The requirement for silence in a noisy world
It is quite apparent that we are living in one extremely noisy world and it appears to be getting worse with each passing day. Everywhere we go, we are accosted by loud, undesired sound.
When we enter the elevators, restaurants and malls, we are engrossed. I lately had lunch at a popular restaurant and found the background music so loud that it is interfered with regular conversation and the enjoyment of my lunch.
When you add transport trucks, jet engines, jack hammers, leaf blowers, snow blowers, lawnmowers, and horns and buzzers of all types, you have a constant noise and annoyance. Even while watching a television program at a certain volume level; you are blown out of your chair when a commercial comes at the decibel level of a jet plane.
We seem to have created a cultural acceptance of our noisy world despite the fact that it is making us ill psychologically and physically. We can’t appear to live without background sound. We have friends that turn on the television the moment they wake up in the morning and leave it on all day. The house is just too quiet if it isn’t on. Former high school students of mine used to tell me that the first thing they did on arriving home after school was to turn on the CD player as tolerated by the parents. Needless to say, they also need noise control solutions for schools.
A research was conducted to determine the effect of noise on staffs in an open area office space where people are constantly exposed to shredding machines, office chatter, telephones and fax machines etc. Test results unveiled that workers in an open area had high levels of adrenaline in their urine. Adrenaline is released by the body under stress. It gets us ready for flight or fight. When these staffs were compared to those self confined office spaces, the results were galvanizing. People in a serene, self confined work area don’t have the same high levels of adrenalin in their urine. They were less stressed and much more relaxed.
A puzzle that demands concentration and attention was given to both groups of staffs. The open area group was found to be less diligent in the solution of a puzzle becoming easily frustrated and giving up much earlier than the group from a serene office. The research also found that workers from the quiet office slept better at night, had better digestion with a soundproof blanket in their home.
Soon, you will start to enjoy the period of silence you have built into your day and long for more. You will quickly explore that that you are becoming less tense and more relaxed even amidst our noisy world. You will have made a valuable new friend of silence, a friend which can comfort, soothe and heal our spirit.