Khaberni - A recent study revealed that "pink noise" devices used by some to achieve a significant amount of deep sleep might impact body and brain health.
These devices refer to electronic devices that emit sound frequencies covering all human hearing ranges, resembling the sounds of trickling water, falling rain, or rustling of leaves. These sounds are primarily aimed at enhancing sleep quality and general relaxation.
In the study conducted by a team of researchers from the Medical School at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, 25 adults spent seven nights in a dedicated sleep study lab, where researchers exposed them to various external stimuli such as airplane noise or pink noise, or asked them to wear earplugs while measuring their sleep depth and concentration levels after waking.
The results, published by the scientific journal Sleep specializing in sleep research, indicated that exposure to airplane noise leads to a deprivation of 23 minutes of deep sleep each night, the period during which the brain eliminates waste from the physiological processes it performs throughout the day, whereas wearing earplugs prevents the loss of deep sleep periods.
It also became apparent that pink noise deprives the body of 19 minutes of the sleep phase known as "Rapid Eye Movement" (REM) Sleep, which is a vital phase characterized by intense brain activity, featuring dreams associated with emotions and the development of motor skills and general brain growth. This phase is named for the rapid movement of the eyes beneath closed eyelids during sleep.
When volunteers in the experiment were exposed to a combination of airplane noise and pink noise simultaneously, their sleep quality deteriorated even more, with decreases in the periods of deep sleep and Rapid Eye Movement sleep, and they remained awake for longer durations before falling asleep.
The website "Health Day," specializing in medical research, quoted the head of the study team saying that "the research results indicate that listening to pink noise or other wide-ranging hearing sounds could be harmful to health, especially in children whose brains are still developing and who spend a longer period in the Rapid Eye Movement sleep phase compared to adults."
