greater happiness throughout the book.
EFFECTIVENESS
Many of the people who have come to my trainings say that they are there because they have the feeling nobody listens to them, or that they can’t seem to get their passion or their views across to others. Without good communication, it really is hard to have an impact in life. We can’t all develop the potent listening of a Mahatma Gandhi or the persuasive eloquence of a Martin Luther King – but we can all make the most of the gifts we’ve been given by learning how to use our voice and our ears to maximum effect.
Speaking and listening are critical skills if you want to make a difference in the world, to lead and inspire people or to be a great parent. These things all rely on the power and effectiveness of your speaking and your listening. Everything in this book is aimed at giving you mastery of these vital skills.
We’ll also be considering the context for communication throughout the book. Ambient sound has a real impact on how well we can connect, so we’ll be exploring how this works and discovering ways to deal with destructive sound throughout this book.
Ambient sound also has a powerful impact on how well we process information, so it can dramatically alter how efficient you are in your work. Simply by listening to your environment and paying attention to its effects on your communication and thinking, you become able to take steps to optimise your working conditions and transform your productivity. This might mean moving away from, or blocking out, unhelpful, distracting or debilitating sound; or, if you have control over your space, it might mean identifying the sound that is most productive for you to work in – something that most people never consider.
Tip: I can’t predict what sound might be best for you to use in working, because we are all different and your personal associations will be very significant in this process. Nevertheless, I suggest that you start experimenting with nature sound that is stochastic, which means composed of many small, random events that combine to create a pleasing wash with no significant individual events to grab your attention. Examples are moderate birdsong, gentle rainfall, gentle running water like babbling streams and small waterfalls or fountains, mild wind in leaves or grass. Probably best to avoid the soporific sound of soothing surf! If you try music, then you may find the most productive genres are those with low density, which means not too many changes in melody, rhythm or dynamics and no significant major events. Those guidelines may lead you towards reflective styles like ambient or gentle chamber music, or repetitive styles like trance, techno, chant or modal music. Styles with strong dynamics and frequent changes are probably more distracting; these might include full-blown orchestral music, jazz, pop, rock, dance or urban. Many people, especially youngsters, think they are more productive with loud, high-density music playing, but in most cases that is true only in that they are doing the work at all or that they continue to do it for longer: in terms of output per minute, high-density sound is generally distracting. I do want to emphasise that we are all different, and I expect that there are some for whom thrash metal is a very productive backdrop, so please do experiment for yourself and be open-minded and creative!
WELLBEING
In 1859, Florence Nightingale wrote: “Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care that can be inflicted on sick or well.” Recent research has shown how right she was. Sound can powerfully affect our health and wellbeing, for good or for ill – and sadly in most cases it’s the latter. Listening consciously is the key to transforming what in many cases is a negative effect into a positive one in your life.
There are 3 levels to the impact of sound on our wellbeing.
Level 1
Loud sounds can damage your hearing. If we’re not listening consciously, it’s all too easy to be exposed and damaged without becoming aware of it. For many years noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) has been a major issue for people whose jobs expose them to loud sounds, from soldiers in battle to those working in manufacturing and construction. Now it’s a recreational hazard as well as an occupational one as a result of headphone abuse – something that barely existed before the invention of mobile sound with the Walkman in 1979. Delivering music at high-volume deep into the ear for hours a day is a recipe for hearing damage, and possibly severe hearing loss later in life. A 1998 scientific paper found that almost one in 6 American teenagers have permanent hearing damage, while a 2010 survey in London found that two thirds of the people interviewed were exceeding the recommended safe listening level, some of them by massive amounts.
Of course, headphones can be a joyful and productive experience. Noise-cancelling headphones are excellent on flights, and headphones can also mask unpleasant or distracting sounds when we are trying to work. The trick is using them healthily, and not being tempted to keep turning the volume up.
Tip: If you or any of your family use headphones, here are 3 ways of making sure that you don’t damage your hearing. First, invest in the best headphones you can afford. Cheap, low performance headphones tempt people to turn up the volume in search of the detail and bandwidth they miss at moderate listening levels due to the poor quality of the components. Second, make sure the volume is not so loud that you can’t hear someone speaking loudly to you from a metre (roughly 3 feet) away. Third, do not listen for hours every day, especially at a level above the one suggested here. Expert advice on safe listening times depends on volume so it’s hard to give unequivocal guidance, but please be aware that most mobile devices are capable of maximum volumes with recommended daily exposure times of just a few minutes!
Level 2
Sound directly affects your overall health as well as your hearing. Long-term exposure to noise has been shown to increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, largely because it increases blood pressure and creates stress. This is not restricted to industrial-scale noise: with group work in class, teachers are regularly exposed to enough noise to activate this effect. It is probable that many teachers are shortening their lives by working in noisy classrooms day after day.
Noise also results in massive global health issues by causing sleep deprivation. The World Health Organisation estimates that around 8 million people in Western Europe are suffering nightly sleep interruptions due to traffic noise that’s way above its recommended maximum level; many more are affected in the same way by nearby airports or railways. Long-term sleep deprivation has many serious health effects, from stress and depression to impaired immune systems; it also leads to accidents, impatience, irritability and violence. This problem has not been quantified in other territories, but I have no doubt that it exists all over the world, especially in the fast-growing cities where more than half the world’s population live.
On a more positive note, sound can also heal and restore. There is a large and well established tradition of music therapy, now supported in the USA by learned journals, a mass of scientific evidence and a major organisation in the American Music Therapists Association. Carefully-chosen music has been shown to aid recovery from strokes and heart attacks, as well as being powerfully effective for many with severe autism, dementia and many other conditions. Recent UK research has shown that birdsong can also be therapeutic, which backs up my long-held belief that the sounds of gentle wind, water and birds are healthy for us.
Level 3
Our focus in this book is speaking and listening. Wellbeing is enhanced by being able to express oneself clearly and effectively, but it can be compromised by the frustrations that arise when we feel we are not listened to in life. At the same time, conscious listening is the key that unlocks wellbeing from all sound. If we become conscious of the sound we make and the sound we consume, we can start to manage our environment to avoid unhealthy sound and surround ourselves with sound that works for, not against, our wellbeing.
Context is key
In this chapter, we spend some time investigating sound in general
