[CedarS]

Noise can stress me out. Sensitivity to noise can also be a sign that I am stressed out.

Hypervigilance for me often includes hyper awareness of sounds.

I've learned from experience that finding some form of control, however little, over my sound environment, is very helpful.

There is a nifty little free audio masking system for Windows PCs that I recently downloaded and very much appreciate. It provides a modified pink noise. Soothing. Might help someone else too.

Enjoy!

Sarah

[(JD)]

thanks sarah! I can't go checking it out right now (a tad stressed) but my T just reminded me to use the headphones to tune out enviornmental noises (and things like the housekeepers dropping everything!) grrrrr PINK noise huh? I know WHITE noise.. duh.me.

[CedarS]

Yeah, apparently pink noise is even more helpful for many of us than white, here is a blurb from the site about it:

*

Pink noise is a sound that sounds a bit like the sea and has all frequencies combined together. AMS creates Modified Pink Noise, pink noise with a spectrum most similar to voice. This is proven to be the most effective sound to prevent hearing background conversations. So just like a background conversation would be less likely to be overheard at the sea, a background conversation is less likely to be overheard when AMS is playing.

The added advantage of pink noise, like the sound of the sea, is that while you notice the sound when it first turns on, after a short while the brain 'turns it off' so you stop noticing it. The masking effect however continues.

*

It is helping me not only with voices but also with the general thumps and slams and creaks and roars of apartment life. Even softened some construction noise.

I found this quote elsewhere also on a technical acoustic site: "Since pink noise has relatively more bass than white noise, it sounds more like the roar of a waterfall than like the higher hissing sound of white noise."

[(JD)]

hmmm try this again..

is the pink noise anything like the roar of a hurricane too, then? grrrr

my tinnitus is high tones, so the white noise works good for that... the delta wave CD works on the brain though (which is more important to me than environmental sounds I might hear!) hehehe TC

[CedarS]

I don't know the answer to that, I don't hear it as a roar but I've also never heard a hurricane so no guarantees here.

I hear it as gentle, if I hadn't been told it was pink instead of white I would not have known the difference most likely.

I guess it is a case of your mileage may vary.