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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

#61
post #29

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.

> -sleep audial approximations of the dream-like mental noise that precipitates sleep.

What does this mean for you?

My hypnagogia, or mental-noise that precipitates sleep as you put it, is entirely visual hallucinations.

I’m not aware of ever having been able to recall any auditory hallucinations.

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

#62
post #29

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.

[deleted]

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

#64

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…

Sleep studies often have low numbers of participants because conducting tests in a controlled environment of a sleep lab is expensive and time consuming, as they have only so many beds.

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

#65
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…

On the other hand, my life isn’t a double-blind randomised controlled study.

I can’t bifurcate n times and give half of the me’s one treatment and the other half of me’s no treatment, and I especially can’t do that without revealing to myself which group of me’s received the treatment, and which received no treatment or a placebo. Who even know motivates us.

Additionally, what works for some version of me, for example there was a me who was younger and fitter and more appealing to the ladies, may not work for the older version of me who is less young, relies on testosterone supplementation to not be a writhing crying mess on the floor, and hasn’t had a root in 18 months.

That’s why the practice of medicine has always been considered an art and a science.

There’s art in learning to apply the practice of medicine in an effective way.

Also, populations change over time. Older doctors will notice that decades ago every second person came in with problem x, but now the patients of a similar age and similar live experience now seem to be experiencing more y and less x.

The human condition, while at least somewhat consistent insofar as we’re still puzzled by some age old questions, is also a moving target.

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

#66

I feel unsafe wearing earplugs. You're so totally unaware. I'm worried I'd sleep through an alarm.

Since I own a house, I’m afraid of burglars (or rapt) and any crack seems like a sign the roof might fall… so yes, no earplugs…

Intentionally misspelling rape won’t make it go away.

Believing people won’t be triggered by seen the word rapt instead of raped isn’t doing anyone a service.

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

#67
post #45

A lot of comments here dismiss the study for having a small N. Exploratory research uses small N at the start. This kind of research can have value even if it is not conclusive. Imagine the expense (and dominance of Big Research) if every study needed 100,000 participants to run. If you don’t want to read exploratory studies, ignore them when they hit the headline news. Other criticisms of this study (e.g., participa…

Bashing studies for having now N is common because it’s the easiest thing for non-scientists to criticize when they don’t like a study’s findings. Scientists, on the other hand, know that low N does not necessarily reduce the validity or the value of a study.

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

#69

My ex-partner has tinnitus and saw a psychologist who specialised in tinnitus. The psychologist suggested she buy a machine that generates a sound slightly quieter than her tinnitus which retrains the brain not to hear the tinnitus. So she bought a machine that generated about 15 different sounds and settled on a pink-ish sound and played while she slept. It took a couple of years but it effectively "cured" her tinni…

I use the Background Sounds feature (in Accessibility settings) on iOS with a Bluetooth speaker every night while I sleep. It's quite battery-friendly and has several sound options alongside dedicated volume control with which you can set background sound volume independently of the main volume. It's also possible to add a shortcut button to this feature in the Control Center (the screen that's shown when you pull down from the top of the screen).

This makes occasional outside/neighbour noises much less noticeable, although I do keep earplugs near my bed just in case (not great for my tinnitus, but still usually better than without them if they're needed).

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

#70

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…

>Absurdly low n

Please divulge the statistical calculus showing this is an absurdly low n. Please explain how to determine the appropriate sample size.

No, "number _seems_ small" is not adequate statistical reasoning.

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