How and why is white noise so comforting to humans, including adults? Why is it used for focusing the mind?
In: Biology
White noise has two main benefits that I’m aware of.
1) Our brains are always subconsciously scanning the sounds around us, this would have helped our ancestors avoid hidden dangers. White noise is simply so ‘complicated’ that our brains can’t focus on the sound signals and turn off that scanning system, freeing up brain power for focusing on other things.
2) It mimics the body noises we were exposed to as fetuses. White noise calms our nerves and alert level in similar mechanisms as hugging and snuggling. It tells the mind we’re safe and calm and all is well and the mind believes it.
Your brain is constantly working to remove unimportant input from your senses (filtering): touch (feeling the clothes you are wearing), sight (notice your nose is turned invisible), hearing (your breathing, wind, traffic driving by your house), etc.
When you are around white noise, the filtering blocks out more sound because there’s a consistent, louder sound nearby, and now your brain has an easy job, just sorta block most sound I’m hearing. Now you can relax more because you’ve got less stimulation bothering you.
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