Noise and silence

Hello! In this month’s post I am going to talk about noise pollution and silence. I love silence. It’s not that I don’t like music, but I love being at home, or at work, and that there is silence. I don’t like working with music or noise. When I move to a new house (and I have lived in a few since I was a student and later with my jobs around the world), I worry a lot about if my new home is, for example, near a pub, shopping street or road, about what kind of neighbors I have, etc. I get stressed by traffic noise and by having noisy neighbors, or by being forced to listen to anyone’s privacy. Anyway, part of this “mania” comes from when I had to suffer a neighbor who spent her time having sex at full blast and hitting the wall next to me, to the point that I had to move. It was useless talking to her. I really think after that I developed some kind of post-traumatic stress. However, the noise of babies and children does not bother me so much.

For quite a few years, I believe that since I was a student, I often sleep with earplugs. I found that they helped me to rest better, since my parents’ house overlooks a road and when I slept late or took a nap the noise bothered me. I use foam earplugs. I tried one of those silicone tailor-made earplugs, which are more hygienic, but they didn’t remove noise better. Besides, they fell off from my ears and the foam ones did not. Foam earplugs are the ones that seal the ear the most and can be washed (although I think they lose effectiveness). Since they cost very little, I wear them for about two weeks and move on to another pair. I wonder if by putting the earplugs so far in, I might be creating earwax plugs or preventing the earwax from coming out. I have always thought that I would exchange my myopia for hearing worse, because unfortunately it turns out that I hear excessively well.

If only houses were better made. I was in one that had double windows and yeah, there was really an isolation from the noise of the street, it was amazing. Also, walls and ceilings could be thicker, especially on the floors so as not to have to listen to the neighbors or be heard. Although what I see is also a lot of lack of manners, especially in people who listen to music at full volume and at times that are not appropriate. Another issue, it is assumed that in the future electric cars will no longer make noise … hopefully someone will invent bluetooth car horns, hahaha.

But since trying to change people is useless, I wanted to share some technological solutions that I found on the internet. Apparently, what traditional earplugs do is to reduce noise, they cannot eliminate it completely. For example, the earplugs that reduce the most noise reach approximately 32 decibels. That is what they take away from the noise there is, but absolute silence is impossible because one would begin to listen to their own blood circulation. I wonder if that’s what you hear when you hear a seashell, as a kid I was always told that what we heard are sea waves 😊

The fact is that some devices have already been invented, and they counteract external noise. That is, they cancel the waves of the outside noise and generate waves in an opposite phase, canceling or mitigating the incoming waves. I read about a device that was worn at home to mitigate the noise that enters through the window, but it seems that where this technology has been most developed is in headphones. These are headphones designed so that you can listen to your music without turning it at full volume because you are on the subway, for example. They cancel out outside noise. The ones I found are from the Bose brand and are called Quietcomfort. Opinions on this are very good. A man says he puts them on to walk around Barcelona so that he doesn’t get stressed out by noise.

But the newest thing that interests me the most are the sleeping plugs that this brand has released. They are quite new and at the moment they are only sold in the United States, but if they are really effective, the two hundred euros they cost would not hurt so much. Some opinions that I have read say that it changes lives. A lot is said about exercise and eating to have a healthy life (mainly focusing on being thin), but not much attention is paid to the need to sleep enough and well and to be relaxed, which I think is as important or more for health.

Apparently there has already been some other similar initiative by some Asians, but it seems that they did not have a very good customer service. The idea regarding these earplugs, which in the case of Bose are called “Wireless Noise-Masking Sleepbuds”, is to carry earplugs with wireless technology with up to 16 hours of battery life (so that they last all night and more). They incorporate wave technology to counteract outside noise by emitting soft white and relaxing noises (such as ocean waves, rain …). You can configure them to sound the alarm clock, so that they don’t wake your partner up. The device promises to cancel outside noises and snoring. It seems great to me (I know that snoring causes problems for couples, and I didn’t think about the alarm thing, since I always hear it when it sounds, even with my earplugs). But I wish I didn’t have to hear any noise (not even the white noise). Apparently, this is not possible. I have tried the white noise thing before (for example, the kitchen extractor) and it is true that it isolates other noises quite a bit and that it relaxes. The hair dryer also produces that white noise, so effective in putting babies to sleep. And, paradoxically, the engines of such annoying cars, which is why I think being in a car makes me so sleepy.

Finally, I hope this technology will improve. I find it incredible that with so many people living in big cities and crowded in apartments, houses continue to be made with walls and windows that seem like paper. And those of us who rent do not have the option of doing works to isolate the house from noise. The rudeness of some with the issue of noise is also quite incredible … I just hope that, since entrepreneurship and start-ups are so fashionable, some enlightened person creates that artifact and/or cutting-edge technology that allows people to sleep in absolute silence.

UPDATE!!: I finally bought a white noise machine and it is what I’ve been using when there was noise outside or from neighbors. White noise is the noise that babies hear when they are in their mother’s womb, it is the background noise of the waves of the sea, the kitchen extractor, the hair dryer, even the car engine noise makes me sleep…a noise that relaxes and covers other noises. They say it also helps babies sleep.

*To buy the products I speak about (I only recommend products that I’ve tested):

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

*From the United States:

• White sound machine: https://amzn.to/308Ej71
• Bose Quietcomfort headphones: https://amzn.to/3hL0E0m

*From Mexico:

• Máquina de ruido blanco: https://amzn.to/2RHVQhC
• Bose Quietcomfort, audífonos inalámbricos con cancelación del ruido exterior: https://amzn.to/35O2Fq8

*From Spain:

• Máquina de ruido blanco: https://amzn.to/35QwS84
• Bose Quietcomfort, auriculares inalámbricos con cancelación del ruido exterior: https://amzn.to/3mDHUTS