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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

#31

Post by zhoujing204 »

llm_nerd wrote: post #24
zhoujing204 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure, you are absolutely right. Even a sloppy study like this still had something useful than any anecdotes.

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

#32

Post by Darge »

oivey wrote: post #27
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?

Random anecdotes might be less biased. For example, no pressure to publish nor sell a product.

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

#33

Post by samus »

oivey wrote: post #27
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?

The low n is not the only questionable thing about the study. What a big n gives you is diversity of samples and tighter confidence intervals, but it can not correct for methodological limitations. Specifically, they didn't invite any people with sleep issues or who are already sleeping under noise. Therefore the conclusion is a "duh" - if you don't require pink noise to sleep, then don't add it.

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

#34

Post by throwforfeds »

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…

The thing that stood out more to me than the n being low is "the participants reported not previously using noise to help them sleep or having any sleep disorders." Sleeping with pink noise seems like something that you'd end up getting acclimated to.

My n=1 is that I often sleep with a fan on and live in NYC -- whenever I stay in a place where there is no noise I tend to have trouble sleeping, so I end up turning on some nature sounds on my phone from myNoise.

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

#35

Post by hippo22 »

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 grew up near train tracks. I’m totally of incapable of even hearing trains unless they’re directly in front of me.

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

#36

Post by el_benhameen »

throwforfeds wrote: post #34
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…

The thing that stood out more to me than the n being low is "the participants reported not previously using noise to help them sleep or having any sleep disorders." Sleeping with pink noise seems like something that you'd end up getting acclimated to. My n=1 is that I often sleep with a fan on and live in NYC -- whenever I stay in a place where there is no noise I tend to have trouble sleeping, so I end up turning on…

Yeah that seems silly. I was a quiet-room sleeper until I met my wife, who needs some kind of white noise to sleep. I eventually adapted and now sleep much better with noise than without (at least subjectively), but that change took a while, at least several months. I found it quite difficult to sleep with for a while.

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

#37

Post by staticassertion »

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…

Perhaps too meta or off topic but I thought it was funny that you thought their n was low and then cited a story about one person.

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

#38

Post by gboss »

staticassertion wrote: post #37
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…

Perhaps too meta or off topic but I thought it was funny that you thought their n was low and then cited a story about one person.

The way I’m understanding it is that it’s more that if there’s a real population of people like his wife, that is only 5 percent of the actual population or even higher, for example, it may not be caught by such a small sample size.

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

#40

Post by anigbrowl »

oivey wrote: post #27
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?

I'm not inviting you to draw conclusions from my semi-random (but informed by years of professional thought about why people like different sounds) anecdote.
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