We revisit Stress because it will figure as a major influence in your immediate life with Noise and other stressors.

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Stress

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    Everyone knows something of stress. We know that if you have it you don't function very well. You don't feel good. You are told to cope with it; reduce it; exercise it away and meditate it to acceptable levels. This is why we now discuss stress more fully other than say "severe stress can be a killer."

    "Excessive and averse environmental factors which produce physiological responses in the individual" is called stress by The Wordsworth Dictionary of Biology. When one reads books on stress; studies reactions on stress; contemplates anatomy and physiology working definitions, the definition emerges that stress is the reaction of an animal body to abnormal states of ongoing negative stimuli resulting in disturbing the normal equilibrium of its natural physiology. Homeostasis (balance of the body) is disturbed.

    Another definition of stress is the excessive production of glucocorticoid hormones, of which cortisol is the chief one considered.

    Writing in Whiskey and Gunpowder, April 24, 2007, 3:15 PM, Ali Samsam Bakhtiari talks about the severe stress response that will hit soon now that the peak oil is turning down. He speaks of the "...psychological shock. This shock, in stark contrast, will be electric and abrupt." Bakhtiari continues:

"Stress, fear, depression, despairs, nightmares will be the order of the day---as people come to face the not-so-palatable facets of 'Post Peak.' When confronted with this series of unknowns, with the trauma of change, people will try to protect themselves by automatically reverting to their past, to the known, to what they believe to be 'real and true'--in a word, to their reassuring 'roots.'"

    There are approximately 20 million diabetics in America. These people are insulin resistant and have high levels of fasting insulin. When the mega-stress hits, they will start feeling poorly. It won't take long for them to find out that they are now diabetic. Everyone is supposedly on some kind of low-fat, heart-healthy diet. But, Robert M. Sapolsky of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, writes on page 68:

"Despite the impression that everyone spends their days eating low-fat / carb / cholesterol / cardboard diets and power walking uphill while loudly reciting the writings of Atkins or Ornish, with each passing year, we are eating more food---more junk food---and exercising less. Twenty percent of Americans are now technically 'obese' (versus 12 percent in 1990), and 54 percent are 'overweight' (verse 44 percent in 1990). To paraphrase the allostasis theorist Joseph Eyer, prosperity has become a cause of death."

    In other words, our technology is killing us. Another cog to the Mechanism of Depopulation just fit into its wheel.

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    Marieb points out that in "Long-term stress responses," from the glucocorticoids, namely cortisol, you will have the follow stress responses:

"Proteins and fats converted to glucose or broken down for energy.

"Increased blood sugar.

"Suppression of immune system."

    This means under horrendous stress–the kind that is coming, without good nursing, medical care, and quality foods, one can lose muscle mass and other tissues of the body, resulting in disease and death.

    Tortora and Grabowski (ibid.,page 795) continue by writing "Your thoughts, feelings, moods and beliefs influence your level of health and the course of disease." Imagine the abject depression and hopelessness that will overtake the young because they are used to a lifestyle of plenty. Some will survive. They continue: "...cortisol, a hormone secreted by the adrenal cortex in association with the stress response, inhibits immune system activity." Recall, we said earlier that this hormone will go through the ‘roof.' This being so, anyone under the conditions coming will be susceptible to any and every microbe coming along or found naturally on/in their bodies.

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    A problem now that has surfaced is that school students are sleep deprived. This is causing all sorts of problems with behavior, work and study. The two scientists, Tortora and Grabowski further write:

"Adequate sleep and relaxation are especially important for a healthy immune system...skipping sleep...you end up ...getting sick, blurs your concentration, and blocks your creativity. ...stress can cause insomnia."---ibid., page 795.

    U.S. News & World Report, April 23, 2007, 'Over The Limit?' (Speed Freaks or Americans Are Maxing Out on Caffeine) writes:

"Overworked and sleep-deprived Americans young and old so crave a buzz these days that even alcoholic drinks come loaded with caffeine, and doctors are getting worried.

"Teenagers...need at least nine hours of sleep a night; grade schoolers, 10 to 12 hours. Very few get close to that much."

    Why..."because they're actively fighting sleep, or because they're so jazzed from caffeine that they can't settle down at bedtime."

    Guyton & Hall's Textbook of Medical Physiology, ninth edition writes on page 964 (says similar in the Eleventh Edition), clearly, that cortisol, the anti-stress hormone, if too excessive, can cause immense problems. The anti-inflammatory response is necessary for life, but excessive production of cortisol:

"Suppresses the immune system, causing lymphocyte reproduction to decrease markedly. The T lymphocytes (T-Cells) are especially suppressed."

    This in and of itself is good, provided it is not continuous and excessive. You need control of inflammation. However, with excessive cortisol, you will then not only stop T-Cell formation, but the antibodies from forming as a cascading event from T-Cell formation.

    Inflammation would possibly be so controlled by excessive cortisol production that you may not even know you are sick until the disease function collapsed you and from there you would, without intervention, die. This is the exhaustion of the stress response spoken of earlier. The chronicity of stress is disease producing.

    From what you have been reading, you will find there are numerous things staring us in the face, soon.

• Irrational acts will be on the increase.
• Increased numbers of gang formation or presence seen and felt.
• Generation of more stressors (e.g., food, energy, financial, etc...shortages) making for unpleasant physical and mental reactions in those targeted with these stimuli.
• Less ability to handle the stressors and respond in a normal healthy rational fashion as opposed to a limbic (emotional) response.
• Sheer Madness then erupts on the scene, leading to Total Chaos.

    This can be so subtle that it can happen to you and me, if we are not aware of such "goings on." Being aware is not enough. Work with yourself and family to plot out scenes or scenarios on your family's survival. What are you going to do When The Hell Breaks? Have you prepared? It's more than just having a little food and water on hand. Do you know how to use a weapon under stressful, combat conditions? Do you have enough ammunition? Are you totally dependent upon another for your self-preservation? Do you know how to dig, use and sanitize a latrine?

    One of the most important things to have on hand is toilet paper. Do you have enough...for weeks...months...even a year? Things like that can make harsh times easier to cope with. Can you sanitize water from a ditch? Have you tried planting a small garden of several plots of 6' x 4' with okra and other vegetables? Okra is a green vegetable and can be grown practically everywhere by anyone. Can you make resources last, yours or another's? Can you control anyone invited to stay with you? If they did not prepare, they do not know what it took and your mindset, then and now, to do so. They will run through your resources like "crap through a goose."

    What is written is not meant to be mean-spirited. Hopefully, it will galvanize one into action (kindred spirit idea). No one, and we mean no one is going to be able to help you much, or at all, when this goes down. I am continuously told by grown children with teen offspring, who tell me they are going to go stay with their aged parents. They have a big place, a garden, water, some stored food and a gun. Their "...parents have resources; they have prepared, so they (the grown children) don't need to." Wow! If that ain't a crock....

    Get prepared friends...it won't be long now.

Stress Response Summary:

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The Stress-Response consists of three stages:

• There is an ‘alarm' reaction (commonly known as ‘fight' or ‘flight'). This is followed by a...

• Resistance Stage or the Resistance to a Stressor. Then,

• Exhaustion. The process where a disease erupts due to chronic stress and/or death results. Death or Disease results because the body has exhausted the resistance stage. It can occur quickly, depending on the chronicity of the stressor.

    What one may do about this to some extent: Ingest several thousand milligrams of vitamin C daily. Vitamin C is used throughout the body; but, two places that need the most are the cells of the immune system—they use the most. Next, the adrenal glands, vitamin C is necessary for their proper functioning.

    This modality may help stave off some of the overt, extreme symptoms of severe stress, such as when the adrenals become exhausted, as in The Thousand Yard Stare.

    "People continuously exposed to loud sounds experience elevated stress levels, hypertension, depression, and lost sleep and productivity," says Richard Tur, founder of NoiseOFF, a website for people who want quieter communities.

    We first examine what sleep is and the stages of sleep. Noise is a disturbance, and this disturbance is called stress. Unbeknownst to most, even though one's infant or child, or an adult "sleeps" through Noise disturbance, he is developing Fractured Sleep with consequences on health.

    Neural mechanisms exist for levels of arousal and attention. Behavioral patterns of individuals are critical and dependent on sleeping, relaxing, or alertness. Individual behavior and how one responds is a function of being able to focus. This depends on a certain area of the brain and its associative neural network to the cortex of the brain.

    Sleep is big business now. More and more sleep labs have opened to hopefully attain answers as to why a person does not sleep well; or if, indeed he does sleep, why does he feel so exhausted when getting up in the morning and throughout the day? Sleep is a process from which one demonstrates low levels of bodily activity. This can also be lying or sitting quietly with little muscle activity. Some Yogas illustrate the same. Sleep is a process where there is less sensitivity to external stimuli, as when one is awake. The distinguishing characteristic between relaxation and sleeping is reduced sensitivity to one's environment. And this entails the "depth of sleep."

    Whatever sleep really is, one knows how refreshing a good night's sleep is. We do know that there are several stages of sleep. Missing or interrupting any stage of sleep, one starts that stage of the sleep cycle over again. An external environmental influence causes one to stay in that sleep stage all night, as his body, in vain, attempts to restart that sleep stage cycle over and over again, due to an external influence, such as noise.

    This prevents the animal (human, mice, etc.) from attaining a normal circadian rhythm cycle, such that the animal, for his normal circadian rhythm cycle, does not get into the deep biological, refreshing sleep (generally from 2 – 4 am for humans) to build the next day's hormones to drive the metabolic machinery at its finest. The circadian rhythm is controlled by your "biological clock."

    Therefore, if those hormones are not built completely during this time, the body scraps those hormones being formed in the process and starts over. The rub is that the body then, the next day is working on the decaying, diminishing previous day's hormones and hence, one is not at peak performance! This is critical to mental and physical health, as this generates a Stress–Response for the individual.

    This process of broken sleep, resulting from constant attempts to restart the sleep cycle, becomes what is known as Sleep Deprivation—even though one appears fast asleep. He is actually undergoing Fractured Sleep! But, here's the difficulty with this also: It takes energy, lots of it, and therefore, one is using prodigious amounts of energy trying to rebuild the sleep stage that has become fractured. This is another major reason the individual is fatigued and exhausted the next day, even though he slept 8 to 10 hours.

    Noise! Is a big Fractured Sleep inducer.

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Sleep Stages

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    There are five stages of sleep: The Non Rapid Eye Movement Stages (NREM); then, Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep occurs. The four NREM Stages of sleep are:

• Stage 1: Illustrated by a reduction of alpha activity, producing a slower brain wave activity from the brain's neurons as measured by EEG (electroencephalograph) measure electrical potentials of brain activity. This stage is made up primarily of alpha and theta waves (4–7 Hz). The EEG is characterized by a waking, relaxed state of alpha waves morphing into a reduction of these waves to that of slower, more synchronized EEG going into the alpha and slower theta waves.

• Stage 2: Sleep consists mainly of theta activity with brief (0.5 second) burst of "sleep spindles" (12 – 14 Hz or cycles per second).

• Stage 3: Delta activity commences with 1 – 4 Hz. into:

• Stage 4: When there is a predominance of more than 50 % delta activity, stage 4 commences.
  and the next stage is:

• Paradoxical Sleep Stage; or, Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Stage.

    Sometimes, these four stages of sleep are referred to as Delta or slow–wave sleep. As one shifts from his EEG, through the four stages of sleep, it progressively becomes more and more difficult to arouse the person. This presented a paradox, as the subject became progressively harder to arouse, then his EEG suddenly shifted to that of a waking person or to that of a subject in Stage 1.

    In 1953, Aserinsky and Kleitman discovered this paradox, as written in Robert A. Levitt's book, Physiological Psychology:

About 90 minutes after sleep begins, the EEG suddenly shifts to a pattern similar to that of waking or of stage 1 sleep. What was still more of a paradox was the even greater difficulty in arousing a subject who exhibited this "alert" EEG. Other correlates of this strange sleep state included

• Rapid back–and–forth movements of the eyes (rapid eye movements, or REMs),
• Decreased muscle tone (as evidenced by a very low amplitude EMG),
• Penile erections in males and vaginal vasocongestion in females, and
• Increased cerebral blood flow, brain temperature, and oxygen consumption

(Mendelson, Gilin, and Wyatt, 1977; Hobson, Spagna, and Lalenka, 1978).

    Stage 5 is also known as D sleep for Deep sleep because of its deepness. The D in Deep sleep stands for desynchrony (of the EEG), and Dreaming. Some, however, do not dream; but most do during this stage.

    Robert A. Levitt writes in Physiological Psychology, the following:

Sleep stages do not occur at random, but rather appear in a cyclical fashion. In a normal young adult, REM sleep usually first occurs about 90 minutes after NREM sleep begins; however, REM sleep does not continue through the rest of the night. After about 20–40 minutes of REM (D) sleep, the stages of NREM (slow, or S) sleep recycle. Recall that the EEG of REM sleep is similar to that of stage 1 sleep; thus unless the individual awakens directly from REM sleep, the latter is usually followed by stage 2 sleep.

Basically, the sequence of stages is: waking, stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, stage 4, stage 3, stage 2, REM, stage 2, stage 3, stage 4, stage 3, stage 2, REM, and so forth. Episodes of REM sleep occur about 4 or 5 times per 8 hours of sleep.

    Dr. Robert Sapolsky, professor of biology and neuroscience at Stanford University, says, in one of his The Teaching Company films, that one of the important things about sleep is to consolidate memory.

    If an individual does not get into the various stages of sleep, but is awakened each time, he can become neurotic; however, quite often, he is not awakened, but sleeps through a certain amount of noise, but develops abnormal behaviors. This is prevalent when stage 3 sleep is disturbed. Psychosis could occur, but not in all cases.

    As given earlier, an infant, or child, or adult, that sleeps through a noisy party or background, is constantly restarting his sleep pattern/cycle. He does not perform as well as he should and often uses "rebound" sleep—sleep that catches him up in a day or so, if he can get it. This fractured sleep pattern, though not wakening a subject, causes damage in that he never gets through the cyclic stages of sleep during a night or gets enough of them, and hence, feels tired the next morning and day.

    Sleep Deprivation does cause some diminished logical function of the brain. The subject may misjudge distance, and does, and hence causes a car wreck. His timing can also be askew and he runs a red light judging it is about to turn green. Some are so sleep deprived, they have a microsleep and feel refreshed for a while. During this microsleep, they are driving a vehicle, or doing machine work, or something that needs their fullest attention, but are fast asleep for 2 to 3 seconds!

    If one is deprived of REM sleep, he often exhibits cognitive function deficits, such as with learning, memory, and emotions. If noise is present, such as just a buzzer sounding off for a moment, the noise moves the subject from stage 4 deep sleep to lighter stage of sleep without waking the subject. He has to start the sleep cycle all over again and this continued loss of energy to do so generates a feeling when awakening in the morning, that he has not slept hardly at all. He is now energy deprived. Other effects of such a noise causes the individual who experiences stage 4 deep sleep deprivation to move to stage 3 sleep, as given, physical tiredness and mild depression. In a depressive subject, the depression may worsen.

    REM sleep deprivation may cause one to have retention difficulties and loss of preparation for future learning. Data suggest that individual biochemical differences may play a large part in the REM learning preparation process.

    Levitt writes:

REM sleep is involved in emotional stability. Depressed individuals also experience sleep disturbances; specifically, it takes them longer to fall asleep, the duration of their sleep is shorter, and they awaken more frequently during the night. Also, depressed people spend less time in NREM sleep, and some spend a greater amount of time in REM sleep, with shorter time periods between bouts of REM than do normal persons (King, 1977).

Recently, there has been speculation about the benefit of sleep deprivation for depressed patients, and particularly about the benefits of REM deprivation. Empirical investigations have fairly consistently reported that the severity of depression lessens following REM deprivation with seemingly no adverse side effects (Vogel, Traub, and Ben-Horin, 1968; bhanji, Roy, and Baulieu, 1978).

    Many police officers, if not most, are extremely sleep deprived. Due to a shortage of personnel in most departments throughout the U.S., many officers are working their shift and staying over for another. With little rest, they may take off–duty jobs. Chembio Update wrote about this recently, and this creates a bad situation for citizens.

    This can be remedied with more adequate pay, various officers have complained in police publications. With the ever growing shortage of Officers of the Law, the next investigation you get from such an officer, he may show hostility and anger toward your demeanor and verbal responses. This may get you arrested or tasered, whereas if that officer had more deep, biologically restorative sleep, he just might overlook your negativity to his perceived brusqueness, and feel you do not represent a real threat to him or citizens at large.

    As we wrote before, sleep deprivation is a contingency problem of monumental importance and will only get worse for teens. They are more often than not, sleep–deprived, and this is generating problems in these schools with teachers, students, principals, and community. They are surly, easily angered, ready to argue and become bellicose leading to violent physical confrontations against the school community and non–school community. If this is so for teens, then you can see the problem for police officers.

    Why are these children and teens sleep deprived? Noise! Their homes are a cacophony of continued noise. They have their MP3 players or some other sound device stuck to their ears, generating neural tissue damage. They have TVs running in several rooms of the house, boom boxes playing, radios playing, all simultaneously. Layer upon layer of mad noise, used to prevent silence! And this prevents healing of tissues. Humans need some downtime, and when they don't get it, especially when they are sleeping, they are on a hormone high, an adrenalin fix, which is burning out their minds, which extrapolates to coordination, movement, learning, understanding, patience, and tolerance—Gone!

    Soon, society will pay a horrendous price for such devices. Some say we are paying for it now and it is getting steadily worse until one day, there will be a major crackup of such individuals. They already have displaced aggression and are placing it on classmates, teachers, and society in general. We are going to lose these people by the millions soon, we feel.

    There is now such overcrowding in our schools (recall that schools and hospitals are two of the noisiest places in our society), congested traffic lanes, and cities, this deprivation of sleep will only escalate as more and more demands are made on cops to "police" the ever expanding crowds of people. We are on the Eve of Something really devastating.

    Writing in "Noise–Induced Sleep Disturbance, Stress Reactions and Health Effects," C. Mashke, in Biological Effects of Noise:

Intermittent noise is one of the most frequent causes of sleep disorder. Intermittent noise can disturb sleep not only through subjective annoyance (causing awakening) but it can also lead to fundamental changes in the sleep structure without waking the individual.

In this connection, fragmentation of the sleep structure, the reduction of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, disturbance of mental and emotional processes and a longer period in shallow sleep are important (in causing dysfunction).

Intermittent noise, like flight noise, forces the sleeping person to repeatedly restart his sleep cycle, which requires high energy.

    Dr. Bart Kosko's book, Noise writes on page 52, quoting "Sound Thinking," from Nature, vol. 427, p. 471, 5 February 2004:

"Some 80 million Europeans already suffer from noise above 65 decibels, enough to cause lost sleep, stress, high blood pressure and even heart attacks, and a further 170 million endure levels that are simply annoying."

    However, now it is much worse for the EU. The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want: A Book about Noise, by Garret Keizer, 2010 points out:

Of an estimated 120 million Europeans "extremely annoyed by noise," 67 million live with daily noise levels above the day–night average of 55 decibels recommended by the European Union, with traffic noise counting as the single greatest cause....traffic noise overall continues to rise.

So do the health and social costs, which are hardly restricted to the Netherlands. A 2001 German study estimated that as many as 3,900 myocardial infarctions cases in that country could be attributed to road traffic noise. A 2009 study led by Goran Pershagen of Stockholm concluded that people exposed to traffic noise exceeding 50 decibels—that is, 5 decibels lower than the recommended EU day–night average—have a 40 percent increase in heart attack risk.

    Dr. Kosko, professor of electrical engineering at USC, with degrees in philosophy, economics, mathematics, electrical engineering, and law, says on page 55 in Noise:

Noise can cause stress. Such noise can also disrupt or even prevent sleep—and sleep loss promotes stress and a variety of health problems from increased blood pressure to decreased immune response.

A study of German children who live near Munich aqirports found that airport noise impaired the children's long–term memory and their ability to read.

    And from earlier, we gave what Garret Keizer said about noisy households: Blacks have the most noise, Hispanics next, then whites. It's all bad for the people living under such conditions. "Noise–induced sleep loss," writes Kosko, "only compounds the sleep deprivation of so many busy people in the modern workplace—people who get through their overscheduled days or nights on too little sleep and too much caffeine and related stimulants" implies a disaster waiting to happen. What will be the outcome When The Hell Breaks in earnest this summer or at the end of this year (2010)?

And remember! Nothing makes people madder than being awakened from sleep by noise. The Physiological Effects of Noise, by Welch and Welch, point out: "Interference with sleep is traditionally regarded as the most serious of disturbances."

    For the people who think noise does not hurt them or their child because they slept through it, consider the following from Noise Control: A Primer, by Behar, Chasin, and Cheesman:

Pollak (1991) noted that "noises are more annoying when they occur at times when people expect to rest or sleep, (2) noise can interrupt sleep and (3) noise can also have subtle effects on sleep...that are detectable only with specialized instruments." Most laboratory studies use truck and aircraft noise as stimuli and measure the effect on a range of sleep study parameters.

Noise can delay sleep, and shift the sleep stages upward (i.e., more shallow sleeping). Upward sleep stage shifts have been observed even in relative quiet with changes noted for stimulii as quiet as 25–30 dB SPL (sound pressure level).

Cardiovascular changes are usually not noted until the stimulus level is just below the arousal level for that individual. Thiessen (1978, 1983) found that, as peak noise intensity increased, there was a linear increase in the probability of a change in sleep stage.

Some groups appear to have their sleep patterns adversely effected by noise levels that would have minimal effect on other groups. Among the former are chronic and acute care patients in hospitals, the elderly, and shift workers. Frese and Harwich (1984) noted in shift workers that factors such as nonoccupational noise, coffee, and smoking were all predictive indicators of daytime sleep disturbance.

    The authors also point out that there is some evidence of an "increased risk of noise–induced damage in fetuses. The pregnant mother exposed to high levels of occupational noise...may in fact decrease birth weight." When this happens, low–birth weight babies are prone to all kinds of problems. They do not tend to outgrow them.

    This noise can also be from a cacophony of loud noises in the home, as spoken of above.

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Note:

    The next time you see someone on a cell phone in his vehicle, he may be Sleep Deprived and have as well, Fractured Sleep, and the danger mounts if he has a "Boom-Box" playing. He is driving a "Boom Car."

    These people are an accident waiting to happen, and many have happened, and many more will. Drive defensively. And if you have a boom car with the boom box playing, you may well lose control of your environment and will cause an accident. If you don't, they with the boom car can and will interfere with your senses such that timing and distance is off and may—because of the noise pollutant—cause you to miss a stop sign, interpret a red light differently, not hear an emergency vehicle coming, and cause you an accident. This all has happened and is happening now!

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In An UpComing Issue:
The Physiological/Psychological Effects of Noise: Part III

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