How Noise Harms Your Health

A dreary sky grayed with smog. A favorite beach blackened by oil. Tap water tinged brown from lead. These are the hideous images conjured by the word "pollution."

Add another: A lone man or woman sitting at home, hunched with tension against the relentless cacophony of a gas-powered leaf blower, jackhammer, jet traffic, impatient horns honking outside.

Noise pollution! This underrated phenomenon has major impacts on our physical and mental health, especially as we age. And it's not just about hearing loss.  

Noise was one of the major reasons I moved away from Manhattan in my late 20s. Even living in a 10th story apartment with the windows closed, I could hear the notoriously loud New York drivers on Third Avenue below.

Now, two decades later and living in a quiet suburb near San Diego, I can usually sleep in with the windows open. Thanks to partial hearing loss — which I blame on countless arena rock concerts – I rarely hear every word in a conversation, but I also rarely hear the kinds of stressful street sounds from my city years either. Those bothered me years before I had a name for the problem.

The Environmental Protection Agency defines noise pollution this way: "Sound becomes unwanted when it either interferes with normal activities such as sleeping, conversation, or disrupts or diminishes one's quality of life. The fact that you can't see, taste or smell it may help explain why it has not received as much attention as other types of pollution, such as air pollution, or water pollution… for some, the persistent and escalating sources of sound can often be considered an annoyance. This 'annoyance' can have major consequences, primarily to one's overall health."

In fact, the agency notes on the relevant section of its website, "Noise pollution adversely affects the lives of millions of people. Studies have shown that there are direct links between noise and health," and this extends well beyond hearing loss.

Quiet Communities, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization comprised of scientific, medical and legal professionals focused on this scourge, has 282 articles on its website covering health and noise. Its programming looks at the sources of noise in our lives – including those that invade our homes such as lawn care, street sounds and air traffic. For low-income communities, often forced to live close to industry, highways, military bases and airports, these issues hit even harder and closer to home.

Quiet Communities' president, Jamie Banks, observes, "Older people are generally more sensitive to noise than younger people because the brain has been found to become more sensitive to noise with age."

She notes that older people are often impacted in another way: They tend to spend more time at home, whether because of retirement, chronic illnesses, or simply having lower activity levels than earlier in life. "It is therefore especially important for them to have control over their environment. The inability to control the intrusion of external noise into your home causes stress. People unable to control their home environment report poorer health, a reduced sense of well-being, and more depression and anxiety."  

"Beyond hearing loss, noise exposure can lead to physical impacts such as increased stress levels, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases," explains Angela Hsu, MD, a geriatrician at Kaiser Permanente in McLean, Virginia. "In older adults, chronic noise exposure can worsen cognitive decline and sleep disturbances, affecting their overall quality of life," she adds. The effects are cumulative, she points out, "becoming more significant with each passing decade."

That means someone in their 50s or 60s can look forward to potentially greater problems later on, particularly in combination with other difficult life circumstances. "Hearing loss in older adults can lead to increased risks of social isolation, depression and cognitive decline, including dementia," Hsu reports. It's not all bleak. Hearing aids and noise reduction can both help, the geriatrician shares.

My professional area of expertise is residential wellness design, in which creating a quieter home can improve physical and mental health. I followed my own advice in 2022 when I replaced my otherwise serene townhome's loud dishwasher with a new, low decibel model. That enabled me to lower the volume on my TV in the next room and miss fewer words on screen or with visitors.

The healthy building certification organization International WELL  Building Institute factors noise pollution into its WELL standards, including the new set for residential structures. Sound — both internal and external – is included in its 10 major impact areas to bolster the health and well-being of occupants.

"To address external noise, WELL for residential has features on site selection to keep distance from sources of major noise such as airport or highways, and design strategies to limit noise intrusion," shares IWBI's chief engineer and head of standard development, Nathan Stodola. The latter includes requirements to block sound transfers between walls, ceilings and floors in an apartment or condo building. Considering WELL standards when building, remodeling or adding onto a home can be extremely beneficial in planning a quieter space.

You still have some options to block external noises penetrating your existing living space. These include shifting room purposes, like swapping a sleeping room on a noisy street with a hobby room and, for a single family residence, replacing windows and planting noise-insulating greenery outside the window. You can also reach out to your building manager, HOA or police department to enforce neighborhood noise codes, talk to your neighbors, and join groups like Quiet Communities that advocate on all of our behalf.

"Homes are becoming noisier in recent years due at least to one factor, the increase in activities conducted at home, such as working and exercising, as well as a shortage of childcare," Stodola observes. (This may mean grandparents pitching in or grandchildren sharing a multi-generational home.)

"People who work from home are taking calls, which can be noisy to others inside the home, while exercising at home with poor impact insulation of floors and ceilings can be disruptive to the level below, he adds. Even with childcare, the sounds of crying or play can be challenging for those concentrating, sleeping or relaxing elsewhere in the home.  

Noise pollution is an issue Puget Sound area architect Andrew Mikhael addresses in all of his projects — including for the 60% of his homeowner clients who are 50 or older. "Whether people ask for it or not, I show them methodologies in space planning, construction detailing and product selections that lead to quieter homes - protecting from noise outside and inside," he says.

Kitchens and laundry areas tend to the loudest. Appliances, plumbing and hard surfaces can all up the volume and open kitchen layouts add to the challenge, he notes. Quiet rooms — like bedrooms and home offices — need to be isolated from household noise.

Something you can do to reduce noise transfer between rooms in your home, Mikhael says, is to soften your surfaces: "Soft surfaces absorb sound." This could be plush area rugs, heavy drapes, floor cushioning below exercise equipment, filled bookcases and plants along noisy walls.

"Furniture placement can help," the architect adds. "Think of insulating. If you have a shared wall with a noisy neighbor and you can put a full length bookcase there, fill it to dampen the sound transfer." You can also replace hollow core doors with solid core versions if you own your home space.

Noise is a given in life — often a joyful one — but we shouldn't have to endure the unwanted, unhealthy hazards of noise pollution to enjoy our life at home. Quiet is the gift we give ourselves.