> For someone who suffers from insomnia this seemed worth a shot.
I can relate, having suffered the same for most of my life. One thing that really helped me was a simple white noise machine, typically used to help babies sleep. Good: I sleep great with it. Also, it's not connected to the internet and doesn't require an app. Bad: I basically can't sleep without it. I have to travel with it (camping!). I even purchased a backup in case the primary fails, which has happened.
The other major sleep improvement was putting effort into accepting that life is pretty great; all of my worries that kept me awake at night were overblown. This took actual work, but it paid off.
Anyway, just thought I'd pass that along, hoping it might help someone else that struggles with sleep.
If you’d rather not buy another gizmo for a function your phone has likely gobbled up already…
iOS, iPadOS, and macOS have a pretty great built-in background-noise generator these days. While lots of actual beaches can go dead silent and then have a loud wave crash in, the waves that
It’s available in Settings -> Accessibility -> Audio & Visual -> Background Sounds. You’ll have to download the sounds each once, but after that they stay on your device.
Digging this deeply in Settings isn’t pleasant if you just want some white noise, so you may want to add a control to Control Center like “Background Sounds” (way down in the Hearing Accessibility section) to turn the ocean noise on and off.
I turn this on my iPad when going to bed if I want to take extra steps to ensure that I don’t wake up in the middle of the night.
You can also assign it to the triple click shortcut in Accessibility. You probably can to the double/triple back taps too, though I haven’t tried.
I do use a standalone Lectrofan for sleep as I prefer my noise machine to be across the room and Alexa-controlled (via a smart switch), plus it’s louder and the brown noise is “browner.”
But I keep iOS BG sound mapped to the triple-click shortcut for when noise-cancelling just isn’t enough in loud restaurants etc. It works great with AirPods for reducing my noise sensitivity issues.
I tried it but I don't want my phone near the bed or even in the room. A simple, standalone machine is perfect. Same thing with my 2002 Sony Dream Machine alarm clock.
If you're trying to get better sleep, get your phone as far away as possible!
I can't believe I had to download an app for that because the feature is buried in SETTINGS (!!!!). What an obtuse choice. Thanks for the tip though, I hate that my white noise app has a rotating ad banner.
It's been life-changing when combined with my AirPods Pro. ANC deadens most sound, but acute sounds still get through. Adding background noise on top of it can usually cover the rest. And they have both bright and dark noise, to cover different frequencies of environmental sounds
Be careful with that. Research shows that long term extended white noise listening damages hearing and can reduce your ability to process sounds. Don't get into the habit of using it all the time
For the price of a white noise machine you can buy a 10A squirrel cage blower, some mdf to make a box out of, a contactor, and a smart plug and have a white noise machine that filters your air, turns on and off from your phone, and also makes white noise. It can also act as a table to put your phone on and a charge point.
I had the two problems of poor sleep without white noise and a dog allergy and now I have neither.
box fans are usually 20-24" squares and so are furnace filters. you can get real high MERV filters, it doesn't matter how slowly the air flows if you're mostly using it for noise, the filter stops your fan from constantly just blowing dust around. If you don't wanna do 120VAC you can do 12V engine room fans in 1sqft boxes[1] with carbon cloth as the filter material. It really depends on the timbre or tone you want the noise to have. 12V vent fans are higher pitched, box fans a little lower, "squirrel-cage" blower fans are lower yet - if they're the HVAC type - if they're the carpet drying type it's higher pitched because there's a grille over input and output that perturbs the air.
I got tired of replacing $60 sets of HEPA filters after moving in to a forest. I actually bought K&N 20" furnace filters because they're washable. i wash them every 3 months or if they're very obviously grey approaching black, or, during pine mating season, if they're yellow approaching black. I use mean green or simple green, whichever i have handy, and the hot tap in the shower to just wash them off with soap and water.
I have to replace the ~$20 box fans every 3-5 years. They just wear out, probably by design. They break in the startup, if you can get them spinning it'll keep spinning.
[1] shot with on-board mic but you can see the idea. The metal inside is one of those "hold your kitchen utensils" metal baskets, it keeps the form of the carbon filters inside, and stops stuff from getting sucked through. The airflow is in to the hole in the box, through the filter, out the fan. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zmzs9H4NUCQ?feature=share
Turns out most of my anxiety, insomnia, etc sensations were caused by pinched spinal nerves.
I say sensation because I believe, but cannot prove, that my physical sensation led to my mental state. Most diagnosis assume the reverse; that mental state leads to physical symptoms (restlessness, clinching, pit-in-stomach, whatever). I have not yet read anything or met anyone (care providers) supporting my hunch.
So... Anyone experiencing treatment resistent pinched nerves, eg sciatica pain, may want to consider possible physical causes.
In my case, it was collapsing vertebrae due to osteoporosis resolved with a S1-L5-L4 lumbar fusion. Yes, that surgery and recovery was very difficult. The upside is I now often sleep like a corpse. It's glorious.
is osteo something that isn't detectable with an xray? I ask because if i go to the doctor for back pain et al and they can't find anything wrong, i'd expect the next referral to be to imaging so they can see if it's skeletal.
I have a slight curve in my spine, but not enough to be a clinical diagnosis of scoliosis. So i will just have "back pain" of all sorts my entire life and that's great, super. But if i get a different sort of back pain i'd expect an xray at some point, right?
Sorry, I'm not a doctor. I've had DEXA scans (for bone density), MRIs, and x-rays. For me, the MRIs identified potential nerve impingements (from bone spurs) and the weakened S1-L5-L4.
Getting a helpful diagnosis wasn't straightforward. More like a process of ruling things out and triangulation. Over the course of years.
My advice to all patients: Don't accept "No." Each individual doctor can only know so much. Just know that someone(s) out there has the puzzle peice(s) you need.
Of course, you've tried All The Things. Physical & occupational therapies, deep massage, sauna, magnesium, ruled out kidneys, pilates, general fitness (weights, HIIT), lots of walking...
(As an example: A buddy had a bad hip, terrible back pain. Was doing PT for more than year, no improvement. Was considering a hip replacement. Turns out he had late stage kidney cancer. FFS. Then was repeatedly told he had 6 months max. Until he found that one doctor who knew about a clinical trial for a new immunotherapy. Fortunately, it worked and 3 (?) years later was declared in remission.)
Also, I've gotten relief from unexpected areas.
Swedish Hospital's (Seattle) Pain Clinic has a whole program. Was transformative for me and better over time. I'm not healed. Just able to manage my pain(s). There are similar clinics nationwide.
I've even changed my diet. After much trial & error, I figured out that wheat (gluten), peanuts, and even just (too much) sugar were negatives for me. Cutting those out reduced my pain and improved my brain focus. Probably something about inflamation. I'm sure I have more to discover.
I encourage you to not give up. You're experiencing pain. So there's got to be a cause. It may not be treatable. But at least you'll know and can plan better.
I have two white noise machines, have them in stereo, one on each side of the bed. It's useful to be able to adjust them separately, I've got tinnitus in one ear more than the other so don't need it to be as loud on that side.
As I get older, deafness will likely reduce my need to rely on technology.
This is such a great idea. I got a machine for my side of the bed, but my wife can barely hear it (which is more annoying than hearing it), and if I turn it up it's too loud for me.
I use an air filter for that. I have a Levoit Vital 200S and it allows to set up an automatic filter power schedule so I don't have to think about that when going to bed. Mine switches to the white noise mode at 9:30pm and then back to the silent mode at 8:00am (I usually wake up much earlier than that, but hearing the air filter sound change also tells that it's 8:00am without looking at a clock).
I had insomnia for over a decade and all it took to fix that was just weeks of sleep inducer followed by regular melatoin takes. I assumed it will take some gizmos to do that, but apparently it wasn't. Once you could lock your sleep into the daily pattern---something I could never done by myself for a very long time though, hence sleep inducer---then securing it turns out to be much simpler. Consult your psychiatrist first, of course.
i did some research, not much, before buying a noise generator for my kid. Basically long term exposure to any level of "noise" may be "harmful". I don't recall the mechanics of how, though. I think something like <4 hours per day was considered "acceptable". So if you're already near a laptop fan all day and then you run noise machine at night to sleep...
Believe me, sometimes tinnitus means i don't care if i damage it more, i just need outside to be slightly louder than inside my head.
Surely there is some level of noise for children (and adults) that is both safe and helpful. You're never going to have complete silence in the real world.
I use the Snooz white noise machine and their companion bluetooth app actually comes with a sound level display in dB that helps you make sure you're not setting it too loud in settings like a baby's nursery.
my master bathroom is somewhere ~7dB according to my cellphones, one of which i think i calibrated correctly. The second hand of the clock sounds like a movie revolver hammer cock.
There is a difference between like HVAC and the "noise floor" of a house, and pumping additional noise in. I'm just saying that a "noise machine" may not be a silver bullet. And i even said that me and the wife use it because tinnitus already sucks.
I can relate, having suffered the same for most of my life. One thing that really helped me was a simple white noise machine, typically used to help babies sleep. Good: I sleep great with it. Also, it's not connected to the internet and doesn't require an app. Bad: I basically can't sleep without it. I have to travel with it (camping!). I even purchased a backup in case the primary fails, which has happened.
The other major sleep improvement was putting effort into accepting that life is pretty great; all of my worries that kept me awake at night were overblown. This took actual work, but it paid off.
Anyway, just thought I'd pass that along, hoping it might help someone else that struggles with sleep.
https://www.amazon.com/Yogasleep-Portable-Soothing-Rechargea...