How does white noise mask sounds?

In order to better understand how white noise masks sound interruptions, let’s investigate one of the most annoying sounds that can wake you up–car alarms. Yup, that neighbor’s car with the siren, horn, and 1960’s robotic voice programmed to wake you up.

Note: The charts we will be using in this article are called sound spectrum analysis graphs, which is similar to the display of a stereo equalizer. The far left of the graph represents lower bass frequencies and the far right represents higher treble frequencies.

So let’s say your bedroom is quiet and you fall asleep. It’s probably no surprise that a room full of silence will show up as an almost empty graph. If your sound profile was completely empty you might want to look outside your window and see if your home is floating through the vacuum of space–and if so you might have bigger concerns than sleep.

Lack of any noise interruptions equals a great night’s sleep. But just after you enter deep sleep, something outside sets off your neighbor’s pesky car alarm. Now your room fills with a very distinct pattern:

Your brain has been scanning the room all night listening for a reason to wake you up, and that car alarm will do it! Now you’ll toss and turn until you hopefully get back to sleep. In the morning you might not remember waking up, but one thing is for sure, you will feel tired because you didn’t get a good night’s sleep.

Now let’s say you fell asleep while listening to white noise. Your bedroom will be filled with all the possible frequencies that your ear can recognize. White noise filling your room looks like this:

The graph of white noise almost looks like a comfy bed–just add pillow and blanket. OK, let’s get back to the evil neighbor and his car alarm. Now when it goes off this time those annoying frequencies will be mixed in with the white noise sound. The end result looks like this:

Notice that most of that car alarm’s distinct pattern is absorbed by our blanket of pure white noise. Playing white noise audio throughout the night will allow you to stay in deep sleep longer which means you’ll wake up feeling refreshed. And if not, it’s always the neighbors fault.

We hope this simple example helps explain the science behind how white noise masks noise interruptions to give you a better night’s sleep. You can try our free white noise generator above or download our free White Noise app to your mobile or desktop device.

What are the different sound colors?

White noise spectrum analysis

Gray noise spectrum analysis

Brown noise spectrum analysis

Pink noise spectrum analysis

Blue noise spectrum analysis