32 Little Sounds That Make People Livid For No Logical Reason

Have you ever heard a sound that made you annoyed, violent, or straight-up drove you insane? Quite a lot of people have particular sounds that make them want to crawl out of their skin. In fact, 10% to 40% of the general population is noise-sensitive. That means that they are more easily disturbed by noise than the average person. 

These annoying sounds can be various, just as today’s list proves. In here, you will find a plethora of examples – from crying children to a fork scraping a plate to a Microsoft Teams message blip. 

The thing is, these negative feelings towards these sounds don’t come just from the plain irritability of a person; instead, it’s something they are born with. What’s interesting is that the sounds not only annoy these people, but also can have long-term effects on their mental and physical health. 

Like the constant hearing of them can make a person nervous, fearful, and anxious. It might even force their body into a fight-or-flight response and cause heart disease and diabetes, along with mental health issues. And there’s no way you can “turn it off.” It is similar to a mosquito flying around – you just can’t stop hearing it. 

Yet, sound sensitivity shouldn’t be mixed up with another sound-related disorder, misophonia. You see, general sound sensitivity is about all kinds of noises, as you can see from the examples we already provided before.

At the same time, misophonia usually concerns specific sounds like chewing, tapping, or ticking. Additionally, while sound sensitivity can cause a variety of emotions, most often, misophonia triggers disgust and/or rage. 

Interestingly, just like general sound sensitivity, the mentioned disorder’s cause also lies in people’s brains. Well, it kind of makes sense when you think about it – our brains are responsible for the majority of things that happen to our bodies, after all. 

People with misophonia, it turns out, have abnormal brain connections in the anterior insular cortex, a place that processes emotions and regulates bodily responses. This means that their brain perceives certain sounds as a threat, even if a person knows it actually isn’t dangerous. 

Also, these people have greater levels of myelination – the brain’s natural insulation, which helps signals travel quickly between different areas. All of this was proven by a study done with 44 misophobics. Granted, the sample size isn’t large, but the results that were received from it open the path for the disorder to be researched more and hopefully formally recognized. 

So, if you keep finding yourself constantly overwhelmed by certain sounds, maybe you have any of these conditions? Of course, we’re not here to diagnose you or anything, just to give you some food for thought. And ask you – what kind of sounds annoy you the most? Please share in the comments.