Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/03/pink-noise-a-steady-hum-that-helps-you-sleep-better.html
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You could try listening to some of the artists in this book?
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How could random noise possibly synchronize with a waves of a set frequency?
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I grew up with a computer in my bedroom, that I never shut off. This meant that “fan noise” was a part of my life every night, and nowadays I use a noise generator to generate that sound in my room in order to sleep. It’s similar to pink noise, and I can tell you it really helps both to tune out everything else but also to prevent you waking up from the “things that go bump in the night,” whether that’s others in you home, the creaks that come from thermal changes in your home, or whatever else your sleeping arrangements may entail.
This is my tool of choice (Lectrofan), and it also generates pink noise, as well as many others:
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What I don’t see listed in the OP is that, aside from new age brain wave… stuff… pink noise can be good at blocking out enviornmental noise (traffic, construction, ppl moving around etc) while not being loud.
It sounds like that title is about EDM in more of a riot girl sense than a very specific type of ambient music – for lots of people, anything with vocals or sudden shifts in BPM will make it hard to fall asleep or jostle oneself awake.
Spotify has a big playlist of pink noise perfect for sleeping:
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Yeah, I’m aware, since I’ve, you know, read the book and all. 
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Ok? The topic is about music to aid sleep, so your comment seemed a little out of left field.
Nobody is saying anything negative about the artists in the book (it looks interesting, I’m going to see if it’s at my library).
colored noise seems to go through cycles of popularity, like fashion or bands. i remember before hard drive space was big, ppl saying run a fan. later on, years back, ppl were pushing brown noise as better at drowning out the “things that go bump in the night” you mention at a lower volume… now pink is popular apparently.
i poked around a bit on duckduckgo and found a software based generator (python module) for folks who can’t afford to spend on new physical devices
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Did you ever think that maybe I was making a light hearted joke about the term? 
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The Sleep Foundation website cites its sources, thankfully. This point was just lost in translation.
When we’re more alert our brains have more high frequency activity that is less synchronized across brain regions. The cited research found that listening to pink noise caused slower, more synchronized (between brain areas) activity indicating deeper sleep. The sleep foundation described that with an ambiguous “brain waves gradually slowed in synchrony with a pink noise” and Mark changed it to the impossible “it can synchronize with brain waves”
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I’m steadily humming right now!
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I hear a steady humming - turns out it’s tinnitus.
I hear a steady humming, it’s ringing in my ears,
It’s been my constant company for years and years.
I’m trapped in my own head where the buzzing never fades,
Oh, I’d give anything for just a moment of the shades.
When I was just a baby, my mama told me, “Son,
Always protect your hearing, don’t let the damage be done.”
But I blasted all my music, now I’ve paid the price,
I wish I had listened, wouldn’t need to pay it twice.
But that ringing just keeps rolling,
It’s a freight train in my brain.
When I seek a little silence,
That’s when it screams again.
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This is some Pink noise that helps me pass the time.
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I enjoy sleeping on ships.
I love the feel of the various frequencys vibrating through the structure of the ship. The dominant ones being the regular hum of the engines interspersed with the much lower frequency and slightly irregular crashing of the waves and then the groaning response of the structure to the waves.
And then combine this with the usually gentle, rocking fore and aft and rolling side to side of the ship.
I wouldn’t say I sleep better, because when I travel I generally don’t sleep well (at least not for the first week or two) but I do enjoy the sensation of sleeping on ships.
I wonder if this a pink noise phenomenon?
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This all assumes that whatever is providing the sounds can produce, or reproduce, the different frequency bands faithfully. There’s little chance of getting anything close to equal power at 20 Hz and 20K Hz from a 4" speaker at your bedside. So, some of this is just woo.
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Amazon Echo devices make a great sleep sound machines, with access to at least a couple hundred different sounds, including pink noise. They can be used as a Bluetooth speaker to playback sounds from a phone/tablet/PC. There are tons of sleep sound apps.
While a dedicated and limited sound machine costs $40 or more, an older model of Echo Dot is easily found for $20 or less and sometimes less than $10 for a second generation.
Personally, I prefer the low frequencies of brown noise and a sound named “Airplane Sounds.”
I was thinking this:
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Yeah, no. Apparently from time to time I talk in my sleep and I don’t want to wake up to discover I have ordered a dozen tractors or whatever.
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How about a warp core?
I have a project that has been on the back burner for some time, that combines the warp core noise ambience with a night light that looks like a warp core. ThinkGeek had it as a April 1 joke project, but the joke was on them when thousands of nerds screamed “Shut up and take my money!”
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