Can’t Fall Asleep? Listening To White Noise Before Bed Might Be The Solution

June 10th, 2025

By Alden Leback

Be honest. Sometimes you struggle to fall asleep at night. Everybody does. What if the solution was as easy as downloading an app and listening to white noise before you go to bed? Well, experts say it might not be so simple. Here’s where you can find out what they say, and whether or not it actually works.

A growing concern of physical and mental health over the past years has been sleep health. Many people today find themselves having a harder and harder time falling asleep. This could be due to a variety of factors, such as day-to-day stress, screen time, caffeine consumption, or a number of other issues. But according to the CDC, up to a third of American adults report not getting enough sleep each night. Getting seven to nine hours of sleep every night is vital for your body to be able to function properly. Without it, obviously you’ll feel tired, but many other potentially hazardous long-term effects can come from a lack of sleep.

*Recommended hours of sleep per night for individuals of certain ages.*

So what’s the solution? Well, more and more people are turning to audio to help. Some people listen to music or podcasts. Classical music is often referenced as something that can put even the most alert to sleep. Some listen to natural sounds like falling rain or soft forest ambience. Those people might feel especially at home in nature, and can picture nothing more tranquil than a night under the stars, and try to replicate that in their normal life. Others still turn to generated white noise and its varieties. There are over a hundred colored noise applications on the app store proudly stating their purported sleep benefits. Each one could work differently for different people. First, we’ll delve into the way that these various sleep aids work. Next, we’ll see what researchers have to say about these techniques. Finally, we’ll try it ourselves by downloading one of these white noise apps and using it for a week.

*A visual representation of a white noise algorithm.*

It’s All A Theory

First of all, how does listening to music, nature or white noise help you fall asleep? Well, it’s not that simple. There are several different competing theories as to how they might help. First, there’s the idea that certain sounds can actually trick your brain into thinking that it’s tired, therefore helping you fall asleep. For example, maybe you’ve heard the sound of rain falling outside your window and felt a little bit more cozy or relaxed because of it. This theory suggests that the sound of rain and other similar ones could actually be promoting sleep in your brain. There’s limited evidence that the sound of falling rain could actually be as effective as a lullaby for helping infants sleep. It’s been shown to potentially lower heart rate and respiratory rate in infants (Chung, Alicia, et al). However, it may not be the only process at play.

The next theory is that white noise, or other audio, simply acts to mask any other sounds you might hear in your environment that could be preventing you from falling asleep. This could include things like animals, construction, or a whole host of other things that make noise. By listening to white noise or another form of audio, you’re making it so that your brain can’t hear any other potential sources of noise as easily, which can allow you to relax easier and therefore fall asleep faster. A study in 2018 actually showed that the presence of white noise significantly improved the sleep quality of residents of New York City, which is a notoriously loud city for its residents (Ebben, M. R., et al). However, masking sounds while you sleep could also potentially have harmful effects, like covering up the sound of a crying baby.

The third and final theory is that white noise or other audio used to help fall asleep could actually act as a stimulus cue for the brain. Much like how a pre-sleep routine signals to your brain that you’re preparing for bed, white noise can act as one of those cues. Rather than actually having any effects that physically make your brain tired, the presence of noise could signal to your brain to start producing melatonin, a hormone that naturally makes you more tired (Capezuti, Elizabeth et al). This is actually an important part of falling asleep for many people, made all the more obvious if you’ve ever spent a night out and try to fall asleep immediately after coming home. For a lot of people it’s really difficult to do so without following their usual routine. White noise, music, or sounds of nature, while possibly an effective option to insert into a pre-sleep routine, may be no more effective than just reading a book or something similar.

The Colors of the Noisy Rainbow

Well hold on, you might be thinking to yourself, why white noise instead of brown noise? Or pink? Why classical music instead of rock, metal or pop? And why the sounds of rain instead of anything else? Some of these might seem obvious to you, but it’s worth looking into. All of the different ‘colors’ of noise refer to different ranges of frequencies that are accentuated or diminished in their generation. White noise is the most basic, and has equal amplitude across its entire spectrum. If you think about TV static, you often hear a high pitch whine in addition to lower, whooshing sounds. Pink noise gets rid of that by lessening the higher frequencies, making it sound more gentle, more akin to the sound of waves crashing. Brown noise is a further reduction of high and mid frequencies, leading to just a low-pitched rumble. Even further, green noise has a slight boost around 500 Hz that creates a sound similar to rushing water, whereas blue noise boosts higher frequencies, sounding like a boiling kettle. Many suggest that brown and pink noise, with their reduced high frequencies, make falling asleep easier.

What about music? Well, many people think that classical music is the most soothing, and the best for helping themselves fall asleep, followed by other genres like jazz or folk. Why is that? One reason might be that classical music, and often jazz and folk music, use primarily acoustic instruments. This means that no instruments are being amplified, like rock, or there are no electronic or digital instruments that can artificially increase volume or create loud impacts, as there might be in pop and hip-hop. Modern popular music styles tend to be produced in a way where there are very strong accents every other beat or so, in such a way that you can feel the pulse of the music and dance along. Classical music, and to a lesser extent jazz, almost entirely lack such strong and impactful instruments. Classical can certainly have its loud moments, but the nature of the majority of the instruments in an orchestra mean that the music tends to feel very warm, languid and sonorous, not as punchy as a modern pop mix. It’s even more true for certain styles of classical music, like solo piano, where a strong attack to the sound is almost entirely impossible. And this is probably why many people prefer it to, for example, metal music, which is almost entirely based on fast, punchy rhythms and loud, aggressive playing.

So how well does it actually work? Well, as alluded to above, it depends on the individual, their habits, their environment, and their unique biology. There is no definitive research to suggest that white noise or similar sounds before bed is a magical cure-all for falling asleep. For example, a study conducted in 2019 at a South Korean medical school found no meaningful results in determining if white noise helped students gain more sleep every night, or lower academic-related stress (Ha, Yeongjin, et al). On the other hand, a 2022 study found that using white noise helped schizophrenia patients with their quality of sleep, and lowered their signs of anxiety and depression (Zhu, Lingli, and Lifeng Zheng). So the answer is really that it depends. For some people in some environments, sleep aids work really well. For others, they might not work at all. This just shows that the topic in general needs a bit more research to provide any conclusive results.

Test Drive

With all of that said, let’s test it ourselves. There are a plethora of ways to listen to generate noise, whether it be via an app on the app store, a YouTube video, or a dedicated machine that you can buy. But in essence they all function more or less the same. What matters more is the device you decide to use to actually play the audio. Your phone speakers won’t do a very good job of replicating brown noise or ocean waves because they lack the bass frequency production that a good speaker or sound system would. If you had access to a full sound system in your bedroom I bet the more immersive quality could potentially help fall asleep, but for this test a sole Bluetooth speaker was used. In terms of noise source, the app Sleep Sounds: White Noise had a variety of various natural sounds that you could tweak and program, as well as a white noise generator. So it seemed like a good choice for this test.

After using the app for a week, the first thing that immediately stood out was that the noise was very effective at masking any outside environmental noises. However, living in a pretty quiet community meant that this wasn’t as effective as it might have been in a large city like New York. The pink and brown noise settings did a slightly worse job at this than just pure white noise, due to their reduced high end which could mask certain higher frequency outside sounds, but they’re a more pleasing sound to listen to, so it’s a tradeoff that depends on your specific needs. The various natural sounds that came with the app actually turned out to be more comforting to listen to, because they sounded more, well, natural. Whereas pure white noise feels very mechanical and definitely unnatural, the rainfall sounds in the app felt very soothing and somewhat close to the real thing. It had the same masking benefits, but you didn’t notice it as much.

As for actual results, well, the noises didn’t make that much of a difference. Which supports most of the actual scientific research. The white noise provided no noticeable help in falling asleep, and if anything, actually caused some distractions while trying to sleep. Especially with the white noise, the higher frequencies are just unpleasant to listen to after a while, it sounds like constant TV static, which at least for me does not provide any soothing relief. The pink and brown noise were less obtrusive, but there’s no reason to think they actually provided any benefit. The rain and other natural noises weren’t distracting, but they still didn’t help. I didn’t try listening to any music before sleep, but this is a thing I’ve done in the past so I didn’t want to introduce any personal biases into this test. So in conclusion, I think it’s fair to say that none of these audio-based sleep aids made any difference in helping me fall asleep. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t for you.

If you’re the kind of person who lives in a high-noise environment, these methods could work for you. If it’s been proven to help somewhat in New York City, chances are you don’t live in a place louder than that. Or maybe you’re someone who actually needs a little bit of noise to break up the deafening silence of a room to fall asleep. In that case, one of these could help you too. But in the majority of cases, if one of these audio-based sleep aids isn’t already a part of your bedtime routine, then it probably isn’t going to make much of a difference until it is a part of your routine. And if that happens, then you might not be able to sleep without it for a while. In general, I think that more research is needed surrounding these techniques for falling asleep, because they have been proven to help in very specific circumstances, but a more generalized approach may be hiding just out of sight. Every one of us who tries one of these approaches could help further the research behind them, and perhaps find a solution that works for everyone.

Works Cited

Capezuti, Elizabeth et al. “Systematic review: auditory stimulation and sleep.” Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine vol. 18,6 (2022): 1697-1709. doi:10.5664/jcsm.9860

Chung, Alicia, et al. “Out Like a Light: Feasibility and Acceptability Study of an Audio-Based Sleep Aide for Improving Parent-Child Sleep Health.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 19, no. 15, 2022, pp. 9416-, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159416.

Ebben, M. R., et al. “0379 The Effect of White Noise on Individuals Complaining of Poor Quality Sleep in a High Noise Environment in New York City.” Sleep (New York, N.Y.), vol. 41, no. suppl_1, 2018, pp. A145–A145, https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsy061.378.

Ha, Yeongjin, et al. “Effects of White Noise on Nursing Students’ Stress and Sleep Quality during Clinical Practice.” Nursing and Healthcare Science, vol. 22, no. 1, 2023, pp. 31–37, https://doi.org/10.12972/nhs.20230004.

Riedy, Samantha M., et al. “Noise as a Sleep Aid: A Systematic Review.” Sleep Medicine Reviews, vol. 55, 2021, pp. 101385–101385, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2020.101385.

Yoon, Heenam, and Hyun Jae Baek. “External Auditory Stimulation as a Non-Pharmacological Sleep Aid.” Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), vol. 22, no. 3, 2022, pp. 1264-, https://doi.org/10.3390/s22031264.
Zhu, Lingli, and Lifeng Zheng. “Influence of White Sound on Sleep Quality, Anxiety, and Depression in Patients with Schizophrenia.” Noise & Health, 3rd ed., vol. 26, no. 121, 2024, pp. 97–101, https://doi.org/10.4103/nah.nah_116_23.