Why is silence necessary for sleep?
In: Biology
Silence is not necessary for sleep. You may be used to sleeping with silence, so it works best for you. But if someone forced you to start sleeping with a TV on, for example, you would get used to it.
What really matters are *unexpected* sounds. Our brain filters all of our senses and stops paying attention to things that it gets used to. This is why you never see your own nose…until you look at it on purpose. You can *always* see your nose, but your brain ignores it because it would be annoying otherwise. And speaking of noses, we also go nose-blind to smells after a few minutes. I’m sure you have experienced that. You walk into a place and smell something, but later you don’t. The smell didn’t go away, you just stopped noticing it.
Your ears are the same. Noise that you have become used to just fades into the background. People often sleep with a TV or music playing on purpose because the distraction helps them drift off in peace. Some people live near outdoor noises like a busy road or train tracks, and they just get used to it.
Your ears and brain are never really turned off. Unexpected sounds will wake you up because your brain isn’t sure if it’s a sabre tooth tiger creeping into your cave to eat you.
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