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Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

pennmedicine.org

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Re: Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

#21

Post by zhoujing204 »

xnomad wrote: post #11

I grew up in South East Asia with air con running all night, when I moved away I found it hard to sleep in 'quieter' countries

The study may well be flawed—small n, selection bias, lack of proper controls, sure. But can we please stop using personal anecdotes to dismiss scientific inquiry?

Arguments like 'well, it works for me,' or 'I took this med and recovered immediately,' or 'I saw X happen right after a vaccine' are not valid refutations. Science is frequently counter-intuitive and often contradicts our personal experience and gut instincts. That is precisely why we rely on the scientific method and statistical rigor—rather than individual perception—to establish evidence.

Re: Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

#23

Post by llm_nerd »

mezzman wrote: post #12
tartoran wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helps me quite a bit to focus when Im in noisy spaces.

This reminds me of an old Wired interview with Danny Hillis when he developed a system called Babble that used unintelligible vocal bits as background sound to help concentration, too bad it never really went anywhere. https://www.wired.com/2005/06/applied-minds-think-remarkably...

A number of noise generators have that sort of nonsensical babble as a component of the sound. For instance

https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/cafeRestaurantNoiseGenerat...

Nothing that your mind has enough edges on to try to interpret, but vaguely human-like.

Re: Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

#24

Post by llm_nerd »

zhoujing204 wrote: post #21
xnomad wrote: post #11

I grew up in South East Asia with air con running all night, when I moved away I found it hard to sleep in 'quieter' countries

The study may well be flawed—small n, selection bias, lack of proper controls, sure. But can we please stop using personal anecdotes to dismiss scientific inquiry? Arguments like 'well, it works for me,' or 'I took this med and recovered immediately,' or 'I saw X happen right after a vaccine' are not valid refutations. Science is frequently counter-intuitive and often contradicts our personal experience and gut insti…

This study is tiny and of negligible value. They didn't even try to pretend it's of real value, and instead just dropped the classic "our study clearly demonstrates that people should probably study this stuff". Conditioned norms are by far the most relevant condition for sleep for most people, and sleep studies of tiny durations with tiny sets are basically just noise makers (har har). Even worse, they seem to have specifically excluded people who already use noise machines, ensuring that their participants were conditioned for the silent norm.

Scientific method, statistical rigour...eh, this looks like a headline chasing study.

Re: Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

#26

Post by JamesTRexx »

xnomad wrote: post #11

I grew up in South East Asia with air con running all night, when I moved away I found it hard to sleep in 'quieter' countries

I noticed I'd feel sleepy after more than half an hour in the server room. Likely the fan noise but the lower temperature might influence it as well.

Unfortunately too expensive and large to set this up in the bedroom to help me sleep nowadays.

Re: Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

#27

Post by oivey »

anigbrowl wrote: post #13

Researchers observed 25 healthy adults, ages 21 to 41, in a sleep laboratory during eight-hour sleep opportunities over seven consecutive nights. Absurdly low n . Additionally, I've become very skeptical of anything coming out of sleep labs after my wife was sent to one (at a prestigious teaching hospital) by her doctor some years ago: the 'sleep opportunity' was lights out at 9pm for 8 hours, and the staff were whol…

That is a low n, but I’m not sure what the alternative is. Surely random anecdotes (n=1) are even less powerful?

Re: Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

#28

Post by nine_k »

mezzman wrote: post #12
tartoran wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helps me quite a bit to focus when Im in noisy spaces.

This reminds me of an old Wired interview with Danny Hillis when he developed a system called Babble that used unintelligible vocal bits as background sound to help concentration, too bad it never really went anywhere. https://www.wired.com/2005/06/applied-minds-think-remarkably...

For me that would be the worst kind of distraction: always triggered by sounds of communication, never able to recognize what is said.

I suspect not all such statistical results apply uniformly to all people.

Re: Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

#29

Post by ChiMan »

anigbrowl wrote: post #13

Researchers observed 25 healthy adults, ages 21 to 41, in a sleep laboratory during eight-hour sleep opportunities over seven consecutive nights. Absurdly low n . Additionally, I've become very skeptical of anything coming out of sleep labs after my wife was sent to one (at a prestigious teaching hospital) by her doctor some years ago: the 'sleep opportunity' was lights out at 9pm for 8 hours, and the staff were whol…

Common sense and experience inform my theory of good sleep: Pitch black, stone quiet, with noise limited to pre-sleep audial approximations of the dream-like mental noise that precipitates sleep.

Re: Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

#30

Post by Mistletoe »

anigbrowl wrote: post #13

Researchers observed 25 healthy adults, ages 21 to 41, in a sleep laboratory during eight-hour sleep opportunities over seven consecutive nights. Absurdly low n . Additionally, I've become very skeptical of anything coming out of sleep labs after my wife was sent to one (at a prestigious teaching hospital) by her doctor some years ago: the 'sleep opportunity' was lights out at 9pm for 8 hours, and the staff were whol…

I’ll match your anecdote. I slept with white noise in my former home which was in a noisier town and felt it improved my sleep. Now that we’ve moved to a nice historic neighborhood I find I sleep best with nothing on at all. The silence there is so wonderful. Maybe silence is the ultimate luxury.
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