Skip to main content

How Noise effects your health

Source: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1307272/


One only has to drive on Cape Town's roads or watch someone freak out in a queue to see how incredibly stressed out most people are these days.  Tempers are short and people have little patience. The smallest challenge or delay triggers them, resulting in an explosion of emotion that is totally out of proportion to what is happening.

Stress is a very big part of everyone's life.  Noise contributes to this significantly - it might even be unconscious and it's only when you go somewhere quiet that you realize just how much you needed the peace.  Your body relaxes and you literally feel like the stress is draining out of you - you are less jumpy, your temper isn't as sort and you actually get a good nights sleep.

For you, it might be your neighbors barking dogs or the guy who revs his motorbike engine incessantly.  Others may struggle with the ongoing building sites around Cape Town and the noise this generates.  The really unlucky might have neighbors who love to come home and party at 1am a couple of nights a week.

For me, it's the relentless noise of overhead helicopter tourist flights that starts in the morning and goes on until sunset  - summer months are the worst with the relentless droning overhead.  My suburb is generally quiet and overlooks False Bay, unfortunately, this has now been destroyed over the past 2 years thanks to an elitist and minority tourism activity reserved for the privileged few who can afford it.  The number of Helicopter flips in summer can often be more than 40 a day.

Some article below on the effects of noise:

Noise activates our stress hormones

Environmental Noise Pollution in the United States: Developing an Effective Public Health Response


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Birds and Helicopter Noise

Interesting Reading  - a study done on the effects of Helicopter noise on the endangered Birds of Dassen Island. One of the best-studied groups of birds for the impact of aircraft is penguins. Some species of penguins are prone to panic responses to helicopters (e.g. Wilson et al. 1991, Cooper et al. 1994, Giese & Riddle 1999), occasionally with catastrophic results (Rounsevell & Binns 1991). Most catastrophic events happen among dense groups of penguins, where even one bird panicking can set off a chain reaction throughout the group.  Source: http://adu.org.za/pdf/Nansikombi_Juliet_2004_MSc_CB_thesis.pdf Image source: Wikipedia - Michael John Nicoll - Nicoll, M. J. (1908) Three Voyages of a Naturalist : Being an Account of Many Little-Known Islands in Three Oceans Visited by the 'Valhalla' R. Y, S., London : Whitherby & Co.
Post a Comment
Read more

Cape Town Helicopter Noise

Cape Town's tourism Helicopter industry seems to be booming if one judges it by the amount helicopters flying around over the Cape Peninsula.  It also seems to be an industry that only considers itself and not the detrimental effect it is having on the general peace and well being of the suburbs of Cape Town. The noise on the ground has become increasingly problematic, especially when there are 40 plus flights a day in summer coming over your house.   The Cape Town suburbs and Table Mountain National Park have generally always been quiet spaces but unfortunately, this is no longer the case thanks to an elitist tourism activity reserved for the wealthy minority. The City of Cape Town (to date) has not been able to provide me with the Environmental Impact Assesment report that I would hope has been done for a high volume activity such as this that causes noise and dumps C02 into the atmosphere. Coastal suburbs like Clovelly, Kalk Bay, St James and Muizenberg are being huge...
1 comment
Read more

Video - LOW FLYING HELICOPTERS OVER CAPE TOWN SUBURBS

A video from a Claremont resident On Friday, 24 th  February 2017, between 08H55 and 09H55, helicopters were flying low over the houses in Claremont. Footage of one of the helicopters shows how low this helicopter was flying against a backdrop of trees and the mountain. Despite numerous complaints to the Waterfront, City of Cape Town (Noise Control) and Operators themselves, helicopters continue to operate with no consideration of his residence below.  
Post a Comment
Read more