Noise pollution is an aspect of pollution that is often overlooked but yet plays a huge role in the productivity of a people.
In my environment, there are various forms of noise pollution ranging from cars and their horns, sound systems in homes and businesses, religious sounds, generators when there's no light and even advertisements etc.
It is very inconveniencing to plan to do some things only to be hindered by noise.
This is because the noise could come at any time while some are constant and you just have to bear with it.
Imagine sleeping and then getting woken up prematurely because of a truck advertising one good or the other. This happened to me a lot as a student especially during the eras of students election whereby large groups of students go about trying to convince the next student on the right candidate to vote.
Somehow people think that the loudest political team wins the election or the loudest advertisement makes the most sales.
Over here noise is the most popular business and political strategy.
Sadly, I have not seen any measures being put in place to tackle noise pollution. It's almost as if we all accepted to live with it and looking at how rampant it is in my environment, it's almost as if it's unavoidable but I believe that something can and should be done about it.
For a start, the use of generators should be minimised by providing standard means of power supply to prevent people from turning to generators which not only generate power, but also generates noise.
Also religious and political noises should be restricted to a particular location and to a particular volume to avoid constituting a sort of distraction to those around.
These drivers that are fond of making a whole lot of noise by unnecessary honking should be discouraged through proper driver trainings, education of the road signs and all necessary measures to reduce this.
I adopted a few ways to minimise the effect of noise pollution on me seeing that not much could be done about it especially as Nigerians.
One of my solutions is to have my own means of sound/music playing in my ears. Playing music has a way of relaxing me and getting me focused on my activities despite the external noise. Also choosing the song myself makes me feel better than when the noise is imposed on me.
Another way I do this is by carefully focusing my mental energy and attention on only those things that matter while relegating the unnecessary noises to the back.
By so doing, I sometimes manage to push an unnecessary advert or political talk to the back of my mind while we keep on doing the jobs that require my attention.
The danger of this is that sometimes, your mind would not be able to focus fully on the important matter but would continuously drift.
All images are mine
