Environmental Noise and Sleep Disturbance

There are many people in this country losing sleep due to external and internal noise in their environment. One of the big misconceptions of people who wake due to noise, is they believe that it is only the loud noise coming from outside such as traffic, railroads, or airplanes that are the reasons for their sleeplessness.

But you could be waking from noise you didn't even consider, that could be coming from inside your home. This is particularly true for people who consider themselves light sleepers. The slightest noise has these people sitting up, wide-awake, from a sound sleep. One thing to understand is, your hearing is always active and your brain is still processing the noise even when asleep. This is why even the slightest noise wakes certain people.

The main effects of this type of sleep interruption are: problems falling asleep, frequent awakenings, and variances in the stages of sleep. Most importantly it will prevent you from getting  a truly deep sleep for a proper period of time that is healthy.

There are five stages of sleep, rapid eye movement or (REM Sleep) is the fifth stage of sleep. Once you have reached this level you have gone through all the stages of sleep, and will have gotten the most restful night you can get. When you are awakened often, you will not reach all the different stages of sleep.

You will feel the affects the next day through symptoms such as increased tiredness, fatigue, even depression. If you let it go on, you can start to suffer long-term effects that could be detrimental to both your psychological and physical health.

One thing to be careful of, when you start losing sleep for any reason, is the use of over the counter drugs or medication prescribed by a doctor. The constant waking due to the noise disturbance will push people to try drugs to help them sleep through the noise.

This is only replacing one problem with another. There is no telling what the long-term effects can be from any of these drugs on an individual never mind the possibility of addiction. Some people will turn to ear protection devices such as earplugs or headphones to block out the noise.

These things can work for some but, can be uncomfortable and not practical for others. One suggestion for over coming the constant waking is to replace one noise with another. By this I mean things like audiotapes that play soothing sounds such as ocean waves, waterfalls, or rain. This allows you to mask the noise that is waking you with a sound that will help you sleep.

The main reason people wake is because of single distinct noise that goes above a certain decibel on the backdrop of a quite night. This event causes the person to wake, but if that noise is masked with a constant sound that they are used to and can sleep to, then the likely hood of you waking is minimized if not eliminated.

Fortunately there have been a lot of studies on how environmental noise affects our lives. Unfortunately there are so many variables to this problem, the experts cannot agree on the solutions. So although there have been plenty of studies, there are no clear-cut answers.

One reason is, some people will get use to whatever noise is waking them, while for others, this is not the case. This is just one variable out of dozens. Because of this, experts can't agree on an essential direction of treatment. One thing is for sure; a deep sleep is essential to good health. So if you are losing sleep for any reason you should be examining the problem and seeking professional help.