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The Effect of Noise on Sleep
125 brandonb 144 6/27/2025, 1:03:10 PM empirical.health ↗
Institute of Noise Control Engineering Digital library: https://www.inceusa.org/publications/ince-digital-library/ (papers older than 10 years old are available free)
Federal Interagency Committee on Aviation Noise: https://fican1.wordpress.com/findings/ (focuses on aviation noise)
Acoustical Society of America Lay Language Papers: https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/ (search for "sleep" -- the ASA has a full library of more detailed research but the documents cost money unless you're an ASA member)
World Health Organization guidelines on noise - https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/343936/WHO-EURO-... (doesn't get into specifics on research on sleep, but does refer recommended limits to sleep disturbance)
NIH has done a bunch of research on sleep disturbance from noise, you would need to search through their library
edit (one more): TRB/National Academies https://nap.nationalacademies.org/search/?rpp=20&ft=1&term=n...
A lot of the stuff that posters are asking for have in fact been done, it just takes some digging through the research sites to find them. There's a lot of variation in the data, the hypothesis is that sleep sensitivity varies a lot based on various physical factors (age being a big one).
https://canadianaudiologist.ca/a-new-perspective-on-chronic-...
https://www.icben.org/2017/ICBEN%202017%20Papers/SubjectArea...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-024-00660-3
I think partly the issue is that how we measure noise doesn't match how noise causes injury. Your cochlea acts as a spiral resonant tube, essentially a "physical FFT," concentrating energy at a particular frequency onto a particular location in the spiral. Too much (local!) energy damages the hair cells, causing conductive hearing loss.
But because we calculate A-weighted decibels by summing all frequencies and then checking if we're above the injury threshold (vs checking whether we exceed the injury threshold at any frequency), using A-weighted decibels can't accurately determine damaging noise levels. If all the energy is concentrated at Middle A it will cause more damage than spreading the energy out across the spectrum, even if the A-weighted decibels come out equal.
It's a somewhat subtle, wrong order-of-operations problem. There's also a separate problem that A-weighting is designed to normalize for perception at various frequencies, not hearing damage.
I've tried searching the literature to find out whether this is either 1)wrong, or 2)generally known within the fields of audiology and occupational hygiene, but so far I've come up empty.
--
I recall an HN poster long ago saying how they wore earplugs daily to achieve "super hearing." It occurs to me that all they were doing was actually protecting their ears from damage. :-|
* a sleep tracker. I love AutoSleep - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/autosleep-track-sleep-on-watch...
* Any kind of white noise. I use an air purifier at home, and a little pocket size white noise machine when I travel.
* find and eliminate any noises in your home. Computers, fridges, squeaky doors, etc.
* find and eliminate any lights. Especially stupid power and status LEDs. Bedroom should be pitch black at night. Electrical tape works well for this.
* Blackout curtains
* cheap eye mask
* Magnesium Glycate supplement
* Earplugs- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0015TBGR6
* And finally, a recent addition that I’ve fallen in love with is sleep ear buds: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DT9GBFQ2
Although, I would wait on getting sleep ear buds, Anker just announced a new model with ANC and a similar price.
Contact your state representative and ask them to do something about the building codes. It's a completely voluntary problem. American buildings are noisy because we decided that was okay.
Congratulations on finding an equally terrible and bad for everybody apartment-living analog to the sort of suburbanite Karen opinion that underpins meddling HOAs and busybody municipal codes.
If you want a quieter apartment pony up to live in a nicer one. Don't force the rest of society to shoulder the expense.
... Not from a Jedi. :p
I keep some of these on me at all times in case I end up next to any loud speakers.
The earplugs don't completely cut out environmental noise, but they dampen it enough that I don't find myself being awakened by any bumps in the night.
And snipping down the tail ends of the earplugs with scissors helps reduce pressure if you're a side sleeper.
I have (and recommend) a white noise machine at home, but when I travel, I use the awesome MyNoise app, which lets you EQ the noise precisely so you can target the specific annoyance in your environment.
Apple commonly says I get more hours of sleep than I know I do. Apple counts just being relaxed as sleeping. Whereas I can tune AutoSleep to correctly identify the difference between me sleep and just being super relaxed. Thus I get a much more accurate image of what is working
Also the apple sleep graph is actually terrible. Almost impossible to understand when wake up are occurring.
My spouse snores loudly, and a $15 container of 50 pairs has lasted more than 2 years, and saved our ability to co-sleep (I was only a couple nights away from moving to our guest room). We're also on a street with a very permissive speed limit, and we're under the approach path of the nearby airport, and it's never a problem.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051U7W32 I got these, $15 for 50 pairs; the GP comment is $40 for 200 pairs which is a better value but more investment if you wind up dissatisfied
I second the disposable earplugs recommendations.
Don't know what to make of white-noise, do purring cats count? Or really relaxed snuggling with sexy gals after having fucked each others brains out? Or both?
I *almost* feel like it should be illegal to build them next to the freeway like
Those ones just north of SFO next to the 110: https://maps.app.goo.gl/sAkUMhmnutZ1jFd27
The ones in downtown LA next to the 110: https://maps.app.goo.gl/4mBVLo12hLR4EwU16
The ones north of LAX at Howard Hughes: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Z8bnB7wR5jDBddhg6
I don't actually think I think they should be illegal but dang it, I wish there were more options for new apartments. In LA there are lots of older apartment buildings in quiet residential neighborhoods built 50+ years ago.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/KMLav1zLiQZK6T8L6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/aUH52rBAbaHExjzB6
They are no longer allowed to be built AFAICT.
Is this true or a misleading observation?
I can see some argument about it, increasing traffic in areas that aren't equipped for it if the building is large enough. But it might just be market forces, too: in larger cities, it's often more desirable to be near a major artery. Earplugs (if the noise bothers you) vs a longer commute.
https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/senate-passes-senator-wiener...
Residential land area = land you can build housing on
https://belonging.berkeley.edu/single-family-zoning-californ...
The satellite view shows many units in multiple buildings directly next to this highway with no noise protection: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JA4jMPSSYsDBq5my5
Years ago I lived near a busy four-lane road with what seemed like a reasonable 60km/h speed limit. However, when it rained, the noise from the car tires on the wet road made it difficult to hear music from my radio. It was very unpleasant to leave the balcony doors open, as the constant din starts to work its way into your brain and make it very difficult to focus.
They will be allowed by right near any type of transit stop if SB79 goes through!
Compared to the city it's so quiet and peaceful. My sleep is much better
1) I’d like to see additional measures beyond dB. A 50dB consistent white noise does not bother me (and may even enhance my sleep) but an intermittent off/on sound of the same magnitude has a very different effect
2) what is the accuracy of the consumer metrics compared to medical benchmarks? In other words, how reliable are the sleep measures of consumer devices? Anecdotally, I’ve noticed my watch thinks I’m sleeping sometimes when I watch a movie, and I’ve heard MDs say the metrics aren’t accurate enough to make strong conclusions.
On the accuracy of sleep metrics, when Apple Watch makes an error, it tends to misclassify deep or REM sleep as core (light) sleep, or waking as light sleep. It's relatively rare to misclassify deep or REM sleep as awake, or deep as REM (and vice versa). That's partly why we focus on those specific sleep metrics. You can see a full confusion matrix here: https://www.empirical.health/metrics/deep-sleep-percent#accu...
To the point being made, for most Americans the cost of updating your building envelope and fenestration is relatively high. Yet if we look at the accuracy of the data (compared to the medical device standard), it’s moderate accuracy. So we’re taking a high risk for something that we’re only moderately confident will work. That’s not a good tradeoff. There may be interventions that are lower risk that make for a more balanced approach.
“Move fast and break things” as a general philosophy is a risk-blind approach.
There is no scientific disagreement as to the correlation, it's just "how big" and "what specifically".
Compare the downside of "smaller impact than expected" with the cost of delay and it's a no-brainer
Yes, it’s about both effect size and uncertainty. That’s science. But your original post also brought policy into play. Unless you actually know that uncertainty, effect size, and those costs (including opportunity costs), you’re just making stuff up because “it just makes sense so it must be true.” That’s neither good science, nor good policy.
Advocating for big policy changes (like changing building codes) without understanding those aspects is like jumping into a pool headfirst before knowing the depth.
I’ll respond much differently to my bedroom door opening or a voice speaking than I do a bus outside.
It reminds me of the anecdote where human researchers rang bells near bears (human sounds) and the bears didn’t care, but if they broke a large bundle of branches (bear sounds), the bears went berserk.
I feel like our subconscious is a lot more involved here than we give it credit for.
That doesn't strike me as a feature.
Also a solved problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rwJ5NCf1Vw
Tesco delivery trucks have them here in Ireland; it's pretty good stuff. Still quite loud/noticeable when you're up close, while at the same time not being completely obnoxious to everyone in a kilometre radius.
It's a "solved problem" in the sense that nuclear energy is a solved problem. There's no mandate to actually see widespread roll out of anything that may be a better solution.
There's a construction site near me at present. There is always 1 machine in reverse, at all times. The utility of having a backup beeper or any noise making device on that site is thus zero. It is the single largest source of noise pollution, larger than the roadway
This strikes me as an odd take, maybe from someone who has never worked on a construction site.
Our auditory sense is more than just a binary “present/not present” detection. We can sense distance and direction. Just because there is a backup beeper somewhere on site does not mean there is no value to any other auditory signal.
Think about when you’re in a congested city. There’s probably a lot of ambient car noise, including horns, in the background. That doesn’t mean you’re unable to react to a honking car in your immediate vicinity.
It's already possible, just not profitable.
Japan is a good case study [1]. If nothing else, it’s fun to look at the charts showing noise reductions—not just in aggregate, but for each contributing input (e.g. engine, intake, exhaust, tires, cooling)—for both passenger vehicles and heavy equipment. Unfortunately, in the US, we have a few obstacles to legislation like this, least of which being public apathy as majority of voters who are not exposed to high sound levels daily.
“Japan's primary legislation governing noise regulation is the Environmental Noise Regulation Act, first introduced in 1986 and subsequently amended in 1999. This act sets different noise limits for different times of the day, with the maximum allowable noise level during the day set at 55 decibels and reduced to 45 decibels at night to prevent disturbances to those who are sleeping. Violators of these standards are subject to penalties.”
[1] https://www.lios-group.com/news/noise-regulations-in-japan-o...
Does anyone know?
I would imagine that a noise that would randomly "pop-up" would be worse. But would be curious if that's not the case.
Something like the variability of noise (eg, maybe figure out the 25th percentile dbs across the night, and then count the spikes above that? or maybe count the number of times the slope goes above a certain value indicating sharp rises in volume that would disturb someone?)
I also would love to simply see the data based on the average of "N loudest moment(s)" during the sleep. eg: treat the dbs score for that night as the average of the N loudest moments over the night, and plot a series of graphs that show various values of N. (or make it 3d, but i've found many folks are not capable of reading those kinds of graphs)
In terms of downsides, only once in the past three years did I get some earwax clogged in some part of my ear which was easy to remove with some special spray (went to urgent care). Also, I have a very hard time sleeping without them anymore so I always make sure to have a pair at hand. Also, you may have to experiment with various brands and types as some brands are really uncomfortable and hurt my ear.
Unfortunately they changed a bit the past few years to be slightly less comfortable but I still find them the best overall
The only reason I tried them is that I found myself in a situation where my standard silicone earplugs were gone and where somebody gave me a box of hundreds of earplugs they didn't manage to sell at a concert. I was bracing myself for a terrible night of ear pain, but was pleasantly surprised of how superior they were to anything I had tried, still using earplugs from the very same box as my night-to-night noise relief
Maybe there is room for a device that recognizes those types of sounds and maybe triggers a watch vibration would be a solution.
It's funny though how during the recent heat dome I could barely sleep after sealing the windows cause of just how dang quiet it was!
Fickle mistress sleep be.
I don't hear it in other districts.
I wish there were an expert or researcher interested in these areas: residential buildings, shops, parks, churches, and schools.
I am imagining some kind of vibration dampening layer under a bed, with an acoustic foam shell around/over the bed.
Drastic measures might be worth trying.
Very odd.
Dog's are thought to be an exception, because part of their domestication involved selection for the offspring that was more alert (watch dogs).
The brain is thought to be hyper sensitive to a certain subset of sounds while sleeping, such as babies crying.
White noise is thought to work by drowning out the sounds we are most sensitive to.
Would your userbase be up for a little experiment: adding white/pink/rainfall/etc noise at various volumes? I bet you'd see an inverted U shaped curve, with sleep quality increasing at relatively low volume levels, and then hitting some maximum and decreasing when it gets too loud! (Agree with other comments about looking at intra-night variance in noise level.)
In addition to sleep needs, the world has gotten noisier now that people are habitually using speakerphones in public in the most obnoxious ways.
https://bioears.co.uk/products/bioears-ear-plugs
Very effective, but eventually they made me just focus on my tinnitus.
I now live in a quieter place and use some white noise from a speaker - ocean sounds.
https://www.elacin.com/your-perfect-fit/leisure/relax-sleep/
Currently I use Ozlo Sleepbuds which are not quite as comfortable and a little finicky to operate, but I like the masking noise.
https://westone.com/defendear-sleep
Gets you some pretty good quiet for sleep. It's not active noise cancelling, but they work pretty well.
Anecdotally if you wear a pair of westone solids, and then a pair of earmuffs on top of that, you are basically just hearing through your bones, which can't be avoided (with passive or active).
I find the build quality of new buildings (again, even uber luxury apartment condos) in the U.S. absolutely crap compared to Europe (I'm thinking especially of France and Germany).
Over here on HN you have a strong contingent of people who push pro-density, pro-city, and anti-car. But some people (like myself) who suffer from a sensitive sleep are deeply affected and consider moving to the woods away from people just for this problem. I find the 'SLAM' sound of doors (in New York there's a spring loading per building code), the stomp stomp of upstairs, and the bass music of adjacent neighbors to be deeply disruptive from a psychological perspective.
A common source matching this description would be having a TV on in the bedroom.
- Blackout curtains
- Earplugs
- White noise maker (just an air purifier but it does the same thing)
- 3mg Melatonin
https://amp.sacbee.com/news/california/article240396741.html
EDIT/TLDR: highly effective
"Stanford University sleep medicine professor who says in a court-filed declaration that Lipsey “is exposed to unrelenting noise that is out of his control that can further (fuel) his insomnia and potentially worsens his health.”
The effects for me (living in Brussels city centre, so quite noisy - police, ambulance, sometimes loud tourists past midnight, and a bit of construction at 6am nearby to keep it real :-) ) were very pronounced:
From needing 9 hours and feeling groggy in the mornings anyway, to easily going on 7-8, feeling very refreshed and alert each day.
A cool side effect was that this superpower works also while traveling - so, I no longer care how noisy the airco is in the hotel room, being next to the lift, or having the window above the lively bar.
The only downside with those earplugs that they are good maybe for 3-4 nights and then are too squished to be useful; but the upsides more than make it up for me.
However, what destroys my sleep is the light from early morning, streetlights, and the neighbor's porch light. Unfortunately, our bedroom faces southeast and features French doors that open onto an east-facing three-season porch, allowing sunlight to stream in. Yeah, I've got curtains everywhere, and I have room-darkening curtains on order. If those don't work, the next step is putting solar panels over my bedroom windows. I figure if I'm going to keep light out, I might as well put it to work some other way.
As an experiment, I'm using my car camping mattress in my office, which is the quietest room in the house, and I'm blocking the light from the windows with curtains and cardboard. So far, it's the best sleep I've had in years. There's a bit of domestic disharmony now, but hopefully my partner and I can work out a compromise on light-blocking curtains and keeping them fucking shut.
https://www.elacin.com/your-perfect-fit/leisure/relax-sleep/
1. They don't fall out, because they "hook into" the shape of your ear.
2. They sit much closer to the inner ear, so they feel invisible when side-sleeping.
3. It's a perfect fit every time, so you don't have to worry about noise leakage or discomfort caused by pressure.
If you don't want to spend $200 on a pair of plugs from an audiologist (I'd strongly urge you to reconsider!), the best off-the-shelf alternative for me was silicone plugs. To solve the side-sleeping problem with silicone plugs, you can tear them in half or use children's versions depending on your ear canal size.
If enjoy and pay to see live music, you should spring for a set of "musician's earplugs". They're molded just like safety/sleeping earplugs, but they use a flat 10-15dB attenuating filter. They make the music quieter without distorting it.
Symphony players wear them because brass/percussion is loud enough to cause hearing damage with hours of exposure. I've sung in mine for Easter morning services where I was wedged between a celebratory trumpet and an organ with all the stops out.
They're not cheap, but they're not very expensive in the world of Ticketmaster fees.
Also similarly for parents? (kids/baby crying)
I've mostly been YOLOing it so far, but worry that once I'm not single (no kids) it won't be acceptable.
For hearing-impaired people, there are alarms based on flashing and vibration which you could look into if it's a concern.
I'm glad we are finally going to transition to EVs.. about time
Also, it's a mostly black area, which means people hanging out and talking right in front of the apartment building, even though there's a public park five minutes of walk away. When I was searching for an apartment to buy, there was one on tenth floor, and I regret not buying that one, because I'd be shielded from all the noise on the street.
I was fully conviced that I'd be able to stomach living in poorer area and wait for gentrification to happen. I can live with trash on the street. I can live with vandalism. I can live with beggars by the supermarket. I can live with theft and other crime. But the noise. The noise is fucking unbearable.
My dream is to wait until the apartment doubles or triples in value, then sell it, and move to rural shithole where nobody lives.
didn't you get the memo that wanting peace and quiet is racist and classist now?
2. I am a full-blown classist and I see no problem with that. I grew up in a small village and everyone who escaped poverty hates poor people.
On the other hand, before that, we (humans) allowed horses to shit (and decompose) in the streets, and long before that, we invited livestock to spend the winter in the same room. So the past wasn't idyllically clean or well organized either.