The effect of noise on the human body.

Never think much about noise until I realise how strongly I become aware of absolute silence and find myself loving it. Happily it's in abundance where I live.

And now the 2nd part has gone:-

I feel generally that as we get more and more over crowded that we will need to take very affirmative action to make the word a much quieter place. I really feel we need to start getting some legislation in place and educating people to be generally quieter. It is such a terrible imposition to play music loudly. I have even been on a train where someone set their laptop up and plugged speakers into it to watch a film which everyone in the carriage could hear. The conductor told them to switch it off and after about a 10 minute argument they eventually complied. There really is just no excuse for it when earpieces can be obtained for very little expense.

Yes this was an exception, but it illustrates the don't care attitude of some people and really this whole noise thing needs to stop or be stopped.

Sorry I was going to continue this, but accidently sent the first part before I finished it.

I really don't think you are being oversensitive at all. I have always hated extraneous and especially unnecessary noise, such as people talking loudly, background music etc. Hence I don't have music on unless I am actually "listening" to it and my cleaning lady thinks I'm crazy because I don't have the radio on Lol!

Fast moving film/video does my head in as well.

Thanks for all your responses. I thought I was being over-sensitive, but I see it's a common problem.

It's the reason we don't have a telly and why I hardly ever turn the radio on or listen to recorded music. I think the disconnect between the sound and me is the problem. Noises coming from a machine have a completely different quality from 'living' noises. I don't have a problem, for instance, listening to live music (well, I do if it's not very good music, which covers sbout 90%!).

Then there's the sheer volume! Most people seem to be deaf. They seem totally insensitive to what feels to me like sound torture.

LuckyGirl Have you heard or sung this?
At our last concert we sang an Agnus Dei to the tune of Samuel Barber Adagio for strings. That piece is incredibly slow and droning and it really messed with my head.

There are also the droning humming noises that they seem to be put over on TV dramas. They vibrate in similar unpleasant way.

That sounds horrendous harrigran - why do people do that? I hope you are better now.

I remember being in a caravan overnight and another caravan was playing very loud music with a deep beat all night. In my sleepless state I was planning how I might slash their tyres!

I was subjected to a loud radio playing day and night in a flat below me, after a week I was physically ill. I visited the GP and was admitted to hospital from the surgery, my BP was through the roof and they thought I might have had a heart attack.

Noise can really affect your health and well being. I have very acute hearing and oten need to resort to ear plugs to prevent being totally exhausted. Post stroke I have terrible problems with intrusive noise even to the point that I cannot sit in my Dr's waiting room where they have a radio permanently on, not loud enough to actually hear it properly but just making a noise. (This is apparently so that anyone talking confidentially to the receptionist cannot be overheard although there are signs to say that there is a room available for any confidential discussion.)
I am amazed at the way so many people have their music permanently affixed to their ears and cannot understand their apparent need for permanent sound. I love to listen to the 'silence' when sitting in my garden, the bird song is wonderful. My friend who always had music blaring now suffers from tinnitus and I often wonder if there is a connection.

Mechanical and traffic noise is almost unbearable sometimes, but at the moment I have a noise problem of a quite different nature. At sunrise, a wood pigeon perches on the roof above my bedroom and coos. Usually the cooing of pigeons is quite soothing, but at 04:30 in the morning it is loud and annoying. It's been there all week, this morning I eventually went back to sleep but woke with a headache and that pigeon is getting the blame.

I get what I call an "audio hangover" if/when I have spent the previous night in a noisy environment - headache, nausea, fatigue etcetera. Basically I feel like crap (it's a long, long time since I had a hangover but I remember what it feels like: awful). But being in a noisy space most definitely affects me, that includes any booming music, most action films, modern restaurants with a lot of clanging and the buzz of people trying to make themselves heard above the din. I hate it. I know (for me) "the morning after the night before" feeling is caused by noise, because when I use earplugs to deaden the worst of the racket, it doesn't happen.

I am very noise sensitive. I cannot bear any invasive noise, even traffic. I get especially twitchy when I can hear others' music - a builder's tranny, a car with the window down and music blaring etc. Why do people imagine that others wish to their their music? That really really pulss my chain.