I’ve recently started working third shift for the first time in a couple years. Aside from the hours, it hasn’t been bad at all; stress is way down, it’s a much better crew than days, the air is less toxic with office politics, etc.
But the hours, yeah. I’m faced with sleeping during the day, which I’m finding more difficult than in years before. Once I’m actually asleep, I sleep soundly, but actually getting there is posing a problem. Not so much from light coming in from windows, but normal noises bring me right back up again.
I’m hesitant to use earplugs. Any of the Teeming Millions have experience with those white noise generators? Most of the models I see in local stores are sort of pricey. Are they worth it? Good experiences? Bad ones? Brands to avoid? Brands to be preferred? Good places to order from?
I have a Honeywell HEPA air filter in my bedroom that I run at night. It makes a pleasant rushing noise without creating a noticeable draft. Not only does it help me fall asleep, but it also helps my allergies. Two birds with one stone!
I’m not sure how much a white noise machine costs, but you can get a decent HEPA filter for under $100.
My daughter uses a white noise machine she bought from Radio Shack for about thirty dollars. It has the jungle noises, waterfall noises, etc., but she adjusts it to the standard white noise. Sharper Image and the airline magazines offer the same but the Radio Shack machine is less expensive and serves the same purpose.
White noise is made up of a lot of different frequencies of sound which tend to mask other sounds. Maybe you’ve turned on your air conditioner or a fan to block out the sound of a lawnmower, a barking dog, or arguing neighbors. The sounds are really still audible to you, but the white noise from the fan impairs your ability to pick out those sounds. It’s much like being in a crowded room where many people are talking. You’ll hear a lot of murmuring but it will be difficult be able to pick out any particular conversation.
A white noise machine makes different types of multi-frequency (white) noise sounds. Rain on a tin roof, a waterfall, trees rustling in a breeze, ocean waves, even just plain static.
Personally, I find most of the “white noise” sounds just as intrusive as the original offending sound, so I just turn on my air conditioner or a fan.
I just leave the computer on all the time. Otherwise I can hear every footstep of the people in the upstairs apartment. ([grumble] cheap wooden apartment building…)
White noise is supposed to be a blend of all audible frequencies at equal amplitudes.
Pink noise is the same, but with the amplitudes adjusted so that they are perceptually equal (the human auditory system perceives some frequencies as being louder than others).
A white noise machine is similar to, say, the hum of a fish tank or that noise when you fly in an airplane. A steady hum of no-talking/music noise. Something that covers the daily life noises and, IMHO, lets you fall asleep with out the distraction.
Some digital clocks now have the noise features built into them.
My noise thingie has: rainfall, summer nights ( sounds like crickets) heart beat ( creepy), white noise, trickling river ( makes me pee) and something else but I am too lazy to walk ten feet over to my bed and see.
When this thing dies ( fives years running. knock wood.) I am going to be up a creek without a barrel of monkeys.
I sleep with a fan on all the time. summer and winter. It strikes home today because of the ice/snow storm my power went out at way to freakin’ early this AM and I woke up to complete silence. I couldn’t get back to sleep without my fan. So I dragged out my battery powered white noice machine (it sounds like it is the same one as Shirley Ujest’s), but I could hear patterns in the sounds - it was really odd. It didn’t lull me to sleep the way my fan does.
I’ve got a bedside thingy made by Timex that’s a CD player, radio, alarm clock, and white noise machine. It’s great for blocking out my late-night pot-smoking neighbors–I fall asleep to it, then wake up to a CD or the radio. The sound selection is a little more limited than some, but I like two of them so that’s okay. Not sure how much it cost because it was a birthday present.
Sounds: surf, night-time meadow, babbling brook, and “white noise.” Surf and the meadow are nice, the brook makes me wanna pee, and I’ve never tried the plain ol’ white noise because I like the first two better.
Oh, yeah, I can set the white noise to last all night or to turn off after a while.
Mr. S and I used to work third shift, and I am very sensitive to sounds when I’m trying to fall asleep. We have used a fan, heater, air conditioner, or air filter for white noise ever since, even though we’ve been on a day schedule for years.
I did buy a white noise machine for my office once (I can’t stand the sound of a ticking clock), but the white noise was not truly “white.” I bought a new computer last April; its fans are a bit louder than most, and that works for me.
They’re not expensive – I got a battery-operated one at Radio Shack for $25 or so – they also had a plug-in one at KMart for about the same. I used to use it at work when I was sharing an office in a noisy area (as of two weeks ago, I’ve got my own office at the end of the hall and I don’t need it).
Mine has rain, stream, train, night (crickets, etc), and…I think one more. I like it.
To answer the OP. White noise machines do work quite well for masking sounds and allowing one to sleep quite restfully. I’ve had one for more than 10 years. I have a Honeywell office noise blocker. Basically the one you see in doctors or therapist offices.
Mine blocks everything from huge thunderstorms to Mrs.Phlosphr snoring - ok its me snoring but hey I don’t hear it - they are great for sleeping…you’ll feel rested an awake after using it for a week.
I have used this and it does work but you have to be able to tune in ‘perfect’ static which is not all that easy, even when you do sometimes a station will drift enough to cause a disturbance.
An a/c fan works pretty well, a a/c with a compressor running is almost perfect, never used the white noise generator though.
They now own no fewer than six of this exact model - one for each bedroom in the house and even one in the guest house! Summer night is my personal favorite - they listen to the waves.
I have one, and I’ve been using it for about a year. I only use the “white noise” setting - there are six others with everything from the ocean to birds- because it sounds like a fan, which I’ve always found soothing. The thing that bothers me ever-so-slightly is that one of the noises is wind. I’m terrified of strong wind (which made last night hard to sleep with those 32mph gusts overpowering the sound of everything else), so the thought of someone sleeping peacefully to that sound creeps me out.
I provide the link because we had a lot of trouble finding one. None of our local stores carry them anymore. They had them in their “home spa” sections. Now the “hope spa” sections are gone.