Ocean waves are a popular choice for relaxing sleep noises, and it's easy to see why. The soothing sound of water rushing against sand and rock can be soothing to many individuals. The wave sound can be very calming by inducing a mental state of relaxation, contentment, and soft focus.
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Many individuals say that the crash of ocean waves, the babbling of brooks, and the pitter-patter of rain on shingles will help them fall asleep and stay in dreamland. Why does flowing "agua" appear to have such a strong and widespread sedative effect?
Part of the solution rests in how our brains interpret noises as threats or non-threats, both while awake and in the dead of night.
Screams and loud alarm clocks, for example, are difficult to ignore. Other sounds, such as wind in the trees and waves lapping at the shore, we tend to ignore. [8+ Hours Ocean Wave Sound Deep Sleep|Sleep Music for 8 Hours: Ocean Wave, Fall Asleep Fast]
"These sluggish, whooshing noises are the sounds of non-threats," said Orfeu Buxton, an associate professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State University. "'Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry,' they seem to be saying."
Louder noises are more difficult to sleep through, as we've all learned. However, the type of sound may be more crucial than its volume to trigger the brain's so-called threat-activated vigilance system and wake us up.
"The sort of noise determines whether or not you will wake up, controlling for a level because our brain processes noise information differently," Buxton explained.
Although the loudness of crashing waves might vary significantly, with quiet intervals followed by crescendos, the cacophony of the waves rises and lowers in intensity smoothly.
A scream or a ringing phone can break the silence and reach maximum volume fairly instantaneously.
"With a scream or a shout, there's no noise," Buxton explained, "and then it goes straight to a high pitch."
"Wake up!"
Buxton's 2012 investigation in a hospital setting confirmed this important acoustic differential between rapid threat and gradual non-threat. Alarms from hospital equipment awoke study participants from shallow sleep 90% of the time, and half of the time from a deep sleep, even at low volumes of roughly 40 decibels — effectively a whisper.
Alarms, ringing phones, and even relatively quiet person talks, which might contain that abrupt, no-noise-to-peak-noise delivery, did not wake participants as frequently as alarms, ringing phones, and even relatively quiet people conversations.
It appears that we humans are biologically hard-wired to react to unexpected noises since they can be quite dangerous.
"We're mammals, but we're primates," Buxton explained. "Primates will call to notify their flock about threats," or "a scream might indicate someone in the tribe being eaten," in the instance of primitive people living in groups in the wild.
In either case, a sudden noise is an excellent cause to put down the log saw and investigate.
Acoustic concealment
Another reason that watery sounds can help us sleep is that they are relaxing. Non-threatening stimuli can drown out sounds that might otherwise set off the brain's threat-activated vigilance system, especially if they are loud.
"Having a masking type of noise can also help muffle other sounds you don't have control over," Buxton explained.
All of this explains why water-themed sleep aids have become so popular over the years, on everything from cassette tapes to compact disks to MP3s to today's mobile device apps.
He stated, "Phones are lousy at maintaining your privacy and quiet." "You might think you've turned off every notification, every beep, and boop for SMS and updates and everything else, but if that phone isn't turned off, there's a good chance you'll have an unintentional interruption."
Some people, according to Buxton, react to gurgling water by needing to use the restroom. If you're not one of those folks, Buxton recommends relaxing to the calming sounds of a peaceful storm.
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