How White Noise Can Help You

Before we begin, I'll briefly explain to you what white noise actually is. White noise contains all the frequencies that the human ear can hear, and are played at the same time randomly together. There are literally thousands of different tones being played at the same time. You cold think that this would sound chaotic and distressing, but most people actually feel relaxed when hearing it. Examples of white noise include the sound of rain, the sound of an electric fan, and the sound of thousands of people chattering at the same time.

What does white noise help with?
White noise is great for masking distracting background noises. This is why many people experience relaxation and pleasure when listening to sounds of the sea for example. White noise can help calm the mind and distract it from intruding sounds and thoughts. This is why people often use white noise, either natural sounds or man made white noise in order to relax and meditate.

Many people also find that white noise helps them to get to sleep, concentrate, ease stress, and help with meditation and self hypnosis.

How does white noise work?
The brain is more than capable of listening to several things at once and picking out one to focus on. However when you have thousands of different noises, even the powerful subconscious mind cannot pick them all out. White noise can help distracting noises fade into the other noises so that they are no longer distracting. These sounds just blend into the rest of the white noise sound. Then there are no sounds that stand out and catch your attention.

Some people also believe that white noise is therapeutic because it is a similar sound to what we experience when in the womb before we are born. Many parents note that their babies often settle and fall asleep when driving in the car with the humming engine, or even to the noise of a vacuum cleaner.

Why is it called white noise?
White noise has its name because it is similar to white light. White light is a combination of all the colours in the spectrum mixed together to form white. This is why a rainbow is formed when the sunlight hits the rain as the colours are all split up to display the spectrum. White noise is similar as it is made up of all the sounds combined together.

Other colours
There are also many other coloured sounds. The most notable ones are pink noise and brown noise. Pink noise focusses more on the lower tones, although it does still contain some higher frequencies. Pink noise sounds smoother and less busy than white noise. Pink noise is very useful for helping you to relax whilst still maintaining focus and energy.

Brown noise has a greater emphasis on the lower frequencies than pink noise. This deeper sounding noise is helpful for promoting deep sleep, curing headaches, and masking tinnitus.