White noise to help sleep.... Anybody else?

Started trying white noise. Doesn't seem to do much.

I have tinnitus and have the radio on quietly at night as it stops me latching on to the tinnitus.

Not to sleep, but definitely to relax. Normally I’ll just listen to Rain or Ocean on Apple listening settings to unwind or if I’m reading.

Yes, I have a river noise playlist on Spotify.
I have a mate who listens to washing machine noise on loop on his headphones while working.

Virgin Radio Chilled has the same effect!! 🤣🤣

Pop it on at bedtime and tell Alexa to turn off in 30 mins - I never hear it go off.

We use the white noise for the dog. It's reduced his overnight barking dramatically when we started.

My missis gets up earlier than me at the weekend. Within about 2 mins of her hairdryer going on I'm fasto again. And the dog. 😁

I tried Brown noise. I did fall asleep, but I did play it at 11pm in the dark at my usual bedtime so it likely is a bit of an ambiguous result.

Room fan for me.

I have to listen to podcasts. I have a sleep mask with thin earphones built in. Drowns out the voices in my head. Can't sleep otherwise. Without that I'd be lying awake replaying every mistake I've ever made in the last 45 years

Headphones and music, even more so if it's raining.

I have to listen to podcasts. I have a sleep mask with thin earphones built in. Drowns out the voices in my head. Can’t sleep otherwise. Without that I’d be lying awake replaying every mistake I’ve ever made in the last 45 years

I'd need death metal at 120dB.

We go to sleep to ocean sounds on the alexa.

I’d be lying awake replaying every mistake I’ve ever made in the last 45 years

huh! Thought it was just me that lay awake at 3am doing this! I found / find headspace really helped with this!

Kind of. I stumbled across two softly spoken Scottish guys doing podcasts about episodes of Jonathan creek.

Works a treat.

I have to listen to podcasts. I have a sleep mask with thin earphones built in. Drowns out the voices in my head. Can’t sleep otherwise. Without that I’d be lying awake replaying every mistake I’ve ever made in the last 45 years

Exactly the same for me. But maybe just 20 years or so! That would be enough time to fix everything.

I've been listening to podcasts for years now with earbuds. I listen to quite light hearted, mildly amusing stuff that doesn't get me too excited. I can get to sleep in under an hour when it used to be 3 or 4 with my brain going 100mph.

Download or stream 'mythos' narrated by Stephen Fry.

It's basically a very very long explanation of Greek mythology.

It's actually quite interesting if you can't sleep, but not interesting enough to keep you awake if you are tired.
I recommend it.

I don't really like it, i'll find patterns in the noises even if they're not really there and get fixated on them. But we used to play rain or storm youtube vids for the kids and it worked great for them.

Room fan for us, the mrs has had it on every night for years. Took it downstairs to clean it the other day, really missed it.

I can get to sleep in under an hour when it used to be 3 or 4 with my brain going 100mph.

Exactly this. With the podcast on I'll fall asleep in 20 mins.

Without it, my brain kicks into top gear and I can't sleep

I occasionally listen to the "Nothing much happens" podcast which is, basically, a female narrator with a very soothing voice who reads the most inane bedtime stories where, surprisingly, nothing really happens so your mind just zone out...

Without it, my brain kicks into top gear and I can’t sleep

Yeah, that's a pretty annoying tune. Makes me think of Jeremy Clarkson in the 80s.

White noise and light can both **** right off. I need quiet and pitch dark!

I also suffer from incessant internal monologue in the we shall hours. Mostly current stuff rather than old issues.

I find Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is good, two softly-spoken guys breaking down particle physics, black holes, quantum mechanics and other brain-melty topics in a way that the average person can understand. You need to pay attention so it's hard for the inner voices to intrude, but often still too complicated to fully grasp so your brain switches of and you go to sleep.

I've heard a few things: white noise, pink noise (white noise at a certain frequency?) and brown noise (presumably not the one that makes you soil yourself, but who knows?!).
Personally for me it's radio/ podcast; quiet enough that I have to kinda focus to hear it, and not particularly interesting enough to make me pay attention.

My partner uses podcasts or radio comedy / drama to sleep. As said, it helps focus away from the internal monologue.

For work I use natural sounds like GeorgeVlad, DestinationsAudio channels on YouTube.

Periodically, I suffer with dry sinuses.
Makes getting to sleep a bit difficult.

The best remedy, I found, is proper Goa psytrance.
It must be down to the sheer sonic complexity, everything kicking off simultaneously.

Works a treat on my 2 year old and 2 month old. Also seems to work on the wife, but she's sleepy most of the time anyway!

Bin aural beats on Sonos. Seems to work for me when I need it to.

I use brown noise, which is not the sound of breaking wind, you'll be relieved to hear.

I find it better at blocking out external noises, like snoring.

White noise saved my wife’s life.

She’s a heavy breather at night and was often very close to being suffocated by my pillow…

We bought a white noise speaker thing from Amazon a few years ago and use it every night. It’s great.

Article in the FT yesterday which mentions rain tracks on Spotify. The artists can rake in a lot of money with short tracks played on loop all night be people. As the total money pot, from subscriptions, is divided equally among all artists by number of plays of that track over total number of plays...

https://www.ft.com/content/d20ee15d-cbdb-46d9-a7c5-264617e96c72

Record executives have also grown frustrated with attempts to game the system via short, repetitive clips of music that make their way on to streaming playlists and generate royalties. In 2021, a Spotify artist named “Sleep Fruits Music” was reported to be generating 10mn streams a day from short recordings of electronic rainfall, outperforming stars such as Lady Gaga.

Ha!

Those short clips are crap though as a pattern definitely appears.

Those short clips are crap though as a pattern definitely appears.

At the other end of the scale... 8 1/2 hours of:

BBC World Service for me when I wake during the night

I use a fan noise app on my iPad when sleeping in hotels - I travel every other week for work.

Podcasts or audio books, usually comedy ones. E.g. Alan Partridge The Oasthouse, or sometimes Italian vocab. Done this for ages, then just before Christmas I stopped needing it for nearly a whole month. Then 2 or 3 nights ago, I started it again. This was almost on a whim, then the next night found myself reaching for the headphones again

Both kids have Yoto players and these can do all sorts, but we just use the Sleep radio.

I overthink, have tinnitus and the wife snores, so sleep's a bit hit 'n' miss at times. She bought me Bose sleep buds last year. The sleep app has a selection of white noise tracks, rain; crackling fire, lapping waves etc. The buds are small enough to side sleep and I'm usually out in a few mins. However, they are massively expensive, the ni-cad (yes, really, ni-cad) batteries are poor and the buds are restricted to the app's white noise playlist, so can't BT to anything else. She'd have been better off buying a similar sized pair of ordinary BT earbuds but hey-ho, these do the job and I haven't murdered her for snoring, so it's all good.

and the buds are restricted to the app’s white noise playlist,

I saw that looking at them - just seems such a stupid limitation.

The Sleeping Forecast works for me.