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Sometimes I sleep with a sound machine or a fan. It started in college to drown out
loud roommates, but now that I've read this research, I'll probably quit!
'Sup sleepers, Trace here for DNews. Sound machines are very popular with adults, especially
in noisy urban environments, because they can use white noise to drown out other sounds.
A new study in Pediatrics found, some infant sound machines can hit 50 decibels!! A JACKHAMMER
is 95! 50 decibels is loud, and since most adults keep them near the bed they often do
the same for their baby's infant models. Some of them even hang on the crib.
Sound machines for babies are meant to drown out extraneous noise and let both babies and
adults sleep uninterrupted. They create white noise, which is all the frequencies of sound
the human ear can hear, combined together. It's the white light or black paint of sound.
Some experts think it mimics what babies hear in the womb; others look at how the brain
processes something like noise, versus tones or notes. The problem is babies experience
sound MUCH more intensely than adults because their straighter, wider ear canal naturally
amplifies sound. Plus, like in The Matrix, they've never used them before. So long term
exposure to 50 decibels could potentially be bad for a baby's hearing.
Hearing is the ear and brain working together to measure the waves of air pressure surrounding
your body. The waves are perceived as sound, and measured in decibels. The human ear is
very sensitive, registering sounds as loud as jet engines and as slight as a pin drop
or hair brushing skin. As our ears get used to the experience of sound, loudness can become
less intense -- we get used to it. For instance, sound machines and fans make constant noise
all night, and yet after a while you feel like you're in a quiet room.
The reason we can sleep with something so loud firing across our eardrums, has to do
with our brains. When you're in a loud crowded place, you can hear one or two conversations
at once because your brain is great at using visual information combined with sound to
pick out voices. But, if you stand on the edge of a crowded auditorium, it turns into
a big mess -- even TRYING to pick out a voice can be tough. White noise is the same, with
all those frequencies going at the same time, your brain can't pick out other sounds and
just flat-out ignores the whole batch.
This doesn't translate to every situation though, the National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health says ambient noise can increase stress levels, exacerbate high blood pressure
and cause stress related problems like ulcers and headaches. And a study done with rats
and published in Physiology & Behavior found white noise can affect the release of the
stress hormone cortisol -- rats exposed to white noise had 1.8 times more cortisol! In
humans that affects planning, reasoning, impulse control, and might even mess with short term
memory writing. Another study from the University of California San Francisco found white noise
might keep the brain from learning during sleep in children -- delaying language acquisition
and messing with hearing.
If you HAVE to use a sound machine to sleep, put it far from somewhere a baby sleeps, and
from YOU for that matter. Keep the volume low, and set the timer so it doesn't drone
all night. Less exposure to the constant drone might be better for your brain and your kids.
What's your sound machine? Fans? Radiators? The furnace or air conditioner turning on?
Dishwasher? Or do you have an app on your phone?
Let's talk about it down below and see if there's a better way than constant noise.
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