It’s only in recent years that people have started to wake up more broadly to how exhausting and stressful constant exposure to all kinds of noise pollution really is.
This all-pervasive racket is so ordinary and all-encompassing these days that people don’t normally even register it in everyday life anymore. Without a direct point of comparison, the brain actively tries to fade it into the background. How often have you heard someone say at a cottage: “It’s so wonderfully quiet.”
In urban environments, traffic noise and the sounds of roadworks are sort of just part of the deal. In a shop, background music and the surprisingly loud hum of refrigeration units pass below the threshold of awareness without us even noticing.
The echoing hubbub of open-plan offices and the radio playing in the background… well, you get used to everything… or do you really?
A great deal of very thorough, long-term research has been carried out around the world on how environmental noise and racket affect people’s mental and physical load over prolonged exposure.
It’s pretty strange that the tabloids keep dragging the most horrifying ways to die from cardiovascular disease into their headlines, yet this ordinary but serious source of exposure, noise, gets not a word in the media, apart from scientific publications.
According to some bloody solid research, long-term exposure to noise can be a genuine physical and psychological burden. It can cause general restlessness, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, sleep problems, and a general sense of being thoroughly pissed off.
And constant stress raises the body’s cortisol levels, which in turn are directly linked to both high blood pressure and obesity.
In office noise, it’s especially the constant chatter, interruptions, and lack of control that increase perceived stress and the effort required to concentrate. And in open-plan offices and schools, concentration problems become even more pronounced.
In other words, the human brain is calibrated so that sudden noises, like a phone buzzing and people speaking with certain “trigger words” (did they just say my name?), rise above the horizon of awareness. And there goes your train of thought.
Doesn’t sound very efficient or stress-free, does it?
And research in the field almost invariably starts with so-called “average people.” But what if you’re neurodivergent, and the world’s noises and sensory stimuli weigh on you several times more heavily!?!
So what would the designer of noise cancelling headphones actually recommend as a solution for stopping noise pollution from ruining your day?
First of all, I’d hammer into the head of whoever runs your company or school that if people absolutely have to be punished with open-plan offices, the least they could do is care enough about those people, or at least about efficiency, to bring an acoustics designer into the planning process and actually follow their plan.
I guarantee productivity and job satisfaction would improve dramatically, while sick days would drop like a stone.
And everywhere else, I can recommend some good noise cancelling headphones.
Here at Valco, alongside excellent, studio-level sound quality and comfort, we’ve put a lot of effort into natural noise management. Active noise cancellation using several microphones reduces environmental noise just enough.
We’re not trying to make so-called “zero-sensory capsules” that block out every sound from the outside world. We reduce the noise just enough so it doesn’t overload the brain, letting you enjoy music and all its nuances properly even in a noisy environment, without having to crank it up to the edge of hearing damage.
But if someone does want to get your attention, whether it’s Reiska from accounts receivable or a truck, that still works just fine.
And you know what? A lot of people use our headphones without even listening to music.
As one customer put it rather perfectly in their feedback:
“They just turn the world’s volume knob down a little.”
