Is Sound the new "Lights Out?"

[Allen Yeh]

I recently finished "Lights Out" and I'm not going to claim I understood it all I have a basic understanding of what it was trying to get across and I might attempt a 2nd reading in a few months.

Anyway the point is I was reading an article in an old Mens Health I have at home the other day about sound and how it's gotten worse and worse in modern day and just how rare it is to be able to find a place without hearing man-made noise i.e. cars, industrial plants, heating, AC...etc. On an everyday I'd say most of us are subjected to >85 decibels on a somewhat regular basis i.e. driving on the highway, your kids fighting about the Xbox, construction...etc. The only reason I mention 85 decibels is in the article it said that >85 decibels triggers the "stress" reaction in most people. Even low frequency noise that is below the threshold for humans to hear audibly can have a negative impact on our health. There was a lot more in the article and I wish I had it on hand to reference it, if I have time tonight I'll post the author of the article and such.

This really got me thinking about "Lights Out" and how this is strikingly similiar, only obviously with sound. Only recently in the last century has this constant noise thing been a part of human history. I honestly could not think of the last time I had quiet, like completely quiet other than the sounds of nature. I can remember it being quiet...kind of but I could still hear cars driving in the distance, the heat was still blowing.

What impact do you guys think of all this "noise" will have on this generation and future generations?



P.S. I'll try to find the article later tonight.

[Mike ODonnell]

considering there are non stop f*#@'n leaf blowers in every neighborhood 6 days a week because everyone wants the perfect yard every day and there are 20 different landscaping companies who come all at different times.....well lets just say my stress level goes up.....I mean...it's raining and you are blowing wet leaves from one yard to another...just so the next day another company can come and blow those leaves back to the other yard....

Haven't read the book yet....as Amazon is taking their sweet ass time shipping....but it may cover this too:

The Autonomic Nervous system has 2 main parts, the Sympathetic and parasympathetic systems.
Sympathetic = fight or flight, stress, accelerated heart beat, inhibit digestion, glucose release by liver, adrenal hormones, etc....
Parasympathetic = relaxation, repair, digestion, saliva (enzyme) release, etc...

We are stuck in sympathic mode all day long when it was meant for short term with cars, alarms, computers, motherf&#^$'n leaf blowers, "crack"berry devices (slaves to blackberry), work now going 24 hours thanks to email access from anywhere, cell phones ringing all over the place, 2 way walkie talkie radio (I don't want to hear your conversation), people talking to no one with bluetooth headsets walking around, Beeps and buzzers from anything and everything (see if you don't flinch a little everytime something beeps..), TV shows like 24 (love it though...need to Tivo it and watch in during the day) getting us all pumped up late at night with "bangs" and "booms", the news striking fear into us before we go to bed, color codes for terror alerts, loud motorcycles, cars with 10000 watt stereos where i feel the base from 100 yards away, Ipods on everyone and in cell phones so we can have more noise pumped in and feel good (the new feel good drug....nonstop adrenaline pumping music)....all noise keeping us on "alert" and never resting......hence we are all a mess walking around with impaired digestion, overburned adrenals, excess cortisol, unbalanced blood sugar, and little to no repair going on in our bodies.

moving to the mountains....technology destroying our bodies and shortening our life span.....the future is in trouble.....but we already see that in kids with ADD, bad temperments, obesity and outrageous rises in every disease across the board....bodies are being destroyed. Sad sad state we are creating. Not too mention a growing culture of self serving loud noise for ego purposes and the blatant disrespect for other people and their right to enjoy the peace and quiet. (I must be getting old......those damn kids and their damn rock and roll music...."shaking fist"...)

Oh yeah....motherf*&#'n leaf blowers....pick up a rake you lazy sack of &#&*...but then again...it's never the person who lives at the home doing this...just the many landscaping companies...

rant over.

[Allen Yeh]

Here is the article it's semi-lengthy but worth the read.

http://health.msn.com/menshealth/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100125842 (http://www.noiseoff.org/media/mens.health.pdf)