14 DAY TRIAL // Living in crowded, heavily-circulated areas can have detrimental effects on people's sleep patterns, a new research revealed. The study shows that airplane noise, and the sounds generated by trains, traffic and sirens, can also impair the neurobehavioral performance that people usually have in the morning. The data will be presented today, June 8, at the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (SLEEP 2010). The conference takes place in San Antonio, Texas.
“The study demonstrated that traffic noise may disturb sleep and consequently impede recuperation, as was shown by deterioration of neurobehavioral performance. The study therefore stresses the importance of sleep hygiene in terms of a quiet environment for healthy, undisturbed sleep,” explains postdoctoral research fellow Dr. Eva-Maria Elmenhorst, the lead author of the investigation. She is based in Cologne, at the German Aerospace Center Institute of Aerospace Medicine. The experiments that led to the new conclusions were carried out on 72 people with an average age of 40 years.
The expert also underlines that there are several subgroups of the general population that are more susceptible to the adverse effects of noise pollution. These include children, people working night shifts, the elderly, and those suffering from chronic medical conditions. When the study participants were exposed to a recording of nighttime noises during their sleep, they showed an average of 3.6 milliseconds of delay in their responses to a psychomotor vigilance task, which they were subjected to the next morning. This delay was directly correlated to the frequency and sound-pressure levels of the noises the people heard during their sleep.
The test participants had their sleep surveyed via a method known as polysomnography for 11 consecutive nights. The researchers played back various combinations of traffic, airplane and train noises, and also allowed for a night in which no sounds were played, to use as a control. Each morning, the subjects participated in a psychomotor vigilance task, and their daily evolution was carefully recorded. The German team says that white noise is one solution to the problem. It is produced by box fans and oscillating fans, sound machines, and special applications for computers and smart phones, and can drown out other frequencies.