How White, Pink and Brown Noise May Help Your Brain Refocus
Did you know that the ‘color’ of a noise refers to how energy is distributed across its combination of frequencies? As well as white noise, there’s brown noise and pink noise, each with its own unique mix.
In this post, we’re delving into how these sounds can affect your brain, and looking at the improvements they could make to your everyday life. This includes superior sleep, higher levels of concentration, and reduced stress.
How Do The Colors Differ From One Another?
White Noise
A steady static hum or fan-like sound, white noise equally combines the sounds of a broad spectrum of low, medium, and high frequencies. This ranges from 20 to 20,000 hertz, including all frequencies that are audible to the human ear.
Pink Noise
With pink noise, the lower frequencies are louder, and the higher frequencies are softer than in white noise. The effect? A gentler sound with less fizzing, like rainfall on a roof.
Brown Noise
With reduced higher frequency elements compared to both white and pink noise, brown noise is an even deeper sound, featuring pronounced low frequencies. This results in a noise similar to a rumble of thunder or a waterfall, with some describing it as an airplane-like sound.
How Do Color Noises Impact Your Brain?
Whether we like it or not, we’re constantly surrounded by noises, both subtle and apparent. Over time, our brains learn to ‘tune in’ and ‘tune out’ to various sounds. For example, if you hear a siren or a dog bark, your attention is drawn to the change in noise. As such, sometimes short or long-term sounds can cause disturbances, affecting our ability to concentrate on a task, relax, or even fall asleep.
That’s where color noises come in. They work by assisting the brain in its ability to tune out sounds in your environment that are unhelpful to you. The continuous background frequencies help to effectively mask such noises, creating a steadier atmosphere.
What Are The Potential Health Benefits?
The use of white, pink, and brown noise has been linked to improvements in the following:
Relaxation and stress relief
Sleep (both falling asleep and staying asleep)
Concentration
Memory
Conditions such as ADHD
Tinnitus
In summary, color noises are an interesting avenue to explore from a brain health perspective. If you suffer from a lack of concentration or find that sound disturbances lead to insomnia, it’s certainly worth looking into.
Whether you opt for white, pink, or brown noise is a personal choice. While generally white noise is said to be best for masking sounds, brown noise for promoting concentration, and pink noise for reducing brain waves, everyone’s response is different. So, get experimenting, and find out what works best for you!