White noise as a sleep aid and more

I have recently solved a dilemma at work with the aid of white noise, and have started to explore other applications, including its most common use, as a sleep aid.

My problem at work was other peoples "music." If I've never read the lyrics to a song my mind will make up words that sound like what I hear. I hear song lyrics that are silly, mostly nonsensical, and occasionally offensive. Combine that with my ever-present tinnitus dog whistle, and it becomes an unbearable distraction.

My solution was to play ten hour long recorded white noise over my computer speakers. (They're old JBL speakers, but they are awesome and put the younger guys wireless Bluetooth speakers to shame!) First it was just the hiss of white noise. This worked well, and I found that I could focus on my work, but it was rather boring. The next day I played the sound of a B17 squadron in flight. Not the familiar C130 that I had spent so much time on, but pleasant. I occasionally wanted to yell "Yossarian!"

Since then I have found very nice 8-10 hour recordings of rain, camp fires, diesel engine idling, babbling brooks, and surf. As sleep aids I'd love to find long recordings of things that had rocked me to sleep. Purring cats, idling rotary race engines (Strapped in and cozy in my fire suit and helmet, waiting in the staging lanes at The Maxton Mile.), Coleman lanterns and lamps, especially the roar of a Milspec lantern, or the low hiss of a Coleman CQ table lamp in a quiet room. I could sleep well with the recorded sound of distant machine gun battles and artillery. Been doing it with real sounds for 30 years.

Since I've never had a problem falling asleep, I use the recordings more for focus and to distract me from my tinnitus. Has anybody else found white noise beneficial? How? Any good recordings to share?

Here's the sleep bomber, B17. sleep bomber - Yahoo Video Search Results

 

Awesome thread. Never really thought about it, but in the service and on ships for 17 of 22 years I was constantly bombarded with all kinds of white noise. When the ship lost power and 95%of everything powered down instantly obviously the difference was enough to wake me immediately. I learned to sleep thru all kinds of distractions. I am sure some roused me somewhat from my slumber, but as soon as my mind registered no threat I quickly was back to irritating other folks with my sawmill snoring. Out here in the woods things are pretty dam quiet, and sometimes I do have problems sleeping. I will consider white noise as a possible cure. Thanks for posting

 

The kids and I all sleep with a fan for white noise. I do have trouble falling sleep without a fan. If the power goes off and the fan stops, I immediately wake up.

 

20 years of listening to various aircraft got me used to sleeping with a lot of noise. After I retired for quite some time, I couldn't sleep a wink! The silence was deafning, so I did much the same and found a little back ground notce of some sort allowed me to sleep! Funny how that all works!

 

I also sleep with a fan.

 

Have you tried the tinnitus skull thump?
I first saw it on YouTube.
A lot of people say it works and you don't have to buy anything.

 

Skull Pop does the trick usually, Skull Thumpin was for Tangos, did the same thing much quicker, and usually made ether a good size dent, or a good size lump depending to the level of fullness of said Skull!

 

Rain, rivers, wind all work for me.

The gear aimed at kids is so bad they have to record the music to compensate. Notice how bad it sounds over those JBL's - compressed and in general just lacking. I've owned JBL or JBL based speakers since the 1970's. Currently have some outstanding XPL's (200A's, 140A's and 90A's) but have had L300's and 4430's. I'd have to spend over $20,000 on new speakers to match the performance of my early 1990's XPL's.

 

Don't even get me started on hifi sound! Still have a quad of Martain Logans from 1992 driven by a Infinity Kapa! Total output is 1400W and the Sub is a full K!

 

Martin Logans are GREAT - IMO the best electrostatics out there, and frankly there have been only very tiny advances since then for both electrostats and conventional designs. Only horns and compression drivers have made big advances since then.

My XPL's are domes done right and pure freaking magic when paired with Yamaha B2 amplifiers. I normally vertically bi-amp them and have reverse engineered the electronic crossover voltage drives for them to bring them fully alive (yet another project). These V-FET amps have the linearity of tubes with the stability of transistors. I'm currently giving them 20 year maintenance - all the electrolytic caps and certain semis are being replaced along with very low noise high precision resistors. Can't wait to get them back up and running!

 

As I have tinnitus we also use a fan. When it is really acting up I've found Yellow Brick Cinema(you tube) works great. Also works great when you just want to concentrate. Of course when Babay Doll wants to talk "feelings" I find 120 decibels of Iron Butterfly or Black Oak Arkansas is a moderate help.

 

Doe the wife count as white noise? If so I'm GTG

 

I have a love for certain sounds including nature and machinery ,all kinds of machinery.
One of my unique skills while I was a mechanic was to be able to listen to any live of machinery and discern where and what the trouble was, simply laying my fore arm against the surface .it was better then a stethoscope . My ears ring so much now I doubt I could do it any more.
Though my hearing protection was inadequate, I would sit against 600 HP Ingersol rand air screws, listening for anomalies . sometimes working through the day and night I'd fall asleep next to these little guys .
In later years For the same ski area they replaced those with 1500 HP Centac air compressors which had vibration meters on every thing, so listening was superfluous . but the 600 hp vertical water pumps had nothing, so I listened to those with more attention, and it always paid off . One of them the top bearing on the motor started giving out, and though I could hear it my boss could not , till a day later when it got real serious . That lead to a whole other adventure .
I finally could not take the drone of baby sitting machinery and transferred to the shop working on the snow cats ,using my skills listening to and repairing hydraulic pumps and motors .
Its funny , reciprocating pumps (piston) and engines while running seem to produce anxiety ,I can't wait for them to shut down. but screws and vanes are less stressful and easy to sleep by.
Part of it I think is that In my mind I see the parts working and know the sounds every thing makes. sound always translates into wear ,always .the sharper the sound the more significant the wear .i.e rail road tracks .
The engine on a generator for instance is not relaxing at all .
The sound of a jet engine is easier to rest to, being smooth drone. But radial engines, I know the works and the wear going on, it may as well be a helicopter ,too many tinker toy moving parts.
I am learning to deal with something that was a conflict between dad and my older brother.
My older brother would fall asleep with his radio on and dad objected to it . Actually more the type off music than the noise factor , but the apparent addiction to this sound during the night was a phenomenon dad had no patiences for .
I think I understand it now 50 years later.
The radio and music phenomenon then, is the iPad X phenomenon of today .
Sounds , music or otherwise, what ever they are, are in fact a kind of food, some is poison, some is junk food ,some is a filler with no real food value, and some is healthy needed consumption ..
What one chooses to sleep by , should be carefully thought through.

 

The wife and I sleep with the TV on. Yet through the noise of it anything out of the ordinary will wake me up, and her too usually. Barking dogs, and bang outside, you name it. Years of aircraft travel have made that a sleeping experience as well. If it's absolutely quiet, my brain will stay in overdrive and I can never get to sleep.

 

a Bomber recording white noise.... only an airforce guy would find that relaxing, but it did mae me smile... I would think i was getting bombed! i wake up when the police helicopters fly over my house.

I use a few of these when i need to focus

white noise for studying - YouTube

But my favorite night time recording is the Ocean

 

I don't like the pre-recorded stuff. Maybe I'm weird I'm listening for the pattern and try to find it. I use the ceiling and a box fan for white noise or the track I recorded myself, 6 hours of Lake Superior at the devils wash basin in November, as I know it doesn't repeat while I'm asleep. I recorded a small creek that feeds the Au Sable River for a friend and that was 8ish hours, he's the same as me .. looking for the repeat.

 

wow i thought i was the only one who listened for the pattern, i just assumed i was crazy ;D.... it still puts me to sleep.

 

Check Binaural Beats.
How Our Special Music Works

That being said I can sleep any time, any where. GF hates that I am usually asleep within 30 seconds of head hitting pillow/floor/couch/rock/dirt/etc. Took me a while to develop that skill but well worth it.

 

Oh no, we are still crazy.

 

Favorite is the rain or a gently flowing river (when camping) but the constant at home is the fan....not only for the white noise but air movement