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White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

theguardian.com

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Re: White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

#51

Post by pmiller2 »

bradlys wrote: post #50
TomDavey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an apartment building in a quite noisy locale, Manhattan in New York City. I solved the problem with pliable silicone "putty" earplugs. They provide the closest to dead silence I've found. The earplugs attenuate sound by 50% is my guess, making inaudible all but the loudest ambulance sirens and shoes dropped to the floor in the unit above.

I'm not sure where I heard it but I've heard that wearing earplugs for prolonged periods isn't good either. Beyond that, I don't like the feeling (even of the putty ones) after a few hours. My ears start to feel clammy and like I'm building some kind of bacteria dish inside my ear. Ear plugs have never been enough for me. Also - if it gets too quiet then my tinnitus starts going. Thus, like OP, I use a fan. Bothers m…

I've always just thought it was ridiculous that I should have to wear ear plugs to sleep in my own home. Why do people tolerate that? (I know, that's apartment living for you, etc., but not all apartments are that way.)

Re: White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

#52

Post by Nasrudith »

bradlys wrote: post #50
TomDavey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an apartment building in a quite noisy locale, Manhattan in New York City. I solved the problem with pliable silicone "putty" earplugs. They provide the closest to dead silence I've found. The earplugs attenuate sound by 50% is my guess, making inaudible all but the loudest ambulance sirens and shoes dropped to the floor in the unit above.

I'm not sure where I heard it but I've heard that wearing earplugs for prolonged periods isn't good either. Beyond that, I don't like the feeling (even of the putty ones) after a few hours. My ears start to feel clammy and like I'm building some kind of bacteria dish inside my ear. Ear plugs have never been enough for me. Also - if it gets too quiet then my tinnitus starts going. Thus, like OP, I use a fan. Bothers m…

Ear wax can harden or build up and usually it is ideal to leave them to self-clear unless there is a deafening blockage, infection or similar.

I had issues personally just with headphones and work from home subsitution with white noise (unfortunately others of my household are hard of hearing and loud) worked well for me.

Re: White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

#53

Post by silverpepsi »

pmiller2 wrote: post #51
bradlys wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where I heard it but I've heard that wearing earplugs for prolonged periods isn't good either. Beyond that, I don't like the feeling (even of the putty ones) after a few hours. My ears start to feel clammy and like I'm building some kind of bacteria dish inside my ear. Ear plugs have never been enough for me. Also - if it gets too quiet then my tinnitus starts going. Thus, like OP, I use a fan. Bothers m…

I've always just thought it was ridiculous that I should have to wear ear plugs to sleep in my own home. Why do people tolerate that? (I know, that's apartment living for you, etc. , but not all apartments are that way.)

it is ridiculous. learn to sleep better instead of blaming noise

Re: White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

#54

Post by graeme »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #49
graeme wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. Take it from me, go see a dentist, and ask them to look for cracks in your teeth, and receding gums. If they do a panorex x ray they can also look for bone growth in your jaw. I clench, didn’t know about it for years and so didn’t have a mouth guard. Have a bunch of cracks in my molars now. My dentist always used to say these sort of cracks were the biggest problem in adult dentistry. The solution is to get a mou…

Thanks for the advice! I'll ask about this at my next appointment.

Oh and the word for this is Bruxism. Refers to both grinding and clenching. Clenching is often worse as it can stay hidden for a while.

Re: White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

#55

Post by dorkwood »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #3

> It is an active process, which generates metabolites, some of which have been shown to be harmful to the inner ear. You probably want to have a period where the auditory system can wind down, regenerate and prepare for the next wake period. Something like 30% of people suffer from tinnitus. Falling asleep with a loud ringing is hard, and for those suffering it's not like we get an auditory break anyway. I wonder, c…

I wonder if tinnitus itself also generates metabolites.

Re: White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

#56

Post by pedalpete »

This article is garbage.

I was initially concerned as we're building a sleep wearable that uses sound to alter your sleep state. I thought...crap, is there evidence what we are doing is harmful? We're consulting with neurologists, so I would have been surprised, as they have brought up some potential issues we need to test for with what we are doing.

Here's very early evidence of the positive effect our technology is having. This is early evidence of auditory stimulation having positive effect on sleep. https://imgur.com/z4vqS3w This is from my Oura tracker (so we have a 3rd party monitoring) and over 8 nights. Yes, there is potential placebo effect here, and the first 4 nights I slept better than I usually do. We are preparing for a more robust study.

If you're keen to find out more about what we're building, check out https://soundmind.co and sign-up to get on the waitlist.

I'll be writing a blog post of our early findings shortly.

Re: White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

#57

Post by closeparen »

benji_is_me wrote: post #38
hombre_fatal wrote: post #20

The article makes it sound like the alternative to white noise is luxurious, dead silence. But, especially in the city, the alternative is usually just patches of semi-silence interrupted by loud or sharp things. Dogs barking, a police siren, the neighbor coming home at 3am, your partner flushing the toilet, inexplicable noises that start and then stop before you realize why you're up. I listen to white noise like a…

Have you tried using ear plugs? I've found they work well for me outside of when I need to use an alarm.

Sometimes I feel like an alien when people suggest earplugs for noise problems. Maybe I just process sound very differently.

Earplugs succeed at exactly one task: attenuating dangerous sound levels down to comfortable ones. The don't reduce the amount of information. A 30dB conversation is exactly as distracting as a 60dB conversation. I also have custom fitted IEMs that provide similar attenuation. These are equally useless when disconnected. You still need masking sound. You just need less of it.

In a quiet environment, earplugs amplify the sounds of my own body. I hear my heart beating. I hear fluid sloshing around. I hear very prominent vibrations from anywhere my head is shifting relative to the pillow. I'd have to work pretty hard to design a more unsettling sleep-deprivation apparatus than earplugs.

None of this is remotely as useful as an actually quiet room with a box fan running.

Re: White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

#58

Post by Kaibeezy »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #8
graeme wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder, can others not hear their pulse through their pillow when in a dead quiet room? That’s called pulsatile tinnitus. I used to hear silence, then after a jaw injury I started hearing my pulse and eventually ringing. But no normally you wouldn’t.

TIL! My jaw is almost never relaxed, and I clench my teeth together when I sleep. Interesting correlation.

Apparently this is suddenly a bigger issue during the pandemic. I’ll look for that article...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/well/live/dentists-tooth-...

Re: White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

#59

Post by closeparen »

barkingcat wrote: post #11
davidmurdoch wrote: post #3

> It is an active process, which generates metabolites, some of which have been shown to be harmful to the inner ear. You probably want to have a period where the auditory system can wind down, regenerate and prepare for the next wake period. Something like 30% of people suffer from tinnitus. Falling asleep with a loud ringing is hard, and for those suffering it's not like we get an auditory break anyway. I wonder, c…

of course, the easiest way to resolve both issues is to have a timer, or hook it up to one of those body motion sensors. Once the person has gone to sleep, turn off the noise generators, allowing 1) the person to fall asleep, and 2) after the systems have turned off, to allow regeneration without noise.

I never needed the battery backups on my alarm clocks: in a power outage, the box fan would stop, waking me up instantly.

Re: White noise as sleep aid may do more harm than good, say scientists

#60

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

benji_is_me wrote: post #38
hombre_fatal wrote: post #20

The article makes it sound like the alternative to white noise is luxurious, dead silence. But, especially in the city, the alternative is usually just patches of semi-silence interrupted by loud or sharp things. Dogs barking, a police siren, the neighbor coming home at 3am, your partner flushing the toilet, inexplicable noises that start and then stop before you realize why you're up. I listen to white noise like a…

Have you tried using ear plugs? I've found they work well for me outside of when I need to use an alarm.

I tried earplugs of several kinds, but they uniformly sucked. They fell out when I would roll onto my side during sleep, and my ears would produce like 3x the normal amount of wax the following morning.

Ears don't like having shit stuffed into them for prolonged periods of time. I've noticed it with headphones, earbuds, earplugs, etc.

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