I didn’t vote; no choice that quite fit my preferences. “Unpredictable noise,” as described in the voting choices, is simply out of the question for me. It’ll demand my attention. There’s one exception: If it’s late and I’m exhausted, it’s entirely possible that I’ll just crash out in front of the TV no matter what’s on. But that situation is hit or miss for me.
Any of the other possibilities are fine and dandy for me, no matter what.
Silence. The military taught me how to fall asleep quickly and anywhere. I can still do the former, if not the latter. Nowadays, hip pain wakes me up if I’ve been on one side for too long. I can sleep okay with white noise like a fan, but music or other distraction is a non-starter.
I voted for “doesn’t matter,” which is generally the case.
Three years ago, I started working at a job which entailed both a commute into the city, and the requirement to be in the office by 8am; in order to catch a train into Chicago which got me there in time, I had to get up at 5:40am. I naturally stay up late, and to get 8-ish hours of sleep, I had to turn in by around 9:40pm on work nights. I struggled to fall asleep that early, and I experimented with different ambient/white noise sounds on my Alexa speaker; I settled on a “thunderstorm sounds” app, which plays gentle thunder rumbles and rain sounds, and that helped a lot, and when I got laid off from that job after 9 months, I no longer needed the sounds at home.
However, I use that same app, on my phone, now when I’m sleeping in hotels, as I often struggle to fall asleep in a foreign bed.
There are quite a few podcasts that just have a droning voice that could be reading the phone book for all I care.
I’ve also found that I can listen to any YouTube video without ads by opening it up in Duck Duck Go. I especially like the missing persons or history channels.
Absolute silence would be ideal, but in reality there are enough small, quiet sounds that I start listening for them while I’m trying to fall asleep, and thereby keep myself awake. Stuff like dogs barking a block away, tiny little water drips, fire trucks a mile away, and so forth.
So I chose “Predictable Noise”, as something like an air filter, white noise machine, AC unit, etc… puts out enough quiet white-type noise that I can’t hear the little sounds that will keep me awake.
I voted silence, but maybe I should have voted ambient noise. There isn’t usually much of that here in the middle of the night, though; and some forms of it will wake me — rain starting before bed or in chilly weather is fine, for instance; but rain starting in the night when the windows are open will wake me, because I may need to close the windows. When the bird chorus gets going in the morning in the spring, that often wakes me, because that means it’s morning. And so on. But many of the ordinary natural nighttime noises don’t wake me.
I need to have a predictable noise to sleep. Lately I’ve been turning up my air purifier to high before I go to bed specifically for the noise. I think the main reason is that it drowns out the unpredictable sounds, like a random car passing in the middle of the night, or a mockingbird singing outside my window, which tend to wake me up.
A hotel AC unit that just makes a constant hum is great. One with a compressor that I can hear cycling on and off at random intervals is awful. One of the worst nights sleep I ever got in a hotel was at the O’Hare Hilton, when they put me in this oddly laid out room right behind the elevators. The sound of those elevators rumbling up and down at random times kept me awake all night.
And with your wife presumably.
That’s what I use also. When the current one dies I get a replacement.
When traveling I make do with a ‘white noise’ app on my phone.I usually choose brown or purple noise if I have a choice.
I chose predictable/fan.
I’m a troubled sleeper on the best of nights. A cat tail swish wakes me up.
The fan helps because I like cool better than hot at night.
A pediatricians nurse told me once to instantly calm a wakeful baby is to pat and rock/sway at the same time. Two things at once overload and knock em out. It worked to a degree. I always added humming.
I’ve been trying to replicate this in my life. But Ivy says patting my back til I fall asleep is NOT in her job discription.
Alas…
Used to but we’ve moved into the phase of our lives where we have separate bedrooms. Don’t worry, our marriage is fine, we just prefer our own beds now. And I snore like a chainsaw.
Music, not noise.
When I was young I would put my radio on a timer and go to bed listening to it. It had a cassette player, too. Later, I got a more substantial stereo and could put on vinyl records (from my parents’ collection) or CDs, in addition to the previous two options.
My bed mate since ~18 wants no music and the white noise of a fan blowing in her face. I do like the breeze but miss the music.
Our son likes both the fan blowing softly and a CD playing the music du jour.
Noises that “shouldn’t be there” will keep me from sleeping. In particular snoring by my wife or a dripping faucet are bad. I sometimes use a podcast, rain noises, or soft music. Sometimes they work sometimes they don’t. Rain noises are the best. Growing up we had an indoor grill with a large metal exhaust fan for it. Rain hitting that was wonderful to sleep to, but then I fell asleep better as a child as well.
My wife also likes a ceiling fan blowing on her when it’s warm. I don’t unless it’s very very hot.
Podcasts was not an option.
But it cannot be any podcast. It has to be:
I’m a homebrewer, and have listened to more or less 500+ Basic Brewing Radio hosted by James Spencer. Unfortunately, his podcasts have kinda run their course, and I very rarely brew beer anymore.
Wiser than Me, hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus generally is pretty good. Not a huge library.
Acquired by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal kinda works. Challenge as it often is too interesting.
Always looking for new ones that will work long term for me.
Yes, that’s similar to what i meant when I said i can fall asleep to “safe” noises. Rain, crickets, routine traffic, gentle snoring, a quiet radio/podcast), the hotel elevator/ice machine… those are all noses that belong and that didn’t disturb my sleep. A dripping faucet is bad, though.
I go with brown as well.
We live next to a somewhat busy road, so intermittent noises work best for us. We play a thunderstorm loop on our Alexa.
As a bonus, our dog is now completely unfazed by thunderstorms.
I recently discovered there are long-running YouTubes that sound like a crowded restaurant. IOW the steady crowd babble of not quite distinguishable voices and words.
My audiologist uses them as distracting background sounds during hearing tests & hearing aid adjustment sessions.
I sure wouldn’t want that racket in my bedroom; not at any volume, no matter how soft.
But it might work for somebody. Might be especially handy as a compromise solution for a couple where one must have a TV talking them to sleep and the other really hates that.
There are thousands of (mostly AI generated) YouTube videos on various science and history topics intended specifically to help you go to sleep. My wife likes and uses this one.
I require the white noise from a fan or AC unit. So much so that if the power goes out in the middle of the night, it will wake me up and I won’t be able to sleep again until the power comes back on. I can deal with sounds like insects and birds outside as well as low levels of light. I also like soothing music played at a low level.