Authorities should ensure airlines take longer routes to their destinations instead of flying over residential areas at night.
Insomnia is usually defined as a "prolonged and usually abnormal inability to obtain adequate sleep". However, I think it is because of all the planes that fly low overhead, at an interval of every five minutes above my four-storey apartment building in Al Muraqabat area, in Dubai.
This has been happening for a long time and I think it is not a fair practice. Having planes fly during the daytime is one thing - but listening to them at night, when one is trying to sleep, just isn't right.
The planes that fly at odd hours of the morning must be stopped. Additionally, during the daytime, if one keeps the window open, the noise that these planes create is so loud that I cannot hear my 50-inch flat screen television with surround sound system.
Noise pollution is always talked about, but no one brings up the issue of how the deafening noise from the engines in planes could affect peoples' health.
One of the worst effects is the fact that it disturbs a person's sleep. It is widely accepted that eight hours of sleep is essential for any adult on a given night. Otherwise, it leads to a wide range of health problems.
Lack of sleep heightens the risk of a variety of major illnesses, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Moreover, studies have shown that these low-flying carriers could have a severe effect on the mental health of children, too.
Pregnant women could also be harmed and the impact on wildlife - especially birds in the region - cannot be underestimated. Research has shown that it can affect the nesting habits of such birds.
I know it is difficult to ask for flight patterns and routes to be altered, but perhaps at least during the night hours, airlines could be asked to take longer routes to their destinations - around residential areas instead of over them.
The reader is a concierge based in Dubai.
