Will you please be quiet, please?

I can only do one thing at a time, and I can’t do anything if it’s not quiet. George Prochnik, in an essay in the Times, has some interesting thoughts on this topic. As he notes, “The findings [in one recent study] were clear: even when people stayed asleep, the noise of planes taking off and landing caused blood pressure spikes, increased pulse rates and set off vasoconstriction and the release of stress hormones. Worse, these harmful cardiovascular responses continued to affect individuals for many hours after they had awakened and gone on with their days.”