You’ve tried just about everything but with work, school, kids, a busy schedule and LIFE happening – it’s hard to get enough time to sleep. Or maybe you found enough time to sleep but you still wake up tired. Don’t throw in the towel just yet.
You've heard that white noise can help you fall asleep faster and snooze sounder. The National Sleep Foundation recommends it for people who have trouble sleeping. But according to science pink noise may be the new white noise.
Pink noise is a mix of high and low frequencies that sound more balanced and natural than white noise. Examples of this are rain falling on pavement, or wind rustling the leaves on a tree. It’s called pink noise because light with a similar power spectrum would appear pink.
According to new research published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, pink noise just might be the secret to better sleep and improved memory.
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In a small recent study, Northwestern University researchers invited adults to spend some time in a sleep lab. On both nights, the participants took a memory test, went to bed wearing headphones and an electrode cap, and retook the memory test when they woke up.
On one of the nights, no noise played through the participants' headphones. On the other night, however, pink noise was played in short bursts. These spurts were timed to match the slow, deep-sleep waves emitted by the participants' brains and detected by their electrode caps.
When participants slept with pink noise playing, their slow-wave sleep oscillations increased, meaning they experienced more periods of deeper sleep. After a night with pink noise, participants also performed up to three times better on the morning-after memory test than they did after sleeping in silence.
These new findings back those from previous studies, which similarly found that pink noise increased slow-wave sleep oscillations and improved memory.
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Try pink noise. You have nothing to lose and only sleep to gain.
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Could you benefit from another type of noise?
Wondering about the difference between the different types of noises and which noise may best benefit you? Check out some of the benefits of each noise color:
- White noise: Represents all audible sound frequencies equally. It's good at masking background noises, but some people find it annoying to listen to because their ears hear the high-frequency noises the most.
- Pink noise: Includes the full range of audible sounds, but the lower frequencies are amplified, and the higher frequencies are diminished. It sounds more soothing to many people who might find white noise annoying.
- Brown noise: Brown noise contains all sound frequencies, but the low, bass tones are strongest.
- Blue noise: Blue noise is the opposite of brown noise. It contains all the audible frequencies, but the higher-pitched frequencies are amplified. To most people, blue noise sounds harsh, so it’s not a common option for sleep support. However, some people still find it helpful.
Nurse Alice Benjamin is a nationally board certified Cardiac Clinical Nurse at world-renowned Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in West Hollywood, California with more than 15 years of experience. She is an American Heart Association spokesperson and first African-American nurse elected to the American Nurses Association/California Board of Directors. Benjamin is also a freelance on-air health expert and writer. She has appeared on various national radio shows and TV shows including “Tom Joyner Morning Show”, “The Doctors” and HLN’s “News Now” and more. You can follow her on Twitter at @AskNurseAlice.
