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08 June 2009

Gear for Insomniacs Does any here use one of those nature sound machines? [More:]The future Mr. Cupcakes suffers from insomnia, complicated by the fact I have tinnitus and sleep apnea so I sleep with a fan on and a CPAP machine. The fan makes him cold and the sound of my CPAP drives him bonkers, so I am looking for one of those portable machines that makes frog or rain noises (not just white noise). All the reviews I am reading are mixed, so I am trolling for personal experience. Plus, we want something to drown out the sounds of the demon spawn children in our neighborhood who start screaming and slamming doors at 8am.
I tried a nature sound machines. I had an alarm clock with the sounds and a separate "sounds of nature" machine. The problem I found with them is that the sounds cycle which I find very annoying. These days, I just stick with static on my stereo. It is an even, non-punctuated/ing sound that drowns out any noises in the rest of the house or outside.
posted by MonkeyButter 08 June | 06:07
My hubby has a nature sound machine. He likes the waves. I more or less tolerate it. But if I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep I go turn it off. He got it a few years ago at the Sharper Image. I agree with MonkeyButter that the cycling of the sounds is annoying. When we visit my parents, my hub tunes the radio to a spot between stations and listens to the static. This, I really don't like. I really think a loud fan is best. If it makes him cold, that could be a good thing because I think feeling a little chilly and snuggling down under the blankets helps me get to sleep.
posted by Kangaroo 08 June | 08:06
I've had my eye on this white noise maker since I found out we would have a baby in the house. It seems to have great reviews. Since Baby Henry is due Wednesday maybe we better stop looking at it and start buying it.
posted by toastedbeagle 08 June | 08:35
White noise makers, endorsed by the BNP.
posted by stilicho 08 June | 08:40
Oh, bite me.
posted by toastedbeagle 08 June | 09:24
Have you looked around for White Noise internet radio stations or noise generation programs? Or MP3s that you can put on loop? I can't search at work (our proxy seems to hate most of the internets) but I'm sure there's something like that out there.
posted by octothorpe 08 June | 09:36
I got a free sound machine iPod App (ooo, looks like now it costs 99 cents)- it's called "Easy Relax". It has a number of nature-y sounds.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero 08 June | 09:52
Have you considered some Brian Eno/Harold Budd style ambient music to fall asleep to? I have a stack of CDs in the bedroom and listen to at least one of them every night while drifting off.
posted by BoringPostcards 08 June | 10:29
I tend to find that a rhythmic, regular sound will often cause me to focus more on my (pretty freaking loud) tinnitus, though I do use simply noise (mentioned on blue or green at some point) at work, because it doesn't seize my attention the way music does. Looks like it has downloads, though I've never tried them. But my main death-to-anxiety-and-insomnia ritual involves the Rachmaninoff Vespers at a low volume and deep breathing. I can only remember a one or two times when I was still awake enough to hit repeat. I love it so much that I made a Pandora channel based on it, entitled Russians Chanting in a Soothing Manner.
posted by notquitemaryann 08 June | 11:12
I tried the "sound of nature" stuff too, several years back, and they drove me slightly nuts. Since they're just a short segment of sounds on an endless loop, I was able to detect the spot where the loop was edited... so I found I'd become more awake as I started listening (and vaguely tensing) for that moment.

I also found that the nature sounds didn't really have enough "depth" to them to properly drown out more than just low-level annoyances (e.g., regular traffic sounds) -- for me, it ultimately took a proper white noise machine set at just the right pitch/volume to get some proper noise-cancelling effects going on. This is the machine I use.
posted by scody 08 June | 14:14
LT has an alarm clock that has a nature-sounds mode which includes "singing morning birds" "babbling brook", "nighttime forest," and "ocean waves" sounds on it, plus I think a few more, rain maybe. I confess I really love it. They're all nice. I especially like the birds, but they are not good for waking you up. It just makes you enjoy sleeping more.
\
All the sounds sound real enough to lull me.
posted by Miko 08 June | 20:36
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