White noise. What is white noise and why is it needed? "White noise" for newborns

White noise can be a great help for parents of a newborn baby in some situations.
White noise is a general term for a monotonous collection of sounds all at the same frequency.

Distinguish between natural noise - the sounds of nature (the noise of rain, rivers, wind), as well as mechanical - the sounds of electrical appliances (fan, air conditioner, washing machine).

How much sleep should a child:


How white noise works

When the baby was in the womb, he did not hear distinct sounds, at least not all, but he distinctly heard how the mother's heart was beating, blood was circulating, the digestive system was working. White noise resembles these sounds. White noise is a uniform sound, noise or hum that does not carry specific information. We hear it when we turn on the washing machine, when the channel signal disappears on the TV, in the radio when searching for the right wave, when it rains heavily or water flows from the tap.
The first months of life, while the baby remembers his intrauterine existence, white noise has a calming effect on him. Most adults are annoyed by the monotonous sound, but newborns, on the contrary, like it. According to the observations of American scientists, a baby falls asleep to white noise three times easier and faster. The thing is that white noise has such an interesting property as absorbing or masking extraneous sounds. Quieter sounds become completely inaudible, and louder ones merge into one white noise.

Why do kids like white noise?

Hearing in children appears even in the period of intrauterine development. Staying in the mother's tummy, the baby listens to the sounds of her body: heartbeat, blood circulation. These sounds are almost monotonous.

The baby gets used to these intrauterine sounds; the baby associates them with calmness and safety. After the birth of a child, the monotonous sounds of white noise have a calming effect on the nervous system. The baby remembers being in a safe womb, so the kids love the sounds of white noise.

When and how to use white noise?

White noise is used in several cases: to make the baby fall asleep, so that he stops crying, and also to drown out external sounds that interfere with the baby’s sleep (barking dogs on the street, loud music from neighbors).

You can use white noise almost anywhere and anytime. Nowadays, there are even special smartphone apps that allow you to always have a source of white noise with you, as well as choose from a variety of different sounds that your baby will like.
There are also special devices - white noise generators.

Objects of nature as sources of white noise

The best option for white noise for a baby is the sounds of nature: they are natural, they cannot be too loud, unlike the sound of household appliances.
Among the sounds of nature related to white noise: the sounds of the sea, wind, rain, rivers, the sound of leaves on trees, the singing of some birds.
All these sounds can soothe the baby, both in a natural form and in the form of an audio recording.

Benefits of white noise for newborns

Probably there is no place left on Earth where there are no industrial sounds. We are surrounded by a wide variety of noises throughout the day. Especially in the city, and if there is more than one child in the family and there are pets, then silence is only a dream. A small child is also tired of constant noise and does not fall asleep well. White noise has been proven to relax babies and help them fall asleep.

Among the benefits of white noise is, of course, the beneficial effect it has on the emotional state of the child. The baby calms down, stops crying, falls asleep, and the baby’s sleep will be strong and calm.

You can turn on the sounds of white noise almost always and everywhere if you download them to your phone - it's convenient.



Harm of white noise

Some mothers fear that white noise can cause addiction in children, and they will not be able to fall asleep without exposure to it. Such fears are considered unfounded, since there is no direct evidence of the formation of dependence. If you follow the rules, then there are very few shortcomings: the baby can wake up if you suddenly turn off the sounds of white noise.
The harm of white noise in case of violation of the rules of use may consist in the fact that too high a volume can cause hearing problems in a child.

Another nuance is special toys that reproduce white noise. Doctors warn that they should not be left in the crib near the baby, but located at least a meter from where he sleeps, and you should not leave the device on all night. In addition, if a child has an incorrect sleep and wakefulness pattern, he is malnourished, sleep deprived, then white noise will not be able to create an ideal environment for falling asleep.

How to create white noise

The easiest way is to download the smartphone app. So easy to use, turn on and off. At the present stage, there are special toys that produce such noise. You can turn on a household appliance that is "noisy".

Application of white noise

You can use white noise not only for children, but also for adults to relax. The sounds of water work perfectly - a stream, a waterfall, heavy rain. Imitation of crackling firewood in the fireplace, wind noise. The baby can turn on such sounds not only before going to bed, but also when he is too excited and cannot calm down, he cries loudly when it is difficult to control him. The truth is to choose a sound that will calm the baby is not so simple. You need one that closely resembles the sounds that the child heard in the womb.

Can white noise damage a child's hearing?

There is no evidence that white noise somehow negatively affected the child's hearing. In his mother's stomach, he heard such sounds 24 hours a day and they were quite loud.

Rules for using white noise

In order to avoid undesirable consequences, experts recommend listening to the following tips:
  • Do not turn on white noise all the time. Only when needed. Special devices turn off automatically after 20 minutes.
  • Do not leave a source of white noise in the immediate vicinity of a child. The minimum distance is 1 meter from the crib.
  • The sound volume should not exceed 50 decibels.
Some sources say that the baby in the womb heard sounds that are equal to 60-70 decibels. Nevertheless, 50 is enough. The main thing is that the rest of the sounds all merge into one rumble and do not interfere with falling asleep.
It is important to remember that white noise does not solve all problems. If a child has a sleep disorder, an incorrect regimen, a disease that needs to be treated, white noise alone is not enough.

Why use white noise for newborns? What types of white noise are there and what are their benefits? Maybe this is a great new way to put the baby to bed? Let's figure out what's what.

What is white noise?

In scientific terms, white noise is stationary noise, the spectral components of which are evenly distributed over the entire range of frequencies involved.

And to put it more accessible, it is a uniform monophonic sound without drops. Although pure white noise is not actually found in nature and technology, because such a signal would have infinite power. The concept of white includes any noise in which high, low and medium frequencies have the same loudness and therefore do not differ from each other by ear. As a result, we hear a monotonous sound.

There are other color noises: pink, red, blue, purple, brown and grey.

Types of white noise

White noise is natural and technical. Falling asleep sweetly and with pleasure to the sound of a downpour, many do not even realize that the sounds of a strong uniform rain are a kind of white noise. And it was created by nature itself. Like the sound of a nearby waterfall, for example, and the sound of a stream. And the noise on the TV or the noise of the hair dryer is technically generated white noise. There are even special "white noise machines". By the way, the whisper and lingering “shhhhh”, which mothers intuitively try to calm the child, is also a kind of white noise.

For us, the most famous types of white noise are:

  • the sound of water pouring from the faucet and from the shower head;
  • fan noise, vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, washing machine, air conditioner;
  • the hiss of a free radio frequency or television channel;
  • the sound of the ocean, the rustle of leaves, the wind.

White noise for newborns

Often babies cannot cope with their unformed nervous system and even if you are very tired. At the same time, they are not wet, not hungry and not sick. Parents struggle for hours to no avail to help their child. They rock, try not to move or breathe, close all windows and doors. And then . Because the room turned on, for example, a fan. Why it happens?

Creating a ringing silence for falling asleep is not quite the right approach, because the human ear is not accustomed to it. Complete silence even scares us. After spending 9 months in the mother's womb, the baby got used to the constant noise. The steady beating of the mother's heart, the monotonous flow of blood in the placenta, some muffled voices from outside. White noise is very reminiscent of the crumbs of this "acoustic system", which was for him a guarantor of safety. That is why the baby automatically relaxes and calms down under its influence.

Benefits of white noise for a newborn

In addition to helping newborns fall asleep, white noise improves sleep quality. The usual cycle of deep sleep in babies is only 20-30 minutes, and then comes the phase of superficial sleep, when even a slight cough can pull out of the arms of Morpheus. After that, the child will hardly be able to fall asleep soundly. This phase in infants occurs twice as often as in adults. Exposure to white noise does not interrupt sleep at the moment of transition from one phase to another.

Also, calming down and relaxing from white noise often helps a baby if he refuses to breastfeed due to overexcitation or extreme fatigue. White noise for newborns is also an assistant in relieving stress.

There is a theory that the use of white noise during infant sleep reduces the incidence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). This is a very controversial statement, since a study by foreign scientists using a fan in a child's room was aimed at testing the theory of the effect of carbon dioxide accumulation on the breathing of babies. The fan was supposed to speed it up. And an excessive concentration of carbon dioxide is one of the possible causes SIDS. Nothing is said about white noise in the results of the experiment.

Due to more even sleep due to white noise, children are less prone to somnambulism (sleep walking).

White noise can help parents sleep better too, by the same principle of reducing REM sleep. The child sometimes just tosses and turns, but does not wake up completely, and the mother immediately reacts to any rustle and cannot fall asleep for a long time. White noise will make her sleep better and feel better.

Harm of white noise for a newborn

Scientists have not identified direct harm from white noise. Although it has been proven that the brains of experimental rat pups developed more slowly under the influence of such noises, this fact cannot be applied with certainty to humans. The human brain is still completely different and develops in a slightly different way.

There are some restrictions on the use of white noise:

  • don't leave white noise on all night;
  • do not place the source of white noise closer than one meter from the baby's crib;
  • the volume of the white noise source should be very moderate, but at the same time such that other sounds are absorbed by it. For example, in order for that very mother's "hiss" to work, it is necessary that the volume of the mother's voice exceed the crying of the baby.
  • When using white noise, do not exceed 50 decibels of sound power. Louder noise will be harmful to the psyche and hearing.

Video

Many mothers use such a method of laying as white noise for newborns. It is useful for sleep to listen to the calm sounds of nature, the sound of the surf, the sound of water, the sound of a hairdryer, the murmur of a stream.

Characteristic "snow" on the TV screen, accompanied by white noise in the absence of a signal

In nature and technology, “purely” white noise (that is, white noise having the same spectral power at all frequencies) does not occur (due to the fact that such a signal would have infinite power), however, any noise whose spectral density is the same (or slightly different) in the considered frequency range.

Statistical properties

The term "white noise" is usually applied to a signal that has an autocorrelation function, which is mathematically described by the Dirac delta function over all dimensions of the multidimensional space in which the signal is viewed. Signals with this property can be considered as white noise. This statistical property is fundamental for signals of this type.

The fact that white noise is uncorrelated in time (or in another argument) does not determine its values ​​in the time (or any other argument under consideration) domain. The sets received by the signal can be arbitrary up to the main statistical property (however, the constant component of such a signal must be equal to zero). For example, a sequence of symbols 1 and −1 multiplied by a sequence of delta functions following at the symbol rate will only be white noise if the sequence of symbols is uncorrelated. Signals having a continuous distribution (eg, a normal distribution) may also be white noise.

Discrete white noise is simply a sequence of independent (that is, statistically unrelated) numbers. Using the Visual C++ package pseudo-random number generator, discrete white noise can be generated like this:

x [ i ] = 2 * ((rand () / ((double ) RAND_MAX )) - 0.5 )

In this case, x is an array of discrete white noise (without a zero frequency component) having a uniform distribution from −1 to 1.

It is sometimes erroneously assumed that Gaussian noise (that is, noise with a Gaussian distribution of its values ​​- see normal distribution) is equivalent to white noise. However, these concepts are not equivalent. Gaussian noise refers to the distribution of signal values ​​in a normal distribution, while the term "white" refers to the correlation of the signal at two different points in time (this correlation is independent of the distribution of noise values). White noise can have any distribution - both Gaussian and Poisson, Cauchy, etc. Gaussian white noise as a model is well suited for the mathematical description of many natural processes (see Additive white Gaussian noise).

colored noise

Applications

White noise has many applications in physics and engineering. One of them is in architectural acoustics. In order to hide unwanted noises in the internal spaces of buildings, stationary white noise of low power is generated.

Recently, many pediatricians have recommended the use of white noise sounds to soothe and sleep well in babies; it is assumed that in the uterus the baby constantly heard white noise: the beat of the mother's heart, the work of the stomach, the noise of blood in the vessels. [ ] .

White noise is used to measure the frequency characteristics of various linear dynamic systems, such as amplifiers, electronic filters, discrete control systems, etc. When white noise is applied to the input of such a system, we get a signal at the output, which is the system's response to the applied action. Due to the fact that the complex frequency response of a linear system is the ratio of the Fourier transform of the output signal to the Fourier transform of the input signal, it is mathematically quite simple to obtain this characteristic, and for all frequencies for which the input signal can be considered white noise.

Many random number generators (both software and hardware) use white noise to generate random numbers and random sequences.

In the Linux operating system, the speaker-test console command, which generates white or pink noise, is used to test headphones/speakers.

Mathematical review

Random number vector

Random number vector w (\displaystyle \mathbf (w) ) is a sequence of white noise samples when its average value μ w (\displaystyle \mu _(w)) and autocorrelation matrix R w w (\displaystyle R_(ww)) satisfy the following equalities:

μ w = E ( w ) = 0 (\displaystyle \mu _(w)=\mathbb (E) \(\mathbf (w) \)=0) R ww = E ( ww T ) = σ 2 I (\displaystyle R_(ww)=\mathbb (E) \(\mathbf (w) \mathbf (w) ^(T)\)=\sigma ^(2) \mathbf (I) )

That is, it is a zero-mean vector of random numbers whose autocorrelation matrix is ​​a diagonal matrix with variances along the main diagonal.

White random process (white noise)

Time-continuous random process w (t) (\displaystyle w(t)), where t ∈ R (\displaystyle t\in \mathbb (R) ), is white noise if and only if its mean and autocorrelation function satisfy the following equalities, respectively:

μ w (t) = E ( w (t) ) = 0 (\displaystyle \mu _(w)(t)=\mathbb (E) \(w(t)\)=0) R ww (t 1 , t 2) = E ( w (t 1) w (t 2) ) = σ 2 δ (t 1 − t 2) (\displaystyle R_(ww)(t_(1),t_(2 ))=\mathbb (E) \(w(t_(1))w(t_(2))\)=\sigma ^(2)\delta (t_(1)-t_(2))).

If the value σ 2 (\displaystyle \sigma ^(2)) does not depend on time, then the random process is stationary white noise if it depends on time - non-stationary white noise

Silence today is a valuable commodity. And for residents of megacities, this is an unaffordable luxury. But such a desired ideal silence does not please, but deafens. The absence of any sounds does not allow you to relax in the same way as the rumble of the big road outside the window. That is why the idea arose to replace one noise with another, white. How does it work? Why does it help some to relax, while others irritate? And why does white noise help meditation but harm relationships? Knowing about how the brain works and paying attention to your body will help get rid of one stressor - continuous, all-consuming noise.

What is white noise?

White noise is artificial noise in which sound waves of different frequencies are evenly distributed and sound at the same volume. For example, you can hear it if you turn on the TV without an antenna. The gray-white "blizzard" on the screen will be accompanied by classic white noise.

White noise is one of the most non-traumatic. Here are 3 reasons that make it comfortable for the human ear:

  • All frequencies that a person is able to distinguish, evenly distributed. So that the ear does not irritate anything.
  • Has the property absorb all other sound waves. Therefore, the snoring of a spouse or the conversations of colleagues at work seem not so loud.
  • The overall effect is that, against the background of a general sound cacophony, a monotonous “shhhhhhh” seems pleasant, soothing.

Distinguish white noise of technogenic and natural origin. man-made- these are the classic sounds of a working vacuum cleaner, air conditioner, hair dryer. In order not to constantly drive electrical appliances, there are artificial white noise generators. In nature no such sources exist. The sound of a waterfall, the rustle of leaves, the rustle of rain - these monotonous sounds can only approximately be called "white".

White noise is endowed with a therapeutic effect, it is recommended to turn it on for migraines. It helps a lot of people to concentrate at the same time. And lovers of mysticism use this sound to communicate with the other world. There is no scientific confirmation of such effects. Research is carried out by physicists and mathematicians, but has nothing to do with it.

The impact of white noise on humans.

Sound torture, which was used in ancient China, was considered the most cruel. And being in a cell called the “music box” split the most persistent scouts. It's not about the sound, but about its volume, frequency and discontinuity.

  • The loudness or intensity of sound in densely populated cities sometimes exceeds the roar of production. And often becomes the cause of stress.
  • High-frequency sounds are very poorly perceived by our brain, cause mental and mental disorder.
  • Intermittent, but not rhythmic noises constantly keep the brain in intense anticipation: when will the next note be heard.

Classic white noise perceived as something between annoying sounds and absolute silence. But on different people he acts differently. Calms some people, annoys others. It's not about the noise itself, but about our work internal organs, electrophysiological signals of skeletal muscles, interaction of neurons (transmitters of sound stimulation). When external and internal fluctuations do not coincide too much, the balance is lost and the desired relaxation is replaced by irritation.

Application of white noise in life.

Many people use special noise generators, and pediatricians recommend turning on hissing melodies to help babies sleep peacefully. For better concentration, monotonous sound is advised to listen to students while preparing for exams. To understand this effect, each case should be considered separately.

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White noise for kids.

Surprisingly, babies are better affected by sounds of technogenic origin. Moms on the forums are actively sharing stories about how a child calms down under the buzz of a working hair dryer or vacuum cleaner. The Internet is full of clips of monotonous hissing, and "Baby Sleep Machines" have been on the market for a long time. The calming effect of "noise makers" is explained simply: the child gets used to the monotonous sounds even in the womb, so they calm the baby even after birth.

But pediatricians are not as optimistic as sellers of miracle sleep aids. Parents often try to drown out extraneous sounds with a "noise maker" and put it on high volume. This can affect your baby's hearing. In addition, infancy is a period of formation of auditory images. Constant exposure to monotonous sound can change how the brain works. Therefore, mother's lullaby is recognized much more effective way, and it is better to limit the duration of the noise application to a small period.

White noise for meditation.

TV white noise.

The buzz of big cities is both annoying and addictive. Perhaps that is why many of us turn on the TV as soon as we cross the threshold. They work, communicate, eat with a constant television background. If we ignore the constant “mumbling”, this does not mean that our organs and our brain do not notice it. It has been proven that such stimuli take away some of the mental energy and concentration, add fatigue and absent-mindedness.

Our hearing works even during sleep. Any sound causes pressure on the eardrum, the movement of the auditory nerve, the transmission of impulses to the brain through neural channels. During sleep, with the TV turned on, a person’s hearing aid works continuously, and the brain does not rest. Constant fatigue is bad for the work of the prefrontal cortex of the brain. This, in turn, has a negative effect on

No matter how soothing white noise is, listening to it endlessly is still not worth it.. Modern scientists knowingly compare noise with a drug. After all, sound signals are addictive, they change the brain chemically, structurally and functionally. To relax the brain, doctors advise giving yourself days (or at least hours) of silence - a kind of detox program for noise addicts. To do this, you should find a zone of acoustic comfort for yourself. The simplest thing is not to turn on any unnecessary noise sources in your home. Even whites.

conclusions

  • White noise is everyday noise most comfortable to the human ear.
  • For every argument about its usefulness, there is an equally plausible counterargument.
  • Before you install a “sleep machine” at the crib of a newborn, you should learn more about its characteristics and make sure it is safe for the baby.
  • The ideal music for meditation is one that resonates with your feelings.