In 2011, an estimated one million healthy life years were lost from traffic-related noise in the western part of Europe only.
https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/who-compendium-on-health-and-environment/who_compendium_noise_01042022.pdf?sfvrsn=bc371498_3
As evidenced by the statement above, the sonic environment is much more important for our health than most of us think!
My interest in soundscapes comes from a triangulation of my pursuits as a composer/musician, anthropology, and a sensitivity to sounds. A soundscape is the collection of all the sonic elements that arise through the course of a day. Lately, I’ve become aware not only of my own personal soundscape but also of the imagined soundscapes of other times and places — the way people once listened, and the way listening shaped them.
As I’ve gotten older my sensitivity to sounds has increased. For some reason I’m always the person who notices the high-pitched mechanical “eeeeee” or the low rumble of bass from down the street. Even the volume of constant chatter wears me down. Recently, I ate in a restaurant that had zero acoustic consideration — hard surfaces everywhere, music fighting with conversation. I used an app on my phone to check the decibel level and it came in around 86db. For context, the World Health Organization recommends that average leisure noise stay below 70 dB over a full day — and short bursts should never exceed 100 dB for more than 15 minutes. Eighty-six decibels sustained over an hour is well into the physiologically stressful range.
Moments like this remind me of a broader thesis I’ve had for years: to live well, we need to live more in line with the conditions our bodies evolved in. Research from the World Health Organization tells me noise contributes to heart disease, hypertension, sleep disruption, and even cognitive decline, it only strengthens a belief I already felt in my bones: our ears are living in a world they never evolved for.
Our human systems still expect certain rhythms, certain foods, certain movements, certain relationships…and certain sounds. When I sit indoors all day, that’s at odds with evolution. When I eat sugar constantly, that’s at odds with evolution. When I go eight waking hours without sunlight or without speaking to another person, that’s also at odds with my evolved biology and psychology!
And sound is no exception.
So what does it mean to live a more sonically ancient life?
I’ve written a short book for composers that explores how music is organized and the roles it can play across the globe. The book is called Formative Forces in Sound. If you are interested, it’s available on Amazon here for $0.99 www.amazon.com/formativeforcesinsound
1. Lower Volumes
For most of human history, the loudest sounds you heard in an entire week might have been thunder, human voices, and maybe stone tools clacking together. Daily life was quieter — not silent, but quiet.
Picture the plains or desert grasslands:
- wind in the grasses, barely above a whisper
- the breath of people sleeping nearby
- the soft chatter of birds
- an occasional call echoing across a valley
These were the background conditions for the human nervous system.
And they’re still the conditions our bodies think they’re living in.
In contrast, the modern world layers engines, HVAC systems, street noise, earbuds, televisions, appliances, and dozens of steady mechanical hums on top of one another. Many of these sounds are both louder and more sustained than anything our ancestors experienced. Even “quiet” modern spaces rarely fall below 40–50 decibels. Our ears, our vagus nerve, and our hormonal systems simply weren’t built for this noise diet.
2. Natural Rhythms: Ebb and Flow
Ancient soundscapes had a rhythm that was… well, natural. They rose and fell with the sun and seasons. Modern soundscapes have a rhythm as well that is less tied to seasons and more to economics, societal norms, and technology.
Natures’ rhythms are still with us and still affect us just in a much smaller degree. The sunsets and we do not go to bed, we turn on the lights. A more ancient rhythm may entail a thunderstorm passing marking the beginning of the monsoon season. A fire crackles and burns out leaving darkness. Birds call more intensely at dawn and dusk. I argue that our contemporary soundscape is more or less even across the year with only subtle sonic changes. The ancient sonic world or human had more shave over the course of a year.
Technology is responsible for this sonic flattening.
Everything from our daily sonic rhythms to our annual ones there are fewer cues and rhythms to give us a natural ebb and flow. On the shorter timescale a fan hums for eight hours. A refrigerator compressor kicks on every 20 minutes. A podcast runs all day. Apps ping at all hours. And on the longer timescale most of us work the same job and perform the same tasks whether it’s the quiet of winter or a bright sounds of a summery day. There’s no break and not much of a rhythm.
Our nervous systems haven’t forgotten these sonic rhythms.
Sound, our first and arguably most important sense, has been co-opted by machines, phones, and companies whose goals have nothing to do with our wellbeing.
The WHO explicitly links non-stop noise — even at moderate levels — to long-term sleep and cardiovascular disturbances.
https://www.who.int/tools/compendium-on-health-and-environment/environmental-noise
3. Spatial Awareness
Ancient humans listened in order to situate themselves in the world. Sound filled in what eyes couldn’t see: distance, direction, movement, presence, safety.
Today, that capacity hasn’t disappeared it’s just needed less. Much of our time is spent indoors where our ears don’t get a chance to show off their super-locating powers. Our sense of hearing of course can’t be turned off, so we are still taking in spatial information it is just not as rich or useful as it was for our ancestors.
4. A Balanced Spectrum
Ancient soundscapes were broad-spectrum but gentle: the low sweep of wind, the midrange of voices and fire, the high shimmer of birds and insects.
Modern industrial noise sits almost entirely between 100 and 3,000 Hz — the exact sensitivity range of the human ear. That means our attention circuits, stress circuits, and emotional circuits are constantly being hit in their most vulnerable band.
It’s not just annoying it’s causing or contributing to health issues.
5. Safety, Signaling, and Belonging
In the deep past, sound was a continuous safety system.
- If birds called normally → no predator nearby.
- If the camp murmured → your tribe was safe and close.
- If wind moved in a certain pattern → weather approaching.
Life was naturally quiet.
But a quiet landscape has texture, life, and important information.
Our bodies still interpret certain sounds — water, wind, gentle voice, birds — as signals of safety and belonging. This is not metaphor. This is neurobiology. These sounds activate the parasympathetic system, slow the heart, relax the muscles, and increase vagal tone.
We evolved inside an acoustic ecology that told us when we were safe and when we were in danger.
Most modern environments don’t require that type of
The Point Is Not Nostalgia — It’s Health
This isn’t about recreating some fantasy of prehistoric life.
It’s about realizing that our auditory systems, nervous systems, emotional systems, and social systems still expect the sonic patterns of our evolutionary past. And when we live in contradiction to those patterns — flat, loud, unending noise — there is a physiological cost: elevated cortisol, disrupted sleep, reduced focus, emotional fatigue, frayed empathy, and frayed relationships. I think the following bears repeating.
The WHO quantifies that more than a million healthy life years were lost in one region of Europe due to environmental noise, making it clear that this isn’t just about “annoying sounds.” Modern noise is eroding our biology. And the quieter, cyclical, varied soundscapes humans evolved in are not nostalgic — they are biological baselines.
-https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/who-compendium-on-health-and-environment/who_compendium_noise_01042022.pdf?sfvrsn=bc371498_3
Rewilding our ears is not a hobby.
It’s a biological intervention.
The sounds of our world shape:
- our stress levels
- our social bonds
- our capacity for attention
- our sense of belonging
- our nervous system
- our memories
- our emotional lives
- our overall health
To listen backward — toward the soundscape that shaped our species — is to listen inward toward wellbeing.
A more ancient sonic world isn’t behind us; it’s beside us, waiting to be rebuilt.
We can restore natural quiet, natural rhythm, and natural variety not by escaping modernity, but by designing our environments with awareness.
Our ears are ancient. Our soundscapes should honor that.
Two ways I’m working on this in my own life are:
- Bringing awareness of decibel levels and frequencies spectrums to the fore with some simple tools on my phone. Decibel levels are the easiest to catch but I’ll also be looking at primary frequencies throughout my day.
- Intentionally turning off the music, the podcast, Netflix, etc. and just resting for 5 minutes a day, preferably outside, and in particular in between work tasks. Not necessarily meditation but just a mini sonic detox of sorts.
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