Physician Louis Hagler published his in-depth research on noise last spring in the Southern Medical Journal. He found study after study confirmed that excessive noise made people more violent and aggressive, increased their risk of heart problems and sleep deficits, decimated their productivity, and impaired their ability to learn. In short, unwanted noise degraded almost every aspect of their lives.
The way that our body evolved makes us prone to respond violently to excessive noise. The body reacts to noise with a "fight or flight' response," Doctor Hagler suggests. In other words, we're genetically primed to react to loud or intrusive sounds in the same way we would to a physical threat. When a door slams or a car roars by, our body experience a stress response. Blood pressure and heart rates rise, arteries and veins constrict, and levels of stress-related hormones like epinephrine and cortisol spike.
When we experience these physiological changes repeatedly over long periods, our health can suffer. Stefan Willich, an epidemiologist at Berlin's Charite University Medical Center, found that people exposed to chronic noise were more likely to have heart attacks. He interviewed more than 2,000 heart attack survivors from thirty-two Berlin hospitals and asked them to rate their exposure to noise over the course of recent years, then compared their histories with those of non-heart attack sufferers. Male patients exposed to excessive environmental noise had a 50 percent increased risk of heart attack, and female patients who fit the same description had a 300 percent increased risk. The risk was greatest for people who regularly experienced noise above the sixty-decibel threshold—about the level of background noise in a busy mid-sized office.
Perhaps more distressing is the fact that noise intrudes on children's ability to learn. In fact Gary Evans, a professor of design and human development at Cornell University, found that children in noisy classrooms typically responded to the racket by tuning out speech in addition to other sources of sound. When children become used to noise, Evans explains, they don't just tune out the sound of cars and airplanes—they tune out everything else as well, which affects their reading and language development.
Researchers at the University of Pisa in Italy have also shown that loud noises can even damage the DNA in mice adrenal glands. This research is the first to provide supporting evidence of a "genotoxic effect" induced by loud noise. In other words, the study suggested that the very foundation of our bodies ability to repair itself, regulate body systems and even reproduce may be negatively impacted by noise.
While the European Union already recognizes the severity of the problem and is responding by developing a wide scale plan to combat noise, the US government hasn't followed suit. So what do we do?
Fostering Quiet
First of all we can start monitoring the sound levels in our own homes, particularly if we share those spaces with children. Turn off radio and TV's while the kids do their homework. Have the kids work in the quietest space in the house. In addition, it is vital to protect yourself from the effects of loud noise by using sound-reducing devices such as protective earplugs or sound reducing earmuffs.
And to give your nervous and immune systems a welcome respite, take a silence break! Whether you choose to take quiet time with a pair of those fancy, noise-canceling headphones or old fashioned ear plugs. Create a "silence sanctuary" every day. Use this time to add to your "spirit connection time" each day. In the silence, you can pray, meditate or just go over your gratitudelist. (See article in Inner Realm/Outer World section of this issue.) These actions will provide a secondary health benefit. When we remember the feelings of gratitude, we actually provide an antidote to existing stress and begin building our resilience to later incidences of stress. Similar benefits are found to occur when we meditate or pray.
Sources: BBC News Effects of Loud Noise Exposure on DNA Integrity in Rat Adrenal Gland, Giada Frenzilli, Paola Lenzi, Vittoria Scarcelli, Francesco Fornai, Antonio Pellegrini, Paola Soldani, Antonio Paparelli, and Marco Nigro, Dipartimento di Morfologia Umana e Biologia Applicata, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1253657
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The New York Times reported on January 23rd of this year that the Whole Foods grocery chain plans to stop offering customers plastic grocery bags. The company made this decision due to concerns about the bag's environmental impact. The article stated that Whole Foods officials estimated that the store currently distributes 150 million plastic bags a year. |
The New York Times reported on January 23rd of this year that the Whole Foods grocery chain plans to stop offering customers plastic grocery bags. The company made this decision due to concerns about the bag's environmental impact. The article stated that Whole Foods officials estimated that the store currently distributes approximately 150 million plastic bags each year.
Plastic bags are typically thrown away after one use, do not break down easily in the environment, fill landfills, and float into trees, rooftops, roadways and oceans. In fact, many ocean-going animals die each year as a result of ingesting plastic bags.
While Whole Foods' decision is laudable, most locally-owned, natural food stores have never used plastic bags. While these stores usually sell a variety of reusable canvas or cloth bags, many savvy customers come "armed" with their own.
If you're like us, you have a bunch of bags in various sizes with a lot of different advertising logos on them. If you're a BYOB person (that's "bring your own bag") hooray for you! Why not show off your eco-pride and give your tired old bags a fresh look for Spring?
How about you and your kids painting over the logos? You can create your own master pieces with acrylic paint! If the logos are overly large, try turning a logo-printed bag inside out. Once you've painted your designs, you could decorate the rough edges of the bag seams with yarn.
While surfing the net, we also found a few nifty resources for shopping bags made from recycled materials. An artist in California offers "Salvation Sacks"--her incredibly trendy, social conscious and gorgeous bags are made from "salvaged, vintage and recycled materials and goods." Her site is: www.salvationsacks.com Another site we found www.reusablebags.com/store/recycled-bags-c-38.html, offers bags made from recycled fibers, recycled juice boxes and other creative sources. Finally, we have www.treehugger.com/files/2006/07/bazura_bags_mad.php. who offers several bags made from recycled soda cans.
What's your favorite shopping accessory? Send pictures of you and your bags to: editors@spiritliving.org
Whole Foods article source: The New York Times www.nytimes.com
We Mainers are quite familiar with battery-heated winter socks, but believe it or not, researchers are working to make sure that the shirt you wear could charge your cell phone or mp3 player!
The National Science Foundation (http://www.nsf.gov/news/) reported that nanotechnology researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are developing a shirt that harvests energy from the wearer's physical motion which it converts into electricity for powering small electronic devices
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation. The report detailed how pairs of textile fibers covered with zinc oxide nanowires generate electricity in response to applied mechanical stress. Known as "the piezoelectric effect," the resulting current flow from many fiber pairs woven into a shirt or jacket could allow the wearer's body movement to power a range of portable electronic devices. The fibers could also be woven into curtains, tents or other structures to capture energy from wind motion, sound vibration or other mechanical energy.
"The two fibers scrub together just like two bottle brushes with their bristles touching, and the piezoelectric-semiconductor process converts the mechanical motion into electrical energy," says Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Many of these devices could be put together to produce higher power output."
There is still some more work to be done before we can walk our way
to a full charge. It seems that zinc oxide is sensitive to moisture, so the nanowires would have to be protected from the effects of the washing machine. Keep reading SpiritLiving for more about alternative
energy ideas!
A scanning electron microscopy image shows the piezoelectric
zinc oxide nanowires. The two sets of nanowires meet teeth-to-teeth,
allowing the gold-coated microfibers to scrub those not coated
with gold to produce electricity.
Source: National Science Foundation www.nsf.gov/news
Photo from NSF article: Courtesy of Z.L. Wang and X.D. Wang, Georgia Institute of Technology
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Recent research by the British government has shown the benefits of buying organic, free range eggs. The survey concluded that organically fed laying hens have a significantly lower level of salmonella. (Most food poisoning cases are caused by salmonella contamination.)
Test results showed that more than 23% of farms with caged hens tested positive for the bacteria, whereas just over 4% in organic and 6.5% in free-range flocks. The survey found that "factory farms" with holding sizes of 30,000 hens or more showed the worst contamination rates.
Organic omelet, anyone?
Sources: Natural Choices February 1, 2008
Last Fall, the Canadian government set aside a parcel of wilderness land for conservation that is 11 times the size of Yellowstone National Park. It has been hailed by environmental groups as one of North America's most important acts of nature preservation. This area in Canada's Northwest Territories will be used as a national park, a national wilderness area and a conservation area which will be administered by native peoples under treaty rights.
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