“Bneighborhood noise, traffic, television, telephone that keeps ringing, work in open space, etc., In general, permanent sound stress does not allow the ear to rest, alert immediately Dr Renaud David, psychiatrist and co-organizer of the Sound Week in Nice, to be held there from January 22 to 1st February. The ear is not an inert receiver capable of receiving constant information. She needs to rest. “
Beyond the well-known toxic effects on pure hearing health, sound over-stimulation has widely demonstrated harmful effects on mental health.
Potentially toxic ambient noise
“In an urban environment, the noise is constant, there is no respite. Noises outside the home: motorbikes passing by, fitted with engineered exhaust pipes, road traffic, trains or planes taking off depending on the residential areas …, There are also noises within the living space: CMV, refrigerator snoring… All these noises disturb the quality of sleep: difficulty falling asleep, more frequent night awakenings, earlier morning awakening… “, lists the psychiatrist.
An exhausting situation that people will try to resolve by tapping into their medicine cabinet.
“We note, in people subjected to noise, an increase in the use of psychotropic drugs and in particular anxiolytics, in summer in particular because the windows remaining open, the noise is then even more marked.”
Beyond the quality of sleep, noise has an impact on certain cognitive performances: “Beyond 70 dB, it ends up affecting attentional functions, memory functions [capacité à mémoriser un fait actuel, à retrouver un souvenir, Ndlr] and even learning “, alert the Dr Renaud David.
Chronic anxiety
Finally, constant exposure to noise ultimately affects mental well-being.
“It promotes stress and chronic anxiety by modifying the corticotropic axis, as shown by the increase in stress hormones in the urine, plasma and saliva of those exposed.”
In “typing on the system”noise can even lead to behavioral changes: “We have been able to correlate the ambient noise of machines in factories with the aggressiveness of workers.”
And to bring a final touch to this very dark picture, information that is not surprising, but that justifies the implementation of targeted actions: “Low-income populations are the most affected. We are used to saying: “Noise for the poor, silence for the rich”. “
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