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Noise is dangerous and useful
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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The harm of noise to the human body has been known for a long time, but there has been little research in this area. Audiology studies how noise and sounds affect living organisms. Some studies have shown that loud noise is more dangerous in combination with dust and vibration. But silence also has a depressing effect on a person.
It has long been noted that the sounds of nature have a calming effect on a person (the sound of the wind, the rustling of leaves, raindrops, the sound of the surf, etc.). There are even sanatoriums where treatment is carried out with the help of birdsong, which successfully copes with insomnia, headaches, and improves the general condition of the body. Japanese inventors have even come up with a pillow that imitates the sounds of rain.
It turns out that noise has a double effect: it is necessary for a person and at the same time harmful, everything depends on the source of the noise. Scientists have determined that during mental work people react more strongly to noise. Young people have a lower sensitivity to noise. Noise has a particularly harmful effect on small children: they become capricious, irritable, get scared more often, their sleep may be disturbed, their appetite may worsen, etc. When assessing noise in schools, it was found that 65 dB already significantly reduces children's attention, and this leads to a greater number of mistakes.
Our hearing is most vulnerable to noise. The maximum sensitivity level of the human ear is 130 dB. Human hearing perceives high tones most of all, with age the sensitivity decreases, which is quite natural, older people no longer perceive high tones. But when hearing decreases as a result of exposure to negative factors, this is another matter. In the modern world, there are millions of hearing-impaired people, and noise is primarily to blame for this.
Observations of workers in noisy industries (mining, coal industry, weaving shops, aircraft pilots, etc.) showed that prolonged and strong exposure to noise leads to regular headaches, increased irritability, decreased performance, dizziness, and gradual hearing loss. Love of loud pop music, especially rock and heavy metal, leads to decreased and sometimes complete hearing loss in young people. Such people develop a kind of drug addiction to loud music, they constantly strive to be surrounded by loud sounds, and are not satisfied with normal volume. But over time, such a passion will have to be paid a very high price.
Our hearing organ can, of course, get used to any noise, auditory adaptation occurs. However, this does not mean that such a process can protect us from partial or complete hearing loss in the future. A person can, of course, get used to the constant noise of trains, heavy trucks, the roar of airplane engines, loud music, etc., but ultimately this will lead to hearing loss, and first of all, our nervous system will suffer. With prolonged and strong noise exposure, disorders of the central nervous system are observed, since sound waves affect not only the human hearing apparatus, but also the entire body.