Why White Noise Doesn't Actually Help You Sleep + What To Listen To Instead

When you're trying to fall asleep, any stray sound can quickly amplify. Noise machines have become popular sleep tools for masking the squeak of a floorboard in the next room or the honk of cars outside. While we often group all of their steady, fan-like tones together as "white noise," sound and music experts explain that there are actually many different "colors" of noise these machines emit—and white noise is probably the worst for sleep. Here's why, and what color sounds you should seek for your slumber instead.

So he notes that while white noise is often discussed as a gold standard for sleep, it's actually the last thing you'd want to turn on to relax at bedtime.

"Brown noise takes that even a step further so it's even more heavily weighted toward the low frequencies. That can sound more like a rumble or a thunderstorm," he notes. Since these sounds more closely correlate to what we'd hear out in nature, McAllister says that it makes sense we'd intuitively find them comforting.

Pink noise, in particular, has been shown to be deeply relaxing in lab studies. When we're asleep, our brains are still processing some of the noises of our surrounding environment—our brainwaves can actually sync up with the frequency of the sounds we're hearing1. Some research has found that the deep, low frequencies of pink noise have been shown to ease our brains2 into slow-wave states where recovery and memory consolidation can occur. This means that beyond masking annoying stimulating sounds, pink noise might actually go a step further to improve our overall sleep quality3 and enhance our memory4 in the process.

Most white noise machines on the market actually play a spectrum of different colors of noise. To achieve deeper sleep, you'll want to choose one that falls more into the pink spectrum of noise and sounds like waves on the beach.