Will This Overcome Tinnitus?

4
4264
(Credit: Jonathan Haeber)

Health Editor’s Note:  Okay, if any of you have tinnitus, buzzing in the ears, etc. you will know what I mean.  I really do wonder if you will still be able to hear those sounds that never leave you…until you are able to fall asleep….Carol

Earth’s Quietest Place Will Drive You Crazy in 45 Minutes

by Rose Eveleth Smithsonian.com

Everybody seems to be looking for a little peace and quiet these days. But even such a reasonable idea can go too far. The quietest place on earth, an anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minnesota, is so quiet that the longest anybody has been able to bear it is 45 minutes.



Inside the room it’s silent. So silent that the background noise measured is actually negative decibels, -9.4 dBA. Steven Orfield, the lab’s founder, told Hearing Aid Know: “We challenge people to sit in the chamber in the dark – one person stayed in there for 45 minutes. When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You’ll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly. In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound.”

But the room isn’t just for torturing people. Companies test their products in it to find out just how loud they are. And NASA has sent astronauts to help them adapt to the silence of space. For you and me, however, the room is a deeply disorienting place. Not only do people hear their heartbeat, they have trouble orienting themselves and even standing. “How you orient yourself is through sounds you hear when you walk. In the anechnoic chamber, you don’t have any cues,” Orfield told the Daily Mail. “You take away the perceptual cues that allow you to balance and manoeuvre. If you’re in there for half an hour, you have to be in a chair.”

 

ATTENTION READERS

We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed
In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion.

About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy
Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT.

4 COMMENTS

  1. I have got tinnitus too but being a strictly nonMilitary guy i got mine from playing the music way too loud ,,,,,, i;m surprised to see so many others in the same boat as myself …… , Carol you’re a breath of fresh air here , thank you for your activities …….

  2. Mine was jet engines. Strangely enough, my field later was ultrasonic accoustics so I was able to carefully analyze the “sound”, actually multiple single tones playing together in the ultrasonic region.

  3. So yeah, interesting article but, yes I do have tinnitus….on the rifle range, I was like…hey Captain…I don’t have ear protection and I have to quall….. Captain Wackencracker says ” don’t worry Marine….it’s all good…you’ll be fine without it” because they didn’t get a shipment in of ear sponge things….and here I am 40 years later…..

Comments are closed.