Brown noise for sleep, yours free to keep.

How to fall asleep to brown noise

• Keep it low. Turn it down until the sounds you're covering blend in. The sleep studies played their noise between 40 and 60 decibels, no louder than a conversation.
• Sleep headphones or a speaker. Sleep headphones, a soft headband or flat earbuds made for side sleepers, keep the rumble with you and leave a quiet room for whoever shares it. A speaker fills the room instead.
• Start it when the lights go out, and give it a few nights. The sound becomes part of the routine, and the routine is what tells your body it's bedtime.
• Leave it on all night when something keeps waking you. Traffic, a snoring partner, footsteps overhead. Brown sits in the same low range as those sounds, which is why people pick it for them. In a pilot study of twelve sleepers, pink noise at 45 decibels softened the broken sleep that recorded traffic noise causes; brown is one slope deeper, right where the traffic is. In Lissa, All Night is sound that lasts the night, with a gentle alarm at the end of it.
• Let it stop once you're asleep when your room is quiet. In a seven-night sleep-lab study of 25 adults, pink noise played at 50 decibels through a quiet night trimmed REM sleep by 18.6 minutes. In a quiet room, play it to drift off to and let it fade.

What brown noise is

Brown noise is steady noise with its energy gathered at the low end. Its power falls 6 decibels with every octave up, so the hiss is gone and what's left is a deep, even rumble, like a heavy waterfall heard from far off. The name is Robert Brown's, the botanist who watched pollen grains jitter under a microscope; the noise wanders the same way. You'll also see it called red noise.

White noise is the flat one, every frequency at equal power, which the ear hears as a bright hiss. Pink turns the high end down a little; brown turns it down a lot. Brown is the pick when the sounds you're covering are low, like traffic, bass through the wall or a rumbling snore, and when white feels too bright to sleep to. The brown noise vs white noise comparison takes the two through a day, and the white noise guide plays white, pink and brown side by side. Green noise sits between them, gathered in the middle of the range, for when brown feels heavy and white feels sharp.

Brown noise for studying and focus

The same rumble works at a desk, for a different reason: it covers the voices. What breaks concentration in a shared room is speech you can make out, and a steady noise floor makes it harder to follow. The office studies run their masking noise at 42 to 45 decibels and stop there, because above it people start raising their voices. Play Brown at the level where the room's talk blurs, on a speaker or in headphones.

The attention trials played white and pink noise rather than brown. A meta-analysis of randomized trials found they gave a small lift to task performance in people with ADHD and a small dip in people without it, so give it one real afternoon. In Lissa, Brown plays under a Pomodoro, with your feeds blocked until the break.

Get Brown free

1. Join the waitlist with your email. No credit card needed.

2. Choose Brown as your free soundscape.
3. Play it in Lissa Web whenever you like.

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Everything in Lissa for a night with Brown

All night, or just until you drift off. Choose All Night and Brown runs straight through to your alarm. Choose Fall Asleep and it settles you down for half an hour, then lets the room go quiet. Fall Asleep & Ease Awake does both, and rises softly before your alarm.

A rumble you can shape. Put Rain on a Window over Brown for a storm outside the glass, or a slow Delta Range beat under it, and set each one's volume by ear.

A gentle way to wake up. A gentle Wake Alarm, and a morning soundscape can take over from there.

A red glow, then the dark. Night Light keeps the bedside red and dims as you sleep.

Headphones all night? Lissa shows how much listening your ears have had this week, so you know when to turn it down.

Before you start.

Is brown noise actually good for sleep?

It's good at one job: covering the sounds that wake you. Across 12 trials and 1,301 people, steady white noise lifted self-rated sleep quality by 3.7 points on a 21-point scale, and the gain was largest in intensive care, where there's the most to cover. Brown does the same job one slope lower, where traffic and snoring live. In a quiet room there's nothing to cover, so play it to fall asleep to.

Which is better, pink or brown noise?

Neither, by the research: where noise colors have been compared head to head, they've come out the same. Pink is lighter, like steady rain; brown is deeper, like a waterfall far off. Play each for a minute and keep the one you'd happily fall asleep to.

What is the best color of noise to sleep to?

The one that covers what wakes you and that you'd happily fall asleep to. Brown suits a low rumble: traffic, bass through the wall, a snorer. White suits sharp, high sounds, and green and pink are the softer middle. The white noise guide has white, pink and brown to compare.

Is it OK to sleep with brown noise every night?

Yes, kept low: quieter than a conversation, just loud enough for the room's sounds to blend in. The REM loss the sleep lab measured came at 50 decibels through a whole quiet night, so stay under that. Lissa shows how much listening your ears have had this week.

Does brown noise help with studying and focus?

In a room with voices, yes: it makes speech harder to follow, and speech you can follow is what breaks concentration. Keep it where the talk blurs and short of loud, 42 to 45 decibels in the office studies. The attention trials, in white and pink, lifted people with ADHD a little and dipped everyone else a little, so try it for an afternoon.

Can I get brown noise free?

Yes. Brown plays at the top of this page, and it's yours to keep free when you choose it as your free soundscape. Lissa is coming soon. Join the waitlist and learn how to get Lissa Premium free at launch.