![]() ![]() ![]() “It’s a little bit of a Pavlovian response to the sound of the white noise,” Szkotak adds. Once you begin using it, white noise can also signal to your brain that it’s time to get to sleep. “Following a nightly ritual like winding down with a book, switching on the sound machine, and settling into your bed for the night signals to your brain and body that it’s time to rest.” “So much of good sleep hygiene is establishing a good nighttime routine,” says Szkotak. It creates a buffer between outside noise and your eardrums so you can keep snoozing peacefully, despite what’s going on around you. White or pink noise can help you maintain solid sleep by limiting disturbances. Both duration and quality of sleep can be impacted by outside noises. Research has found that sleep disturbances caused by noise pollution have health consequences for our biological systems. White or pink noise can help people sleep by blocking out outside sounds and masking disruptive sounds. (We continued to rate them based on other factors, such as sound quality and ease of use.) The other two were pleasantly surprised at how well the white noise worked to mask subtler noises and plan to purchase white noise machines for their own use.How white and pink noise can help you sleep However, we did seem to be the ones living in more intensely noisy environments and dealing with trains, bridge traffic, and snoring bed partners. Three out of the five evaluators, including myself, came out of this evaluation sleep-deprived, and, to be honest, pretty grumpy, because the white noise machines did not work to mask disruptive noises for us. I wear Happy Ears earplugs and an eye mask to sleep. To top it off, I sleep beside a man with undiagnosed sleep apnea and a dog that has early morning asthmatic fits. ![]() Perry Santanachote (that’s me!) lives in a New York City neighborhood that presents a new noisy adventure every night, from blaring bachata music and broken mufflers to illegal fireworks and drunken bar fights. He wears commercial-grade earplugs to sleep, even though they can be uncomfortable at times. Mike Visconti, deputy director of lab operations, lives a few blocks from a railway with commercial trains running throughout the night, blowing loud horns as they cross intersections. She normally wears a weighted eye mask to sleep. ![]() when her dog wakes up in the middle of the night to lick himself. The noise comes from inside the house . . . Tanya Christian, home and appliance writer and reporter, lives in a very peaceful environment with relatively no noise coming from the outside. He normally wears Mack’s silicone earplugs to sleep. garbage trucks, and a lakeside country home, frequented by tap-dancing squirrels on the roof. Kevin Doyle, enterprise editor, splits his time between a New York City apartment frequented by 4 a.m. She normally wears Bose Sleepbuds and an eye mask to sleep. Ginger Cowles, a managing editor at Consumer Reports, lives by a busy bridge that connects New Jersey and New York and deals with lots of commuter noise and car enthusiasts with “The Fast and the Furious” ambitions. Pavlovian conditioning: If a certain sound (in this case, white noise, is consistently associated with the experience of feeling relaxed and successfully falling asleep, then that sound itself can also become a cue for sleep. Wall of noise: Noise machines or other soothing sounds can provide a consistent, less intrusive background noise that can help mask more abrupt noises in the environment, making them less likely to awaken people or contribute to arousal. Hylton Molzof, PhD, a clinical assistant professor and psychologist at Stanford School of Medicine’s Sleep Medicine Center, says there are two ways white noise is hypothesized to help people sleep. Nature sounds, such as ocean waves or chirping crickets, are another category of noises that are less consistent and have more variability in decibel levels. Variations, such as pink noise and brown noise, give off different energy frequencies. It can sound like radio static, a whirring fan, wind, or heavy rain. White noise contains all frequencies across the spectrum of audible sound. ![]()
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