The sheer volume of sleep hacks on TikTok is enough to keep you up all night. And the one that never fails to crank up the views is utilising different colours of sound to get you to sleep.
Sure we’ve all heard of white noise before, but did you know there’s also pink, brown, green and even blue noise too?
Although the biggest brains in the sleep business say evidence on the efficacy of noise to get you to sleep “is inconclusive and very low quality at this point,” (thanks Dr Mathias Basner, professor of sleep at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the world’s biggest review of noise as a sleep aid), you can’t keep a good TikTok trend down.
And, while the noise itself might not trigger sleep alone, Michael Grandner, who directs the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona, says there’s no denying it can help you catch some Zzzzs if used in a certain way.
“White noise machines work through a process called sound masking or noise masking,” he says. “They create a blanket of sound around you that absorbs other sound waves so that little creaks and cracks and cars driving by don’t quite make it to your brain and you don’t respond to them.”
But which hue is the sleep sound choice for you?
What White Noise Does For Sleep
What Pink Noise Does For Sleep
If you find white noise too intense, it could. because it delivers the same sound frequencies all at the same intensity.
Pink noise offers a louder low frequency with softer high ends, which makes it slightly smoother than white noise.
Studies have shown that pink noise can both aid people in getting to sleep and also have a positive influence on supporting deep sleep and memory.
What Brown Noise Does For Sleep
Brown noise has been trending on TikTok for a while now, with 84.3 million views for videos featuring the hashtag and counting.
Brown noise offers a deeper and stronger tone, the lower frequencies can block out external noise while soothing the mind and making it easier for people to sleep.
There’s also anecdotal evidence to suggest that brown noise can help block out the internal monologue that many people experience, especially at night when we have no other distractions to keep our minds from wandering.
What Green Noise Does For Sleep
Green noise is a variation of white noise in the middle of the spectrum, as the name insinuates it utilises similar sounds to that you may hear in nature.
Green noise is said to help restore calm and promote relaxation. It does this by providing a “sound mask” to other ideas, feelings, sensations, and sensory experiences. Because green noise is more pleasing, it may be a more appealing choice than the typical white noise.
What Blue Noise Does For Sleep
Because there are few deep tones in blue noise to help balance its energy, which is primarily concentrated at the high-frequency end, it almost sounds like water spraying out of a hose nozzle.
Although that doesn’t sound very tranquil, blue noise does a wonderful job of severely disguising outside noises. That is, if you’re not sensitive to high-pitched sounds.
Again, there’s been little scientific research into the effectiveness of blue noise, in comparison to its other colourful counterparts, however, that’s not to say it’s not worth trying if some of the other sounds don’t help.
The post Ultimate Sleep Hack Or TikTok Nonsense? The Colour Of Sound Explained appeared first on Women’s Health.
