How many people need noise to fall asleep?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

rs4life

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2012
Messages
103
Reaction score
13
Location
Marblehead
How many of you need white noise to fall asleep and stay asleep? Without it the smallest noises wake me up.
 
I grew up in an industrial area in Western PA with heavy equipment and trains running 24-7. I believe that I have become dependent on background noise to sleep. It drives my wife NUTS if she turns the TV off I wake up seconds later.
 
Me, I use a fan. I've tried white noise generators, but I end up easily distracted by the the break in the pattern where the sound effect loops on itself. When I was recovering from my surgery and staying at my sister's house my old droid had a couple halfway decent white noise apps. But oldschool fans work best for me. I run them year round whenever I sleeping or napping.

I've been doing it since I was a kid, my dad was hard of hearing and a shouter at the tv when his teams were loosing, so when I'd go to bed as a kid, the fan would be a perfect layer of constant noise to block out any intermittent noise li9ke tvs or traffic.
 
Revvy said:
Me, I use a fan. I've tried white noise generators, but I end up easily distracted by the the break in the pattern where the sound effect loops on itself. When I was recovering from my surgery and staying at my sister's house my old droid had a couple halfway decent white noise apps. But oldschool fans work best for me. I run them year round whenever I sleeping or napping.

I've been doing it since I was a kid, my dad was hard of hearing and a shouter at the tv when his teams were loosing, so when I'd go to bed as a kid, the fan would be a perfect layer of constant noise to block out any intermittent noise li9ke tvs or traffic.

Same here. I have to have a fan running for me to fall/stay asleep. The ceiling fan in my bedroom works fine for that. I need that little but of noise and probably more than anything I need air constantly circulating. I keep my fan on even in the winter. I can't fall asleep without it.
 
My wife introduced me to sleeping with a fan on, now when I travel I find that my sleep is dramatically improved with white noise in the background. On the iPhone, SleepMachine is a good app to use.
 
Satisfaction said:
My wife introduced me to sleeping with a fan on, now when I travel I find that my sleep is dramatically improved with white noise in the background. On the iPhone, SleepMachine is a good app to use.

Another good one is sleep pillow plus. I use the rain one if i dont have a fan available. Although i wake up thinking its actually raining out.
 
I have one of those Vortex table fans on throughout the night. Been sleeping this way for 15+ years. A few of my girlfriends along the way didn't like the fan because it got them too cold or it was too loud... Simple Solution: Toss a heavy shirt over it. You'll still have some sound without the cold draft.

Other people I know sleep with those extra loud industrial fans. That's too much noise for me. Sounds like you're in a wind tunnel. I don't like listening to the TV, and especially not those white noise machines either... I'd prefer silence to hearing an artificial waterfall or birds chirping in a forest. Actual rain or thunderstorms are great!
 
I usually pop the TV on when I get in bed and half listen to it while I drift off. At some point during the night I will turn it off.
 
I go to bed with netflix playing, after the show or movie, the tv shuts off after being idle, its pretty handy no need to remember to set the sleep timer.
 
I generally don't have any issues falling asleep, I don't mind noise unless its intelligable. The worst is when its talking that is slightly muted, like a television in another room. The natural tendency to listen makes me struggle to try to make out what is being said and that wakes me up more. Then I have to turn on a fan to override, otherwise, quiet is good by me.
 
Foam ear plugs. It makes your own breath sounds much more audible, if that's the right word, and that's the perfect white noise for me. Plus it blocks out other noise.
 
I use a small vortex fan on the bedside table for white noise. I started using it in college and quickly became addicted to it. Introduced my wife to sleeping with a fan and now she can't fall asleep without it. It drowns all the creaks and small noises the cats make at night.
 
I almost need music to fall asleep. Once I'm out I'm fine though, so I usually just put on one album to help put me out.
 
I use to but I grew out of it. When I got out of the Navy, I learned real quick how the concept of quiet is relative. I got used to the constant noise on the ship, so when I got out and moved back home, the night I unpacked the moving van I couldn't sleep. So at 2am I was digging through boxes to find my stereo and speakers so I could sleep. It was just TOO damn quiet. Not sure what I did to get out of the habit, but sometimes I miss hearing my stereo in the middle of the night.
 
I've tried white noise generators, but I end up easily distracted by the the break in the pattern where the sound effect loops on itself.

Our one year old sleeps in our room and I keep a noise app going on my phone, usually waves on a beach. It's a long audio clip so it's usually fine unless I'm almost asleep when it loops back, then I'm wide awake thinking about how easy it would have been to use a nice, gentle crossfade. :mad: I can sleep through almost anything, so I think it's just because it annoys me that there's a flaw that could have been easily fixed. I used to use a fan to put our daughter to sleep, but my wife doesn't like the draft.
 
Fan helps. I used to live in the last apt building before the runway at the San Diego Airport. Nothing compares to the rhythmatic landing of jumbo jets to keep you asleep. Now the slightest noise wakes me. I'm very tired.
 
I need noise any noise loud or almost "white noise", my wife on the other side needs a total silent rooms with no ligth at all. Sometimes when se falls asleep y go to the guest room turn on the tv and I fall asleep in seconds.
 
Our one year old sleeps in our room and I keep a noise app going on my phone, usually waves on a beach. It's a long audio clip so it's usually fine unless I'm almost asleep when it loops back, then I'm wide awake thinking about how easy it would have been to use a nice, gentle crossfade. :mad: I can sleep through almost anything, so I think it's just because it annoys me that there's a flaw that could have been easily fixed. I used to use a fan to put our daughter to sleep, but my wife doesn't like the draft.

Yeah, too many years as a sound/radio engineer for me. Too many years spent listening for just those flaws in a soundscape that need to be edited out. My mind just gloms on to them.
 
My wife likes the fan route. She also seems to be allergic to heat, so I spend my nights under multiple blankets and my mornings shivering. Its not as loud outside our apartment as you might think, so an intermittant siren or the lowering platform of a truck hitting the pavement can still jolt me awake.

One thing the fan doesnt drown out? Foster cat. Twist decided this morning that 4:30am is breakfast time, so he got inches from our ears and began meowing. When that didnt work he switched to airliner-loud purring and flopping down on my head. To keep the right to stay in bed I wound up rolling over on my back and letting him sleep and purr on my chest.
 
I must have something; TV, radio, some noise of some kind is necessary for me to fall asleep unless I am completely exhausted. However, once I am out, the TV turning off doesn't make me wake back up.
 
Yeah, too many years as a sound/radio engineer for me. Too many years spent listening for just those flaws in a soundscape that need to be edited out. My mind just gloms on to them.

That's my problem, too, particularly the countless hours of audio post production - listening to the same tracks over and over and over, trying to find the flaws so the end listener doesn't. You could run a freight train through my living room and I would sleep through it, but play a recording of a freight train going through my living room and I'll be trying to figure out what microphones were used and where they were placed.

Homebrewing has had a similar effect. I can't simply drink most commercial brews anymore without thinking about grain/hop bill, yeast strains, etc, and how I would brew something similar. I guess that's one good thing about some macro brews - there isn't much either offensive or interesting to distract me from casually enjoying a beer.

I generally don't have any issues falling asleep, I don't mind noise unless its intelligable. The worst is when its talking that is slightly muted, like a television in another room. The natural tendency to listen makes me struggle to try to make out what is being said and that wakes me up more. Then I have to turn on a fan to override, otherwise, quiet is good by me.

I can sleep in complete silence or with varying levels of noise. As long as the noise is something I don't care about, I can ignore it. As soon as there's a sound that piques my curiosity, I'm wide awake. That's when I need a louder, neutral noise source to cover it up.
 
I have severe tinitis which can be quite maddening without some extra noise to balance it. Recently I've started using a C-PAP machine which I totally didn't want to do, but now I have become used to. in fact, I hate to say it but it actually makes falling asleep much easier. usually though, I'll wake up in the wee hours, uncomfortable because of it and take it off.
 
Back in college, I had a corner dorm room - windows on the south and east sides. 100-yr old brick building with no A/C, got hot as the blazes of hell in the fall. Conveniently, each window was wide enough to fit TWO of those 20" box fans you can buy at Walmart. So the south two had fans blowing air out, the east two had fans pulling air in. During the hot season, they ran on high all 24/7. It sounded like sleeping below the wing of a B-29. But it only took a night or two to get used to it, and then you'd go right to sleep.

In high school and college, I ran hard enough that if I sat still for 5 minutes, I was asleep - didn't matter if it was in the middle of a gymnasium during a wrestling meet, I could catch some z's. Now, I don't HAVE to have white noise, but a fan won't keep me awake. Conversation in the next room will give me a hell of a time though. (And the payloader driving into the cul-de-sac at 4 AM to clear snow will sure as HELL wake me up)
 
I have severe tinitis which can be quite maddening without some extra noise to balance it. Recently I've started using a C-PAP machine which I totally didn't want to do, but now I have become used to. in fact, I hate to say it but it actually makes falling asleep much easier. usually though, I'll wake up in the wee hours, uncomfortable because of it and take it off.
I have heard of a teenaged competitive shooter that shot too much without hearing protection, and his tinnitus was so bad he couldn't sleep without a RUNNING VACUUM CLEANER in his room.

I had a pretty bad bout of it several years back due to an ignorant uncle while out shooting (didn't have my plugs in yet, and he fired a .44 magnum). Ears rang for 4 months straight. Thank dog they finally quit (but I do have very noticeable hearing damage in my right ear from that). Anyone with a permanent case of tinnitus has my extreme sympathy. Those 4 months were the longest of my life.
 
Foam ear plugs. It makes your own breath sounds much more audible, if that's the right word, and that's the perfect white noise for me. Plus it blocks out other noise.
I keep a pair of the reusable plastic plugs in my suitcase for travelling. On family vacations, myself, my brother-in-law and father all snore like lumberjacks. If any combination of us end up sleeping in the same room, plugs are needed. It does take some getting used to hearing your own breathing (and heartbeat, if you REALLY get them put in) but once you get past that, hellloooo sweet snore-free silence.
 
Back
Top