Month: May 2015

Traffic Noise Can Increase Your Waistline Says Study

The last thing you might expect to have an effect on your weight is noise. Yet this is what one Swedish study has discovered and this could force many people who work in offices near busy roads to consider installing better sound insulation.

Weight gain has traditionally been associated with inactivity and eating too much, but the Swedish study on the effects of noise found that noise from traffic had the potential to increase fat deposits around the waste due to the effects of cortisol production.

Cortisol is a steroid hormone produced by the body in reaction to stress. Having too much cortisol in the body often leads to weight gain and the Swedish study of more than 5,000 people found that noise triggered an increase which led to weight gain in the majority of participants.

Road traffic noise contributed to a 0.21 cm increase in waist size for women compared to 0.16 cm for men which means the former is more likely to suffer the waist expanding effects of noise. The study also found a direct relationship between an increase in the sources of noise and the amount of fat carried around the waste.

Posted by admin in Construction, Soundproofing

The Importance Of Acoustic Design In The Offices Of Today

Noise pollution was once accepted as part of working in a busy office, however much has changed in recent years as business owners see the value of acoustic design in the office.

If you happen to be sitting in an open plan office where phones are constantly ringing, this can place a considerable amount of stress on your shoulders. Noise can be distracting and often an interruption to your train of thought.

If you happen to be sitting near someone with a loud voice the situation can often become intolerable. This is the reality for many people everyday who have no power to change their office acoustics for the better as they would do at home.

Thankfully employers are waking up to the fact that environments can have a direct effect on productivity and profits in some cases. So the important thing is to raise these benefits if you happen to be a staff member suffering from the effects of office noise pollution.

Changes to office acoustics can often be quite straightforward to implement and not necessarily expensive. Interior materials for example should absorb sound. In an office the idea is to prevent sound from travelling too far where people may be having frequent conversations on the phone.

Cubicles can be contained where possible behind lightweight drywall systems which generally consist of two framed plasterboards with an air gap in between. This acts to insulate sound in that area, helping to reduce noise significantly.

This is just one of a number of sound insulation measures you can take to keep the office a pleasant place to be. Contact our experts if you would like to find out more about insulation solutions for your office.

Posted by admin in Construction, Soundproofing