A burst of “pink noise” may lead to more restorative sleep (news.mit.edu)

submitted 2 days ago by Fossy@programming.dev to c/science@lemmy.world

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[-] pageflight@piefed.social 27 points 2 days ago

Interesting.

The auditory stimulus used for this study is a 50-millisecond burst of pink noise. Similar to white noise, pink noise contains all sound frequencies audible to the human ear, but the lower pitch frequencies are louder and the higher pitch frequencies are softer. This creates a balanced, gentle sound similar to steady rain or a distant waterfall.

I wonder if this points to sleeping outdoors / in nature. Wind, night insects?

[-] Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club 5 points 1 day ago

I wouldn't think it's related because the very short, 50ms pulse of pink noise has to be precisely timed with the peaks of your existing brain waves to give those waves an extra push. Similiar sounds in nature would occur at random times and antagonise your brain waves just as often as it helped. Imagine trying to push a kid on a swing at random times. They would end up kinda vibrating and not really swinging at all.

On the other hand, perhaps the random times it helps is very beneficial, and the random times it hinders are more neutral, yielding a net benefit.

Still, it would seem very odd that your brain is perfectly capable of producing the waves it needs, but somehow evolved to need the sound of crickets to help it along.