During daylight/work hours, I always have something innocuous droning on in the background (music, a podcast, NPR, etc.) to help me focus. These same tools used to the trick at night, too — but when my daughter was born, the ritual of going to sleep, whether it was putting her down for a nap or settling her for the night, became inextricably tied to the sounds of a white noise machine. My daughter is now four, and, as long as she’s tired enough, can easily fall asleep in utter silence (lucky her). I, on the other hand, cannot fall asleep without one.
A quick explainer: White noise is a type of sound that contains every audible frequency played simultaneously and at the same level of intensity. Examples include TV static, fans, hair dryers, and the whooshing sound that babies hear when they’re still in the womb (which is why they find it so calming once they’re out). For those who’ve been out of the womb for a while (myself included), white noise and similar types of sounds (more on that below) are calming because it they help to reduce the contrast between background noises (like the snap of a nail clipper cutting through an otherwise quiet room), and because their continuous, steady nature gives our distractible, potentially stressed out brains something to focus on.
Also note that I’m using the term “white noise machine” because it’s the common term for this type of device. In reality, many of the so-called “white” options may emit sounds that’s actually pink, brown, or even blue, which I’ll touch on a bit more in the descriptions.