Is White Noise The Key To Sleeping Soundly?

Much of early motherhood with my firstborn was a blur of exhaustion, but among the good and not-so-good memories I’ve retained is this one: me, cranking up the airplane engine-loud fan in the guest bathroom while rocking him in a rumbly chair and hoping against all hope that the steady hum would soothe my distraught baby.

On days when I was a bit less overwhelmed and my son was a bit less colicky, we relied more on a white-noise machine the shape and size of an individual birthday cake. The whooshing sound created a calming environment for the baby and helped block the sounds of our dogs barking, or our feet creeping away from the nursery on creaky floorboards.

I didn’t come up with the idea of using soothing white noise—or, as in the case of the bathroom, the noise produced by gale-force winds—on my own. Many a baby-care book recommended the sounds and the machine, their use backed up by research.

For example, in a study of 20 children between 2 and 7 days old, 16 fell asleep within five minutes in response to white noise. Only five fell asleep during the study period without it. Another study, this one of insomnia in young and healthy individuals, found that white noise reduced sleep-onset latency—the time it takes to fall asleep—by 38% as compared to normal environmental noise.

So what exactly is white noise? It can sound like radio static, or maybe a hiss, and contains all frequencies from across the spectrum of audible sound at equal intensity. The name comes from “white light,” a term used to describe light that contains all colors in the color spectrum.

Some white-noise machines and apps include other colors. Pink noise, for example, is deeper than white but less deep than brown. There is blue noise and purple noise and gray noise, each carrying a slightly different tone.

When my son was a bit older and sleeping through the night, I decided to tackle my own sleep issues with the help of white noise. I’d long had difficulty falling asleep without a) going to bed very, very late, setting the stage for a bad morning to follow; b) being so exhausted by motherhood as to be delirious; or c) taking a sleep aid.

I picked out a white-noise app on my phone and swiped through the various color choices. Pink, to me, sounded too much like high-pitched static. Brown, though—that seemed soothing. So I queued it up, making sure to otherwise silence my phone, and got in bed.

My husband wasn’t thrilled at first, finding the hiss to be distracting, but I was thrilled to discover that brown noise could, for the most part, cancel out his snoring. The noise also kept me from being startled by other sounds in the night, like a honking horn outside or a dog barking at an invisible delivery person.

The noise app helped in another way: I wasn’t on high alert for noises, disruptions, and other reasons to be sleepless. I didn’t have to decamp for the bathroom and its high-intensity exhaust fan. I could let down my guard and not feel anxious.

I could, in many ways, rest assured.

Editor’s note: This is one installment in a series focusing on how to get better sleep. Please check back for future installments, including pieces about sleep-promoting teas, apps, and how bananas might help your sleep.

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