Ten years ago Jamie Banks started working from her home in the town of Lincoln, Mass. After a couple of months, the continuing racket from landscaping machines began to feel unendurable, even when she was inside her home. “This horrible noise was going on for hours every day, every week—leaf blowers, industrial lawnmowers, hedge trimmers,” she says. The sound of a gas-powered leaf blower outside can be as loud as 75 decibels (dB) to someone listening from inside a house—higher than the World Health Organization cutoff to protect hearing over a 24-hour period. “I started thinking, this can’t be good,” she says.
The idea that loud noise “can’t be good” is well supported by science. Noise can damage more than just your ears. Through daytime stress and nighttime sleep disturbances, loud sounds can hurt your heart and blood vessels, disrupt your endocrine system, and make it difficult to think and learn.
Read the article: Quiet! Our loud world is making us sick.
Exposure Research Lab 