• Posted March 2, 2026

Urban Traffic Noise Disrupts Sleep, Affects Heart Health After One Night

The nighttime sounds of the city streets can jangle a person’s nerves and affect their heart health, a new study says.

People trying to sleep through the sounds of urban traffic for just one night showed signs of heart stress and impaired blood vessel function, researchers reported Feb. 25 in the journal Cardiovascular Research.

“Even a single night of road traffic noise stressed the cardiovascular system,” said lead researcher Oman Hahad, a senior scientist in cardiology at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany.

These results could help explain why people exposed to long-term traffic noise tend to have worse heart health, researchers said.

“Even when we’re asleep, our bodies are still listening,” Hahad said in a news release. “Repeated activation of stress responses night after night may help explain why people exposed to long-term traffic noise have higher rates of high blood pressure and heart disease.”

For the new study, researchers tracked the sleep and health of 74 people for three nights.

Each night the participants were exposed to a different noise condition – no noise, 30 episodes of traffic noise or 60 episodes of traffic noise. Each episode of street noise came from real-life recordings and lasted a little more than a minute.

The following morning, tests showed that the participants exposed to noise had impaired blood vessel function, with their vessels showing increased signs of stiffness. 

Further, their blood samples showed changes in biochemicals linked to inflammation and stress responses.

Noise exposure also increased the average heart rate of participants by more than one beat per minute, the study said.

“We didn’t expect to find such consistent biological changes in people exposed to noise levels typical of someone living near a road,” Hahad said.

Participants exposed to noise also tended to have difficulty falling alseep, worse sleep quality, shorter sleep duration, increased restlessness and exhaustion in the morning.

Results show that even common levels of urban noise can harm health, researchers said.

“Protecting our sleep by tackling noise pollution should be part of how we think about preventing cardiovascular disease in towns and cities around the world,” Hahad said.

There are basic steps people can take to protect their sleep and heart health, he said.

“Reducing bedroom noise exposure where possible is a reasonable measure – by moving bedrooms away from the road or buying highly insulated windows,” Hahad said. “Earplugs might also reduce the noise burden, although we don’t yet have solid evidence they protect against cardiovascular risks. Making lifestyle changes such as healthier diets and physical exercise would also be protective.”

But greater impact could be achieved through more significant protections.

“The biggest positive impact would come from structural and societal measures, such as reducing traffic at night, quieter road surfaces, better urban planning and good building insulation,” Hahad said.

More information

Harvard Medical School has more on noise and heart health.

SOURCE: European Society of Cardiology, news release, Feb. 26, 2026