Pandering cute kittens photo used under Creative Commons license, courtesy of www.metaphoricalplatypus.com
I am envious of those people who could sleep through a bomb blast.
I’m easily awakened by noises, my hubby is an even lighter sleeper, so we spend a fair amount of time talking about the late-night walking around of our upstairs neighbors, the early morning sounds of the bagel shop opening below us and all manner of other minor disturbances.
For several years, we’ve slept with a fan or the air conditioner on as white noise to help muffle noise.
Lately I’ve been curious about alternatives, including pink noise.
According to Dr. Oz:
This all-natural sleep cure can be more effective than prescription medication. In one study, 75% of the people who listened to it had a more restful sleep.
What’s pink noise? As LiveScience.com says:
Both white noise and pink noise contain all the frequencies that are audible to humans — 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz — but the way their signal power is distributed among those frequencies differs. White noise has equal power per hertz throughout all frequencies, while the power per hertz in pink noise decreases as the frequency increases.
The pattern of pink noise occurs in a number of natural systems, including your daily heartbeat rhythms, quasar luminosity and traffic flow, according to the Gilden Lab, a research center at the University of Austin at Texas.
Hoping pink noise might help us sleep in a house where we’ve been awakened so far by a garbage truck, a car going by with a blasting stereo, a bird doing an imitation of a car alarm, idling school buses and, my personal favorite, a cat in heat yowling below our bedroom window, I thought it was a good time to experiment.
I downloaded the Simply Noise app and we began playing nighttime noise through our little Jambox Bluetooth-enabled speaker. I started with pink noise but John likes brown noise better. Simply Noise describes that:
Brown Noise – Utilizes the lower sound frequencies to generate a deep ambient rumble. Brown noise is excellent for aiding sleep, pacifying children and pets, and even masking Tinnitus. It’s also great for breaking in audio equipment and soothing migraines.
So far, it’s great. It’s a nice, soft distraction from all the various things swirling around, and I’ve gotten some good nights of sleep.
Have you tried white, pink, brown or any other kind of noise to sleep?
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