Been away for a minute gathering myself. I thought that I’d successfully done that after our family moved, but I was SO overwhelmed that I had to take a true step back from everything…
That being said, I have found a new source of relief from my anxiety, and it just so happens to fit right into my series “ABC’s of Anxiety Relief” where I left off.
The title may be a little misleading because noise in general can actually contribute to stress and anxiety. By noise I’m actually referring to different ambient sounds that you may be familiar with, the most common being white noise. All 3 of my kids now sleep with a sound machine/app in the background and I’ve found that it’s actually pretty soothing for me too. We love brown noise for sleeping, but pink is pretty great too.
No clue what I’m talking about? All of this is part of sound therapy, but I want to focus on which tones aka noises may be most beneficial for anxiety-prone people. I found this page by Sound of Sleep really helpful, and their infographic below gives a great overview of the noise breakdown.
So how does noise help calm anxiety? I haven’t found many peer-reviewed studies on this but there are a few reasons that I’ve come across from reputable online sources:
- Like white noise, brown and pink noise drown out other environmental sounds that may otherwise be jarring or distracting.
- Sound masking makes noise a perfect way to get better quality sleep, with evidence showing that people experience a deeper sleep and better memory. Quantity and quality of sleep are major factors in anxiety and stress levels.
There are so many types of sound machines across a wide price range, so I won’t use this time to review any, but I did want to point out that downloading an app may be a good place to start if you’re not looking to invest just yet. The White Noise app has a ton of sound options, including brown and pink noise.
What are your noise tips and tricks?
Taking the Tee 