It is seen as a sleep aid, but a study shows that it can make things worse, by reducing the famous REM. Earplugs help.
There is “red noise”, “white noise”. And there is also the “pink noise”. Everything with its context, its structure, its content.
Pink noise imitates many sounds of nature (running water, for example) and produces a deeper, more serious sound.
Supposedly helps you sleep – but ultimately makes your sleep worselet one know.
Pink noise is used to try soften sounds that come from the street, such as traffic, alarms or people talking; but reduces REM sleep (rapid eye movement).
The study involved a detailed controlled sleep laboratory experiment: 7 nights, 25 healthy adults with an average age of 28.5 years (seven men).
Each participant slept in different conditions: silent nights; nights with intermittent environmental noise (sounds of cars and trains, among others); nights with continuous pink noise; and nights that combined environmental noise with earplugs or continuous pink noise (at two different volumes).
Every night was monitored through complete polysomnography; mornings included cognitive tests, cardiovascular measurements, hearing tests and questionnaires, describes the .
O environmental noise reduced significantly the I’m profound (average of 23.4 minutes); deep restorative sleep gave way to lighter sleep phases.
But the pink noise…didn’t help. On the contrary: took an average of 18.6 minutes of REM sleep.
In the scenario where pink noise was added to normal ambient sound, sleep was even more disturbed; less deep sleep, less REM sleep, more time awake and less sleep efficiency in general.
That is, the one pink noise failed to protect people from environmental noise and, more than that, it worsened sleep when combined with ambient sound.
Best Way to Help Sleep: Foam Earplugs. They restored most of the deep sleep lost due to environmental noise, recovering about 72% of the reduction in deep sleep. Participants felt more rested and less fatigued with earplugs compared to nights with ambient noise (mixed or not with pink noise).
The study authors leave a special warning: Do not use this pink noise with newborns and young children. REM sleep is crucial for neurodevelopment in these age groups.
