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Short Stuff: Colorful Noises · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh Clark,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and this is Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's there.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: She didn't have a sound associated with her because she's
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: already listening to sound and this is short stuff.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're we're doing one on the different color noises,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: you know, white noise, brown noise, pink noise.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: And Jerry literally just said.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Hey, I'm listening to brown noise right now, which I've
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: never heard of anyone just listening to noise unless they
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: were trying to sleep or you know, at a place
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: where they were trying to block out other noise. But
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I think Jerry just said it like helped her relax
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: or something, or concentrate, would I think she said, yeah,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: kind of the same thing I said, but with a
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: different word.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I used to try it too during work. It is
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: supposed to help you focus and at the very at
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: least drown out other noises. But it just didn't take
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: with me, at least at first, at least for working.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Get you do like ambient music, now, don't you?
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Yes? But I get it for sleep for sure, which
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: is what most people use it for. Jerry's an odd duck.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I have been on record before. I'm a
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: brown nose adherent brown no noise.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: I didn't know. Apparently I almost say brown nose.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I think you did say brown nose.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: It can also be called red nose or red noise,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: which I didn't know, but brown noise, as I've demonstrated
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: on the show, if this is white noise, this is
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: brown noise, and this is pink noise. Wo brown noises deeper,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: has lower frequencies, has got more base, minimalizes that higher frequency.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: And I didn't really know this, but apparently you can
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: liken some of these two sounds in nature. And apparently
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: brown noise is more akin to like a river rapid
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: or a heavy rainfall or fun.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, distant thunder, rumbling thunder even yeah. Yeah, So obviously
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: that's very alluring. Everybody likes those sounds, So brown noise
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: makes sense. And because there's also white noise and pink noise,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: you think brown noise is just named after the color brown,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: like for some reason, maybe it evoked the color brown
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: and the person who named it wrong. There was a
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: scientist named Robert Brown from Scotland who in the very
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: early eighteen hundreds was looking at pollen grains through his
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: microscope and saw them basically dancing around, and he said,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: this is not possible because pollen is not alive, and
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: he had no idea what this was, but he published
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: his paper so that future generations could solve it, and
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: apparently no less than Albert Einstein took it on and
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: found this was an excellent demonstration of atomic particles interacting
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and basically moving ultimately these pollen grains along. And the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: reason that it's named after Robert Brown Brown Noise is
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: because he tried to figure out how to quantify these
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: random movements, right.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a part like, I don't know,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: this is way above my scientific pay grade, so I'm
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: not sure how you go about this. But he devised
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: this mathematical formula to predict the movements of the pollen
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: and use that to generate an electronic sound, and that
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: was Brown Noise.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, other people who came used his formula to
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: generate sound. I don't understand why either, but.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but so the sound of brown noise is literally
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: the formula for the sound of pollen moving, which is
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: just kooky to think.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: About it is, but it's pretty cool too. I just
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: think good good factor the show. I think, yeah, I mean,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: it's all maths, so technically you could use math to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: translate into other kinds of math, I'm guessing. But just
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the idea of, yeah, figuring out how random movements can
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: turn into a sound is just I love that stuff.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, me too.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about this offline, Chuck while we take a break.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, we just had a great conversation about
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: brown noise offline, but now we're going to talk about
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: white noise, the higher cousin to brown noise. Obviously, it
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: does have a range. It's not like it's just high frequency,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: but it's not as base heavy. They have the lows
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: in there, they have the mids and the highs. But
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: white noise is used aside from just sleeping a lot
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: of times with like noise canceling headphones and stuff masking
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: other sounds. This one is a kid naturally to like
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: a light rain or a gentle breeze through the trees.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Sounds kind of nice.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: One of the coolest things I learned ever, is that
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: in Kyoto, Japan, there is a the sound of wind
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: blowing through bamboo in this one. Park is a protected
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: heritage site like the sound itself is protected as a
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: world heritage.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I remember talking about that game
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: I played, the Ghost of Tsushima.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: I think that's what it's called.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: It was the sort of feudal Japanese Warrior PS four
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: game that I played. That the sounds in that game,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: it's a gorgeous game, but the sounds of the wind
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: blowing through the poppy fields and through the bamboo forests,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: like you could tell it was a thing that they
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: really wanted to capture and they did so cool.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I think you're confusing that with Cubert.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, dying, Dying, all right? What about pink noise.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Pink noise is a little different. It's kind of like
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the compromise between white noise and brown noise, because the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: white noise includes all frequencies. A lot of people are like,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I don't like those high frequencies, especially when I'm trying
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: to sleep. But I'm not down with just nothing but
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the low base heavy stuff. Give me some mid range
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and maybe accentuate the lower and higher things a little bit,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: but not too much. And if you do that kind
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: of stuff, you have pink noise.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, I just realized I have my
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: app here I might as well figure out what pink
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: noise sounds like because I wasn't exactly sure, So we
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: can just play this if that's right with you.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: So that's pink. Yeah, that's white.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't kiss well.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: I mean that does sound like ocean waves.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: That's brown, okay, But my app has a bunch of
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: other colors, and I'm not sure if this is like, hey,
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: let's just go crazy.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: But there's also purple noise, blue noise?
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Which app are you talking about? Dwell Spring?
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, this is a different one.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: But uh yeah, our our friend actually developed a white
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: noise app, right.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called dwell Spring. The guy who created our website,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Brandon Reid, friend of the show and just friend in general,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and also h one time world record holder Guinness record
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: holder of the four piggyback Man. Yeah, he created just
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: a world class sound generator app. And in addition to
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: all this the different colored noises, he also has things
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: like a box fan, the airplane cabin sound.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: That's the one I use on my app, but I
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: forgot Brandon had his. I'm gonna switch over it just
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: to support.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's really great. I mean like it's a really
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: good app The one that got me was crackling fireplace
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: in a thunderstorm.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: Oh buddy Niche, Yeah, exactly so, but that just put
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: me to sleep thinking about it.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: So check out dwell spring. It's it really is a
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: good app and I think it's everywhere you can get apps.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: I'm sure it is nice work, Brandon. So back to
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: the noises.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Like as far as which one is best for sleep,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: there have been some very middling studies over the years.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: We'll mention a few of them.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: But the problem with these is, you know, in twenty
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: seventeen they were like, hey, let's get eight people in
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: here and watch them sleep, or the one in twenty
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: sixteen they got sixteen people.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: It's just never a lot of folks, you know. I
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: guess you know.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Bed space is probably not the easiest thing to do
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: unless people are doing this at home. But at Oxford
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen, they got those eight people and they
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: said that they fell asleep forty percent faster listening to
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: white noise, but their overall sleep was about the same.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, but still falling asleep, not being able to fall
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: asleep as a part of yea insomnia, not being sent
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: back to sleep as another part of it too, So yeah,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I mean I would I would say that's great. A
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: year before, somebody decided that they wanted to see how
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: how much better you could recall vocabulary words if you
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: slept using pink noise. Yeah, and I guess there was.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: They they found that sixteen young adults who slept with
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: pink noise had slightly improved recollection of vocabulary words. So
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: they were like and pickle, whereas the other the control
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: group couldn't ever remember pickle.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: They're like the green thing that was a cucumber one.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: They're like, man, I should have slept with pink noise.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: There was a study in twenty seventeen from Northwestern of
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: thirteen older adults and they said pink noise provided deeper
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: sleep overall and improved again ability to recall.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Words and again that word with pickle.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: There was a study in Iran. This is probably the
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: most robust of all of them. They looked at sixty
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: elderly coronary patients and they said half of you are
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: going to sleep with white noise. The other half are
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: not going to have white noise, but all of you
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: are in a hospital. And if you've ever tried to
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: sleep in a hospital, it should be illegal the sounds
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: that they have, because your sleep just to t rates
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the longer you're in the hospital. It's awful. And he
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: took care of a brother when he was in the
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: hospital for like three weeks. She would stay there overnight.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: It's tough.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: She would. In addition to just all the beans and
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the beeps and all that stuff. The nurses come in
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and they're just like, hey, how's it going. It's time
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: for your blood pressure, like, and it's three in the morning,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and that happens every like, you know, there's something that
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: wakes up every twenty minutes. And it's just so nuts
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: that hospitals are just so aloof about that when we
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: all know how important sleep is. And then that and
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: then nutrition in hospitals is abysmal as well, I should
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: say American hospitals. Yeah, I just wanted to go off
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: on that because it is something that should be fixed
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: in remedy.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: No, it's it's tough.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: If you've ever had to be at a hospital for
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: a long time, supporting somebody or just you know, being
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: the patient, it is hard to sleep. The beds are
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: not great and they're always throwing on those fluorescent lights
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: right when you're dozing off.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: It'd be like going to get your tires changed at
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: sears and they keep tax all over the floor, you know,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: like they're trying to they're just sabotaging themselves and doing
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: what they're supposed to be doing, which is healing.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point, and we should say the
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: results of the study in the control group, they found
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: the quality of sleep degraded as they obviously spent multiple
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: nights there with all those beeps and you know, let
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: me check your blood blood pressures happening. Once they had
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: the ones who had the white noise, they are quality
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: of sleep remained basically the same throughout their stay, so
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: it did not degrade over time.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not that it's great, Yeah for sure. I mean,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: like just put a white noise generator in every single
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: room or give every patient dwell spring.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Or you know, there there's that app, there's
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: other apps. There are standalone sound machines that you can get.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just a little thing that you put
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: beside your bed or maybe Jerry has beside her desk
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: at work so she can sleep on the job.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: And then as far as like how to use it, Like, that's.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Up to you, depending on what noise does best for you.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Try different ones out the volume, try some different ones out.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I find that I get my very best sort of
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: put me to sleep stuff when I run it through
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: an actual speaker instead of just through my phone speaker,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: because you get some more deep bass resonance. Oh yeah,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: and my napping trick is I will put a pillow
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: over my head and face and stick that phone under
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: there with me, and it creates this sort of echoe,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: not echoe, but like a just sort of a it
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: traps the sound.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: It's like a cavern of sound. And that really gets me.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Out that in three shots of rum.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know, the afternoon rum.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: You got anything else, man, I got nothing else. I
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: think that was very nice of you. Gave some great
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: advice to people who have trouble sleeping, which my heart
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: goes on. I next people like that for sure. Yeah, yeah,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I guess. I mean short stuff is out.
• 13:00
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• 13:02
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