Does White Noise Really Help You Sleep Better?

Anyone who sleeps with white noise is likely to tell you they can't fall asleep without it. And when you count up all the apps and white noise machines on the market, it may seem like you've stumbled upon the holy grail of sleeping.

While sleep experts agree that white noise apps or machines (or the original version—fans) are definitely soothing, the data to back up whether it truly helps us sleep is limited at best. Yet with apps listed in the "Health and Fitness" category, and manufacturers who claim "sleep is just a click away," is there really any science behind it?

The Great White Way

For the people who say it helps them sleep, white noise functions as a kind of anti-noise, says Joseph Ojile, M.D., medical director and chief executive officer of the Clayton Sleep Institute. It's a redundant noise, something that distracts your brain but you don’t have to focus on.

Not everyone needs it to catch some zzzs, but for those who do, white noise dampens other sounds, sort of like snow muffles noise. The whirring of a fan, an app, or a machine covers up all the little sounds that could be distracting to your brain—your partner’s snoring, a dripping faucet, or people talking outside your apartment on a Saturday night, says Christopher Winter, M.D., a fellow at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and medical director at the sleep center at Martha Jefferson Hospital.
White noise aficionados know there are a ton of options to choose from (from gentle, light rain to a hurricane to the sound of a cat purring, for instance). Which one works best for you just comes down to personal preference, says Shalini Paruthi, M.D., a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the director of the Pediatric Sleep and Research Center at Saint Louis University.

But if you tend to wake up in the middle of the night, she says to opt for a machine that'll keep humming all night rather than a timed app that may stop after an hour. Waking up in an environment that's different from what you fell asleep in can make it harder to doze off again, she explains.

Sweet, Routine Dreams

Winding down with a calming sound can be helpful, but making sure it’s part of a nightly bedtime routine is integral to a good night’s sleep, Paruthi says. Often they can be one in the same (lights off, fan on), but the effectiveness of white noise may actually come down to that routine aspect.

“Your body likes to anticipate what’s going to happen,” Winter says. “So if you always end your day by taking a hot shower, dimming your lights, and then turning on your noise machine, every night that your body does those things in that order at that time, it tells your brain sleep is coming up,” Winter says. It's essentially a stage cue for melatonin—enter sleep, right on time.

Easy enough for the 80-year-old’s in the room. But for those of us who don’t have quite such defined schedules (although Paruthi and Ojile both say that’s the gold standard), Winter says even just the routine of hearing your fan can be helpful.

The only danger arises when you feel like you can’t get to sleep without it, Winter says. As helpful as those routines are, there’s also a flip side, when people can't sleep without going through rigid motions, Ojile says. But it’s unlikely for white noise to create dependence in itself—that’s probably some level of anxiety talking.

If your partner truly hates the sound, whether it's waves or a gentle whir, you can wean yourself off the app by setting a timer that shuts it off after a certain amount of time. But if your sleepmate also likes the sound of the rainforest at night? There's no harm in pressing play nightly.

The Takeaway

Anti-noise can create a helpful blankness for people who love it, but there’s nothing in the sound itself that will enhance your sleep. For others, it’s the same as going to sleep in a totally quiet room. More essential to sleeping like a baby is having a standard nightly wind-down routine to let your body know it’s time for some shut-eye.
Resource: greatist.com

Sleep Better Thanks to This New iPhone Feature

As much as we love the nightly ritual of hitting the hay with our smartphones, scientists warn that all that screen time (and blue light exposure) before bed can make us lose an hour of sleep per night. Apple is finally doing something about it.

The newest update for mobile and tablet devices (iOS 9.3) includes an optional mode called Night Shift. Once enabled, it gradually removes blue light after sunset by shifting to warmer colors. (Our eyes expect to see red light as it gets darker, so seeing cooler light at night disrupts our sleep, according to the American Medical Association.) Night Shift uses your device's clock and location to detect when the sun is setting. By the time you wake up in the morning, your phone or tablet will switch back to emitting those bright blue rays.
Resource: greatist.com

Can't Focus? Maybe You Should Take a Nap

Good news for people who can't focus at work (a.k.a. everyone). The key to being more productive may be as simple as taking a nap. Asthis video from The Science of Us explains, we shouldn't be working for more than 90 minutes at a time. (This is basically your ticket to go check Facebook and not feel bad about it.) And taking hour-long naps in the middle of the day made people in one study less frustrated and impulsive. Check out the video for more science-backed reasons why a midday snooze can help you crush your next project.

Resource: greatist.com

3 Things You Can Do Tonight to Fall Asleep Fast

For insomniacs—or even those who have occasional trouble catching some shut-eye—sleeping pills are a godsend. That is, until you wake up the next morning with that slightly hungover and groggy feeling. That’s why we prefer to go the natural route, when possible. This video from Vox has three super simple, science-backed ways to fall asleep fast that won't require popping an Ambien. Press play for the tips—just make sure to do it more than an hour before bed, so that screen time doesn’t mess with your zzzs.

Resource: greatist.com

See What Happens to Your Body on No Sleep

We’ve all had nights where no matter what we try—counting back from 100, meditating, drinking tea—we just can’t fall asleep. The next day we feel like a zombie shuffling through dense fog. This video from BuzzFeed details exactly what's happening to your body when you don’t catch any zzzs. One sleepless night impairs movement and focus the same as when you’re drunk. Missing two consecutive nights messes with your speech, so you start to stumble on words and forget what you were talking about.

Resource: greatist.com

The States Where People Get the Most (and Least) Sleep

New York may be the city that never sleeps, but at the state level, Hawaiians get the least amount of shut-eye. (South Dakotans sleep the most for those keeping track at home.) This data comes from a recent CDC report, which found one in three Americans isn’t getting the recommended seven hours of sleep per night. In Hawaii, it’s nearly one in two.

The data looks at the percentage of people in each state that clock seven hours of zzzs, so we don’t know how many hours of shut-eye Californians or Floridians get on average. To see where your state falls in the rankings, check out the graphic below—the darker, the more sleep. And click the button below to see the listing from one to 50.
Resource: greatist.com

8 Things You Need to Stop Believing About Sleep

We’re supposed to spend one third of our lives catching zzzs, so we’ve had enough experience at this point to call ourselves bona fide experts. But some of our most basic assumptions—REM sleep is the most important; if you're waking up in the middle of the night, you're not sleeping well; you shouldn't sleep with the TV on—aren't exactly true. We asked the real sleep experts to pull back the curtain on our biggest misconceptions. Get their take below.

1. You can get by on less than seven hours per night.
“Some rare people truly can, but the overwhelming majority need the proper seven to eight hours that we recommend. The initial consequences may be subtle, such as slightly delayed reaction time, increased irritability, or craving more junk food. Long term, the consequences of lack of sleep can be higher blood pressure and increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.” — Daniel Barone, M.D., sleep medicine specialist at New York-Presbyterian

2. Waking up in the middle of the night means you’re not sleeping well.
“The truth is that we go through stages and cycles of sleep throughout the night, and it's normal to wake up (briefly) between cycles. If you feel relatively rested during the day, waking up to roll over a few times a night is probably not a reason to worry.” — Haley Byers, Ph.D., board-certified specialist in behavioral sleep medicine

3. You get sleepy when you’re bored.
“Boredom unmasks existing sleep deprivation but does not make you sleepy on its own.” — Rafael Pelayo, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine

4. Sleeping with the TV on is a big no-no.
“I personally have the TV on every night as I fall asleep. I’m probably the only sleep doctor in the universe who will say that it's OK for a few reasons. Number one is that most TVs have sleep timers, so they will turn off in the middle of the night, and number two is that the blue light emitted by the TV is extremely limited. Television is often used as a distraction, and we want to do something that’s calming, relaxing, and distracting as we prepare to go to sleep.” — Michael Breus, Ph.D., board-certified sleep specialist and author of Good Night

5. High achievers don't need to sleep a lot.
“Sleep is for everyone. Is crucial for optimal performance and physical and mental health. High achievers appear to need less sleep, but so far this is limited to anecdotal evidence. In fact, scientific investigations have shown that in children and adolescents, more sleep is associated with better school performance.” — June Chi-Yan Lo, Ph.D., research fellow in the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke Medical School

6. The brain rests while you sleep.
“Sleep is not only important for the brain but also for the body. A recent study showed that fat cells taken from the abdominal area respond differently to insulin following a period of sleep loss, suggesting that sleep may be an important regulator of energy metabolism in peripheral tissues. Plus, there are stages during sleep when the brain is quite active—as active as it is during waking hours.” — Erin Hanlon, Ph.D., research associate in endocrinology at the University of Chicago

7. REM sleep is the deepest and most important phase.
“This is not true. Slow wave sleep is by far the deepest stage. This is considered to be restorative sleep. It is also the stage of sleep in which most of your growth hormone is secreted—it is secreted in bursts throughout the day, but there is a very large release about an hour after sleep onset during SWS.” — Kimberly Fenn, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University

8. All sleep is created equal.
“Overweight people who snore, for example, may not even realize that their sleep is very disturbed. They may think they get enough sleep and don't understand why they feel tired during the day. The same applies to alcohol: It can help you get to sleep, but the normal pattern of sleep will be disturbed, and you may not get enough deep sleep. So your time in bed may be OK, but sleep duration is not.” — Simon Archer, Ph.D, head of the department of biochemical sciences at the University of Surrey
Resource: greatist.com