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White Noise

Savoring white noise for a deep sleep

Inspire

“White noise” is one of the best tools to fall asleep in noisy places. We’ve found three different frequencies to sleep well.

There are people who are lucky enough to be able to sleep deeply despite external factors, but many more who cannot. For them there are some truly helpful practical tips, there is music meant for listening while asleep, and there is white noise.

The so-called “white noise” is a special type of sound that is used to muffle out any background noise. Something very similar to what happens with the sound of the rain, which is comprised of thousands of different sounds forming a constant monotony, which has the quality of making us feel relaxed. When used to promote sleep, white noise keeps us from hearing other noises that could stimulate or wake us up at night. It’s called white because, like white light ––which is composed of all colors (frequencies) together­­––, this noise is a combination of all different sound frequencies. We can think of white noise as 20,000 tones playing at the same time.

While the idea of adding more noise to the room to help us sleep seems counterintuitive, it works because white noise turns outside sounds (music, voices, dogs barking, traffic) into background noise, and thus the brain stops paying attention. In some ways, white noise “erases” those sounds like a big ghost that muffles everything. That’s why many people use it to put babies to sleep, or to stop listening to what’s going on outside and enter a calmness that’s very similar to what one hears when it rains.

White noise is so tranquilizing there are now machines that create different levels of this frequency, and the Internet Archive is one of several sites to offer a large catalog of white noises. We here share a good selection to help those who need to escape from all that mundane noise.

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