Does white noise really help you sleep better?


White noise is a type of sound that gathers all the frequencies that the human ear is able to capture, and all of them with the same amplitude and power. It is so called in allusion to what happens with light: white light is the sum of all colors. White noise would also be, in a way, the sum of all noises.

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What does white noise sound like? Like static from the radio or TV when they’re not tuned in to a signal. Or like an air conditioner running. Or like the constant, homogenous hum we hear when travelling by plane. Or like that generated by washing machines, hair dryers, fans and some other household appliances.

The fact is that there has long been a belief that white noise can help you sleep better, just as it is said to be beneficial for soothing babies and young children.

As a result, there are many apps for phones and tablets that play this kind of sound, as well as many videos with the same effect on YouTube and other platforms. There are also specific devices sold to generate white noise. But how much truth is there in all this?

Positive effects of white noise

Until a few years ago, there were not too many scientific studies on this issue, although there were some. In 2005, researchers in the United States analysed the effect of white noise on the sleep quality of patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of a hospital.

The study concluded that white noise reduced the number of times a patient slept in the ICU.He found that the main cause of these awakenings was not the volume but sudden variations in sound: the sudden change from soft to loud.

What white noise does, the study’s findings explained, is “reduce the difference between baseline noise and peak noise”. As a result, it increases tolerance thresholds for the occasional noises that occur frequently in an ICU room.

Similar results were reached by scientists in Iran in a study published in 2016. They observed that after just three nights of hospitalization, the hours of sleep of patients in the coronary unit were reduced from more than seven to less than five. In addition, the time it took to fall asleep doubled from 12.6 minutes to 25.8 minutes.

So they decided to try white noise. What happened? The patients who slept accompanied by that sound, also after three nights in hospital, showed no significant changes in the number of hours of sleep or in the time it took to fall asleep.

The conclusion of the Iranian researchers was to recommend the use of white noise “as a method to mask environmental noises” and thus “improve sleep quality and avoid sleep interruptions” in the coronary care unit.

Improved subjective and objective sleep quality

The most recent work went outside of hospital units to see what was happening elsewhere. One, conducted in Indonesia and published in April this year, looked at the sleep of 20 students – women aged 16 to 18 – in a shared dormitory.

The test participants slept for 30 consecutive nights accompanied by white noise, which was played continuously between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. the next morning. They then completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), a questionnaire to measure subjective sleep quality.

The results were positive: in the shared bedroom – a space in which, because there are so many people, there tends to be a variety of noises and, consequently, difficulties in getting a good night’s sleep – they found that they were able to get a good night’s sleep. the white noise made the quality of sleep better.

And another recent study (published in July of this year) focused on ten people living in New York City who had difficulty sleeping because of the noisy environment. This noise pollution is a feature of almost all major cities: noise is the second most harmful environmental stress factor in Europe.

In this case, the researchers evaluated the subjective quality of sleep (through another questionnaire, called Consensus Sleep Diary) and also its objective quality by means of an actigraph, a device that looks like a wristwatch and allows to analyze the duration and patterns of sleep.

Both parameters showed “significant improvements” when sleeping with white noise. Therefore, the authors of the study point out that “the application of white noise can be an effective tool to help improve sleep” in noise pollution environments such as large metropolitan areas.

Possible risks of always sleeping with white noise

Beyond the fact that all these studies point out the benefits of white noise for sleep – and even the National Sleep Foundation in the United States highlights its advantages – there are also specialists who warn about possible counterproductive effects of accompanying sleep with this sound.

They point out, on the one hand, that there is no general rule that works for everyone: the most suitable environmental parameters for sleep -both sounds and lighting and temperature- vary depending on each person.

On the other hand, always sleeping in this way could generate a kind of conditioned reflex, something like an “addiction” to white noise. This could make it very difficult for that person to sleep without white noise in the future, which could be a problem if he or she has to sleep somewhere else, with a future partner, etc.

And besides, although we have reviewed several studies here, the scientific evidence is still small and in general the tests and experiments have been conducted with few people. Therefore, it is still too early to be sure about the convenience of this resource.

In any case, complete silence still seems to be the most appropriate environment to achieve a dream.or quality. But white noise and the way it absorbs or masks disturbing noises could be a possible solution for those who live in an overly noisy environment, such as big cities, and especially in their busiest areas.

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