep the sounds of your environment well below 85 decibels (dB)—the level that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration deems safe for up to eight hours. (For context, freeway traffic is about 70 dB, a concert can be up to 100-120 dB, and jackhammer sounds are around 130 dB.) Your phone or smartwatch may already be equipped to monitor dB levels, or you can download the NIOSH Sound Level Meter app to alert you when sounds are creeping into a danger zone. 

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If you live in a city or on a particularly noisy block, you also might consider investing in a pair of earplugs to lower the volume of surrounding noise. Seeking out green spaces can also be helpful—even if they’re not particularly quiet. As Daniel Bowling, Ph.D., an acoustic instructor at the Stanford School of Medicine and neuroscience advisor at Spiritune, explains, the sounds of nature tend to be lower in frequency than man-made sounds. 

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“Low-frequency sound is very stable. When you hear it, your brain is not going to alert you to do something. It's not going to arouse you. It’s not going to prepare your body for action. It's just going to be a nice background level of stimulation,” he says.

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Here are a few more tips to help you avoid the potentially dangerous effects of noise pollution:

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1. Give your ears a break: Find respite from noisy environments and carve out time to give your ears a rest. This doesn’t need to mean sitting in silence. Instead, seek out sonic experiences that won’t stress out your system, like those on Spiritune. Spiritune tracks are designed to help guide listeners toward the mental states of their choosing using the principles of music therapy and neuroscience. Listening to them can help calm the nervous system, increase focus, and tune out distractions. The next time you’re feeling overwhelmed by the noisy bustle around you, head to the app (which you can download on the App Store or Google Play) and press play to experience why users are calling it a “sanctuary” on their phones. 
2. Keep a “low-noise” home: Consider noise and dB level the next time you’re in the market for a new home appliance or vehicle—be it a hair dryer, coffee grinder, or blender. If you like to blast music or podcasts at home, measure the dB level of your next jam sesh to see if it’s worth turning down the volume a bit.
3. Protect your ears like you do your eyes: Just like you wouldn’t leave home without sunglasses on a bright day, be sure to pack a pair of earplugs to use in the case of unexpected loud noises. 
4. Prioritize your sleep space: Keep noisy surroundings from harming your sleep by doing your best to maintain a quiet bedroom. If you can’t control some of the sounds that creep into your sleep space, drown them out with Spiritune sounds - or a  fan or a sound machine might do the trick.
5. Stay on top of your auditory health: If you have any symptoms of hearing loss like tinnitus (ringing or buzzing in the ear), make an appointment with an audiologist so they can check things out.  

Given the risks of noise pollution, it only makes sense to approach sound exposure like you do sun exposure: intentionally and with adequate protection. Invest in tools like a pair of earplugs, a white noise machine, and Spiritune to help your system stay calm and quiet in an increasingly noisy world.