Coming to Our Senses | How Birdsong Impacts Emotional Intelligence

© Martha Wooding-Young, The Resilient Executive, LLC. Nesting Carolina wrens on the front porch at Heartwood

What is the usual soundtrack of your day? If you live and work in a city, you have probably long since tuned out the low frequency hum of the traffic and notice only the occasional piercing sound of a police car or ambulance. Similarly, in homes full of devices powered by electricity we typically don’t hear the hum of say, the refrigerator, unless it stops unexpectedly, when the change signals to our ancient survival mechanisms that our environment has just shifted, and danger may be near. Turns out that hum, the “anthrophone,” or man-made urban soundscape, is not good for our overall well-being.

In fact, as this 2022 study published in Nature explains, the anthrophone can constitute a more or less continuous stressor that may impair cognitive function and mental health. Within the hum of urban noise, our very early survival architecture detects the low-frequency signals that our ancestors used to detect predators, and that therefore appear to trigger an alert physiological and psychological state. The innovative work of Stephen Porges on the polyvagal nervous system strongly suggests that within this alerted state, we lose access to not only the critical restoration and growth functions of the parasympathetic nervous system but also to the interpersonal accessibility that underpins emotional intelligence. 

Research on exposure to traffic noise also evidences the association with depression and cognitive decline. Natural soundscapes, by contrast—the blue or the green: characterized by water, wind, birdsong, etc.—seem to restore attention and alleviate stress, albeit scientists remain unsure of the precise neurophysiology at work. Professional audiologist Julian Treasure suggests that as we co-evolved with birds and their song, we associate its absence with impending danger, since it has been observed over millions of years to be connected to animal threats or environmental hazards such as volcanos or tsunamis. As I mentioned in a recent post, when I worked in mid-town Manhattan, I would often shut my office door and use my phone to play a YouTube video of a burbling stream with birds singing when I had a cognitively taxing task to complete. 

While headphones and recorded soundtracks offer temporary relief, there is nothing quite like the real thing. Nearly three years into rural life, my husband and I remain astonished and grateful daily for the cacophony of birdsong that is our all-day soundtrack. It is a potent antidote to my 35 years of working in London, New York City, and the countless global cities to which my work took me. Even our suburban soundscape, while we had many songbirds, also had the near constant daytime noise pollution of gas-powered weed whackers, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, traffic, and jets overhead, so we don’t take a single moment of Mother Nature’s soundtrack for granted. 

Our rural soundscape is punctuated by the occasional vehicle, but for the most part it is the wind in the forest, the trickle of the stream at the foot of the south pasture, and the endless birdsong that envelops us. We’ve identified 72 species by sound so far using Cornell’s marvelous Merlin app and managed to spot most of them except for the two types of owls hooting from the woods in the dark, and the pre-dawn post-dusk whippoorwill who always wins the prize for persistence!  The research piece in Nature also noted an apparent connection between the number of species of birds and measurably greater benefits to mental and physical health. It suggests our invisible safety sensors can also detect a healthy ecosystem.

I always ask my clients how they interact with nature, and, if they don’t, how they might reliably introduce it into their routine. Even a house plant on an office desk or a bedside table helps. I work with executives across sectors to identify and mitigate the stressors that might be getting in their way or triggering their hidden decision architecture, keeping them from bringing their best selves to their biggest problems. Curious how the anthrophone might be subtly impeding your work or creating hidden stressors impacting your physical and mental health? Interested in exploring how this stress might limit your emotional intelligence without your even realizing it? Reach out.

RESEARCH CITATIONS 

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2022.871227 PORGES

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20841-0   BIRDSONG

https://journals.lww.com/environepidem/FullText/2019/10001/Traffic_noise_and_mental_illness___a_systematic.1099.aspx TRAFFIC NOISE