 This is Adam Navas. Hello. Hi, Adam. Today we are going to be having a real English conversation about our program, Taking Noise Out of Your Life. And if you missed that program, you can go to our website, www.spotlightenglish.com, to listen to the program and read along with it. You can find it here on YouTube as well in its classic form and an advanced form of this program. And of course, all the links for that program and all that information that you need is down below in the program description. So Adam. Yes. Before we dive in, can you give us just a sort of summary of what this program was about? Yeah, this program is about all the noises in our life and not just the natural noises of conversation, but kind of noise pollution, which is, as cities get bigger and busier, there's a lot of noise. And people don't always think about when they're building a building or where a train track might go about the noise it's going to make and how that's going to affect people. So this program looks at that, but also looks at the effect that that has on people's lives on their health, their physical health, their ability to learn. And the program does end with some great helpful tips about what you can do to kind of reduce the amount of noise, just pure noise in your area and in your life. Right. So I think one of the most important things to say is that noise is different than sound. So sound is maybe something that you want to be in your life. You're listening to music. That's not noise. That's sound. Although it might be noise to some other people who don't want to hear it. So noise is an unwanted sound. So maybe your music is a nice sound to you, but noise to me, or even when like my parents when they were younger lived next to a neighbor who came home late at night playing loud music in his car. They didn't have a problem with the music. It was when they were trying to sleep, so it became noise. So that's sort of like, that's I think an important point to distinguish that there is like sound and noise. And what I think is so interesting, I love how this program starts out, right? Where it says just listen to the silence and think about what noise is you're hearing right now. And so, you know, I talk to you. What do you hear right now besides me? What are the sounds you can actually hear? I hear my computer. A few minutes ago, I heard my kitten mewing behind the door. I can hear a little bit of outside, and maybe there was a truck that went by. Yeah. What about you, Adam? What can you hear? I hear some fan running of the heating system in my house. There's a few nice little birds chirping outside, so I can hear those. I can sometimes hear my spouse's footsteps across the ceiling. But what I think is interesting is you don't always notice those things. It just kind of... Exactly. Exactly. But if you pause, you notice, yeah. Which is why I love this, because, you know, sometimes I am actually very sensitive to noise. And sometimes it drives my family nuts, right? Because we'll have, maybe, we'll be cooking, and if there's a lot of smells or steam, we turn on a fan above the stove, and it's very loud. It just goes, bzzzzzz. And sometimes my husband will leave it on while we're eating, and we eat very close to where the stove is in the kitchen. And I can feel myself being very, like, just agitated, so, like, upset and maybe a little more angry, and I can't get calm. And then it occurs to me, I have an idea, and I'm like, oh, I need to turn that fan off. And I turn the fan off, and it immediately, I feel so much better. And I can breathe, and then I sit, and I take a breath. And so that's a very, like, a strong example of how noise affects me. But like, we just, like you said, we just don't notice it a lot. So, you know, you don't always understand that those trucks outside are, you know, making you less able to work, or that your pets are bothering you, or even sometimes your kids, you know, making outside, you know, making playing outside or whatever can be very distracting and agitating to a body. So I'm just curious now. Yeah. When you are trying to focus on, say, writing a spotlight script, do you use music or what's called white noise, which would be something to cover up the sound? Or do you like it just perfectly quiet? Absolutely never. I would, I can't, I cannot, this is a different thing about my brains, but I cannot work with music on, especially if it has lyrics in it. If people are singing in the music, I can, it's too much. That is just straight up noise to me. I would be curious. If you're watching this and you just give us a vote, just say, I listen to music, never. Because I do a little bit of both, but let us know if you are a, I don't know what we would call it, a complete, a Liz or an Adam. Yeah. Do you listen to white noise or music? There are certain tasks that I like to have music. So if it's something where, a repetitive task, something you do over and over and over, yes, where I need to upload files to a website, you know, just do that. I will like to have music on, but I often do find myself working much slower. I will say one of the things that I used to have a car that had no radio, it was a very basic car, had no CD player, no, no way to play music at all. And I really enjoyed it because I would just drive and I would have my own thoughts. It was, I mean, there was noise from the road and other cars, but I do enjoy engaging in silence in my own thoughts. Yeah, I think that we, like, and, you know, in this program, we tell about a few experts who really recommend just, um, yeah, like silence in your life at some points, right? Do you have, do you have those? Do you, do you think you have moments of? I think my office where I work is quite quiet usually. In the summer, when the kids are home, it is less quiet. Sure. Sometimes during the day, especially in the summer, like people will be working in their gardens or trucks will be going by a little more frequently, but in general, it's pretty quiet where I work. So it's not too much of a distraction. So that's good that you have a space like that in your home. I think one of the things that I like about this program and many of our spotlight programs is we try to offer some, some helpful tips or advice. And I think that one of the things that, that I would recommend to all people is listening to music at an appropriate level. I know that a lot of people do ear pods or headphones or, um, and I think, uh, studies are showing that we are damaging our hearing by playing music too loud. And this is, this is a little different. And Adam, I want to point out that like hearing is one of those senses that does not grow back. Like once your ears lose that ability to hear, you cannot regain it without, um, like hearing aids or some sort of technical thing that you, that you have. So I think I always tell people that because I think it's so important when they listen to music so loud, you have to listen to it more quietly or you're not going to hear anything. So yeah, you're going to get to a certain point. And that's when I sound like a very old person. Yeah. Turn your music down. Turn your, you, you young kids. No, I think that there are, there are, it's, I think the, the thing that we started talking about for me, it's being aware, like just taking a minute because it, it isn't just about noise, but it's about that, like, centering ourselves and being aware, the peace of silence. Yeah. What's going on around us? Um, and, and I love your story about having that fan running and just turning it off and feeling this. Oh yeah. It's such a difference. Yeah. Cause even if we think that noise isn't affecting us, like even if it's just the low, the low sort of rumble, that's a normal noise. Um, I love the examples in this program of like how noise affects nature. Right. Um, so it's making birds nest at different times and it's making cows unable to have milk at the right time. It affects whole ecosystems, I mean with cities, right? Um, so I think that is just a really interesting thing that we just, we just don't think about. So if it's, even if it's underneath and you don't notice it, like the ticking of a clock in the background or your heating system or, um, I think we've just ruined everyone's day. Who's watched because all they're going to hear is ticking clocks now because I know that when I noticed those things, I, it's very hard to not notice them for a little while. Yeah. Or, okay. So I did want to, I did want to talk about one other example in this program, which I thought was so amazing. And this, um, this example was from who the seventies. That's like 50 years ago. So you have to imagine that the program or that the, sorry, that the, um, the problem is so much worse now with more noise and more things, right? Um, but these school children who were, you know, there's a school building and one side of the school is near train tracks and the other side is a quiet side. And so, um, the teacher would have to, when the train went by, the teacher would have to stop teaching for a few moments until the train went by, or the teacher would literally have to yell over the sound of the train tracks. So, you know, they just stopped teaching for that moment. And they studying these kids for over six years or for about six years, they determined that these kids in this classroom were missing like a lot of instruction and they had lower reading scores. And so, uh, then the kids on the quiet side, which is, you know, again, you think, oh, it's just city noises. They're, everyone's just going to adapt and it's going to be fine. But then you have actual studies that are showing that this noise is taking a lot from these kids' lives. So after they had this study in the 70s, this was in New York, by the way. So the school put up some noise-reducing stuff in the schools. Walls? Yeah, um, uh, you know, there's like padding you can buy, um, or, and then the, and then the train, the train company, uh, whoever they were. The driver. No, not the driver. Like the, um, whoever manages the trains, the city, the city, essentially, they made the trains, they put some, uh, like not padding, but, uh, like technology on the trains that would make them go like quieter past, or just be quieter. And that made a difference in their, in their reading scores. So, you know, even if you think this sound isn't affecting you. You know, I think this is like, this is, I'm going to think about this today because, you know, with our children, we talk about screen time and we think about the, the visual stimulation that they get from, from screens, and we try to make sure that they don't, you know, it's not unlimited, but I don't really think about the noise levels that they have and, and, and because there are health effects from noise. Yeah. And you're raised blood pressure. You're, yep. For sure. So that gives me, uh, that gives me some homework to do is to, to be aware of noise today and to figure out like what's, cause you can't avoid it, right? Right. Yeah, you can't. All you can do is, um, try to make it less in your life. Although have you ever used these like, uh, these headphones you can put on that are like noise blocking headphones? I don't have a pair, but I've used, I've tried them in a store one time. They are very weird. I don't know if that's, I do have a pair and I have tried them before when like, there was maybe like too much noise, um, outside my office and I really needed to get some bills paid and I put them in and I could concentrate a lot better. I don't know if, cause they're a little uncomfortable, but I don't know. I think they are, they're an interesting solution. It's a tool to use when you need them. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, we would love to hear, um, what you have to think about noise in your life. Do you live in a very noisy area like in the city? Do you live in a place where most of your noise is maybe birds or nature? We would love to hear about your experiences in the comments and how noise has a place or not, or silence has a place or not in your life. Um, you can find us on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and our website, www.spotlightenglish.com. Uh, and, uh, make sure to subscribe to us here on YouTube. Hit the little bell so you always get a notification when, uh, we have a new video, you won't miss anything then. Um, and until next time, we hope that you listen, watch, practice and learn spotlight out.