Why Certain Noises Drive Some People Totally Nuts

Why Certain Noises Drive Some People Totally Nuts

Do you have misophonia — the hatred of sound?

This isn’t where you hate all sounds, but this is the name of the condition where people get irritated (very) by certain noises. They can get enraged or disgusted by the noises.

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Here’s a list of some of the common ones, listed by the Times, who did a poll on the most “cringe-worthy” noises: Soup-slurping, gum-chewing, nose-sniffling, nail-clipping, knuckle-cracking.

So if you’re doing any of these in public, people, know that you could be causing people around your very serious emotional and nervous stress. You could ruin their morning or their day. And anyway, those things are things that are rude to do in public.

The condition — why the noises are so annoying to mysophonia sufferers — isn’t fully understood. Research so far has pointed towards hyper-connectivity between the limbic system (part of brain that deals with emotions) and the auditory system).

Some of the other annoying noises include lip-smacking, pen clicking, and nose activity.

Some people are really seriously effected by this. They feel significant negative responses like wanting to escape the event, asking people to stop, feeling on edge until it stops.

But at the top level of the condition, people respond to the trigger sounds with violence. They’ve physically attacked people for it. Other have caused themselves significant degrees of harm.