An invisible killer throughout our lives

We are surrounded by an invisible killer. One of the so common that we barely notice that it reduces our lives.

This causes heart attacks, type 2 diabetes and studies that even associate it with dementia.

Do you think it can be?

The answer is a noise – and its effect on the human body goes far beyond the destruction of hearing.

“This is a health crisis

This is just a crisis we don’t talk about.

So, I investigate when the noise becomes dangerous, talking to people whose health suffers and see if there is a way of overcoming our noisy world.

I started meeting with Professor Clark at a terribly silent sound lab. We will see how my body responds to the noise, and I was created by a device that resembles a chunky smart hour.

It will measure my heart rate and how much my skin sweats.

You can also join the headphones. Think about how these five sounds make you feel.

The one I think is really grate – it’s a noise of movement from Daka, Bangladesh, which has the title of the most noble city in the world. I immediately feel like I’m in a huge, intense traffic jam.

And the sensors collect my agitation – my heart rate shoots, and my skin sweats more.

“There is really good evidence that the noise of movement affects the health of the heart,” says the Clark, when the next sound is preparing.

Only the joyful sounds of the playground have a calming effect on my body. Dogs barking and a neighbor’s party in the first hours lead to a negative reaction.

But why does the sound change my body?

“You have an emotional answer to the sound,” says Professor Clark.

The sound is expressed by the ear and is transmitted to the brain and one region – the tonsil – performs an emotional assessment.

This is part of the battle reaction or body flight that has developed to help us respond quickly to sounds like a predator that breaks through the bushes.

“So, your heart rate increases, your nervous system begins to put, and you highlight the stress hormones,” Professor Clark tells me.

All this is good in an emergency, but over time it begins to harm.

“If you are exposed for several years, your body reacts as constantly, it increases the risk of things such as heart attacks, high blood pressure, stroke and type 2 diabetes,” says prof.

Inside, it even happens until we sleep quickly. You might think that you are adapted to the noise. I thought I was doing when he lived in a rent near the airport. But biology tells another story.

“You never turn off your ears; if you sleep, you still listen. So, these answers, such as a heart rate, it happens while you sleep,” Professor Clark adds.

Noise undesirable sound. Transportation – traffic, trains and planes – are the main source, but the sounds that we drive well. A large party of one person is an unbearable noise.

I meet with Coca to her apartment of the fourth floor in the historic area of ​​Vila-de Groji in Spain Barcelona.

There is a bag of freshly elected lemons tied to her door, gifted by one neighbor, her refrigerator contains fritters cooked by another, and she offers me fantasy pies made by a third neighbor who trains in the Passemsia.

From the balcony you can see the famous Council of the city, Sagrada Familia. It is easy to understand why Coco fell in love with life here, but it comes at a huge price, and she thinks it will be forced to leave.

“It’s an extremely noise … It’s a 24-hour noise,” she tells me. There’s a dog park for the owners to pass their dogs, who “brave at 2, 3, 4, 5”, and the yard is a public space used for everything: from children’s parties to parties to all day concerts ended with fireworks.

She comes out of the phone and plays the records of music, which breaks out so loudly that makes the glass in her windows vibrate.

Her home should be a shelter from the work strain, but the noise “causes frustration, I feel like crying.”

She was “hospitalized twice from chest pain” and “absolutely” believes that the noise causes stress that harms her health. “There is a physical change that I feel it makes something for your body, for sure,” she says.

According to the researcher D -R Maria Fortoster, Barcelona has 300 heart attacks and 30 deaths a year only from the noise of the road, which considered evidence of the noise of the World Health Organization.

Across Europe The noise is associated with 12,000 early death per year, as well as millions of cases of severe sleep, as well as serious noise irritation, which can affect mental health.

I meet with Dr. Firster in a cafe, separating from one of the most busy roads by Barcelona with a small park. My sound counter says that there are just over 60 decibels noise from long traffic.

We can easily communicate with noise without raising our voices, but this is an unhealthy volume.

The main amount of heart health is 53 decibels, it tells me, and the higher you go, the more health risk.

“This 53 means that we need to be in a rather quiet setting,” says D -Forster.

And this is only in the daytime, we need even lower sleep. “We need silence at night,” she says.

Although it is not just about the volume, how much destructive sound and how much you control, it affects our emotional reaction.

Dr Foaster claims that the impact of health noise is “at air pollution” but it is much more difficult to understand.

“We are used to understanding that chemicals can affect health, and they are toxic, but it is not easy to understand that the physical factor, like noise, affects our health outside our hearing,” she says.

A loud party can be a fun that makes life worthy of life and someone else’s unbearable noise.

The sound of the movement has the greatest impact on health because so many people are exposed to it. But traffic is also the sound of a work attack, shopping and bringing children to school. Fighting the noise means the request of people to live by the way – which creates their own problems.

Natalie Muelle’s D -R -Müller from the Barcelona Institute of Global Health leads me for a walk in the city center. We start on a busy road-my sound counter works over 80 decibels-and we head to the quiet avenue, where the noise is up to the 50’s.

But there is something else on this street – it was a busy road, but the space was handed over to the pedestrian, cafes and gardens. I see the ghost of the old crosswood roads in the form of flower beds. Cars can still go down here, just slowly.

Remember that earlier in the laboratory we found that some sounds can soothe the body.

“It is not quite silent, but this is another perception of sound and noise,” says D -Ruler. My pulse dropped and I stopped sweating.

The initial plan was to create more than 500 areas similar to this, called “Super Blocks” – convenient for pedestrians areas created during a group of several urban blocks together.

Doctor Mueller conducted a study Predicting 5-10% noise reduction in the city, which prevents approximately “150 premature deaths” from noise every year. And that would be the “tip of the iceberg” only health benefits.

But in fact, only six superflowers were built. The city council refused to comment.

Noise danger, though it continues to grow. Urbanization puts more people in noisy cities.

Daka, Bangladesh, is one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the world. This brought more traffic and given the city of Cocafan Soundtrack from the signals.

The artist Mimin Roman Royal earned the Lone Hero label because his silent protests focused on the problems of the city.

About 10 minutes every day, it stands at the intersection of several busy roads with a large yellow poster, blaming drivers who sign loud in the horn of causing great trouble.

He took over the mission after his daughter’s birth. “I want to stop all signals not only from Daki, but also from Bangladesh,” he says.

“If you see birds, trees or rivers, no one is noise without people, so people are responsible.”

But there are also the beginnings of political action. Saida rushed Hassan, who is an environmental advisor and the Bangladesh Government, told me that he was “very worried” about the effects of health noise.

There is a repression on horn alarm to reduce the noise level – with the information company and the tougher implementation of existing laws.

She said: “It is impossible to do it in one year -two years, but I think you can make sure the city will become less noisy, and when people feel it, they feel better when less noisy, I am sure their habit will also change.”

The noise solution can be complicated, difficult and difficult to address.

What I have left is a new gratitude for finding a place in our lives to simply avoid the noise, because, in the words of Dr. Masuru Abdullah Kuder, from Bangladesh University professionals, it is a “silent killer and slow poison.”

Loud was made by Jerry Holt. Additional report from Bangladesh Salman Said