Rain Sounds For Sleeping: 11 Intriguing Effects

Rain sounds for sleeping are extremely efficient for making you fall asleep quicker. There is just something nice about the rain pouring outside while you are sitting in your house enjoying it. Furthermore, it is even nicer if you are under layers of blanket or cozy on the couch or just plainly drifting off to sleep.

However, when you have got work to do rain can make it seem harder to concentrate whether you are indoors or outdoors. For some, rain saps their energy and productivity when they are doing the task at hand. Looking at the science behind rain and sleep, the atoms in the air influence your body and mind when it is raining.

We all know that air at a lower pressure and water vapor causes rainfall1. Moreover, these two factors also lower the overall oxygen level in the air making the human brain a little more tired than it is. Rain also causes an increase of negative ions in the atmosphere2 and these negatively charged particles are formed because of lightning and the friction between rain and air.

Additionally, those ions can improve the cardiovascular, nervous, and respiratory systems significantly. Consecutively, people end up feeling more comfortable and relaxed. However, this can be helpful when you are trying to sleep and not when you are trying to focus on work.

The quiet, rhythmic sounds that rain makes can be a good and remarkable lullaby for people trying to sleep. Furthermore, some studies have even shown that this sound can cause the brain to relax unconsciously by pushing it towards a state of sleepiness. Naturally, the same thing may not happen in case it is thundering.

Increased Sleep Hormone

Sleep
Image By darksouls1Pixabay Copyright 2019

Human bodies produce a hormone called melatonin when it is time to sleep. Subsequently, it causes you to become tired and the brain begins to shut down. Melatonin secretion is synchronized with day and night and increases when it is dark and decreases in sunlight. So, the darkness is something that comes along with overcast and rainy days can increase melatonin secretion and cause you to feel much sleepier.

Restricted outdoor activity

Lastly, if there is not much to do when outdoor activities are restricted by rainfall, people will often end up indoors and inactive. A state of sleepiness comes quite easily and quickly when they are in this state.

Outdoors
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Nonetheless, sleep does not come so easily for everyone, even if it is raining outside. Some people needing help with sleep opt for pills or therapy.

Generally, rain has a calming effect because of the regular, non-threatening, and predictable sounds it makes. In addition, this rhythmic rainfall is called ‘pink noise.’ Furthermore, just like white noise, this noise is a type of soothing noise, which can be played in the background to calm most people.

Pluviophile, a lover of rain, finds calmness, joy, and peace of mind on rainy days. For them, rain envelops other noises and permits them to concentrate on the monotone rain sounds for sleeping. Moreover, the sound of rainfall is between 0 to 20 kiloHertz making it a pleasant frequency to relax.

Benefits of rain involve:
  • Improving sleep quality
  • Lowering blood pressure
  • Increasing confidence
  • Reducing anger
  • Easing frustration
  • Lifting mood
  • Improving digestion
  • Overall – therapeutic and meditative
  • Improving concentration
  • Healing and revitalizing
  • Calming senses

The beauty of rain sounds for sleeping is that you do not have to see it to feel its benefits. Just hearing the sounds of rain can potentially improve your sleep, relaxation, concentration, and meditation. Instead of waiting for actual rain, you can use pink noise apps to produce ambient sounds to help you relax.

Such apps are inexpensive and always available as long as you have an electronic device. However, people can fall asleep properly if there is no sudden noise or sound in the middle of the rain sounds for sleeping. If there is sudden heavy rain or violent thunderstorms it can have the opposite effect and make people feel uneasy or anxious.

Nature Sounds

Nature
Image By David MarcuUnsplash Copyright 2016

Some people even prefer nature sounds and the best part is you do not need to go on an exotic tropical vacation physically to relax. Most times, it is better to stay in listening to the best soundtracks of nature or even watching looped videos.

A few of the natural sounds besides rainfall are ocean waves, forest sounds, wind sounds, thunder, fire, and others. You can even listen to these natural sounds with music or other sounds playing along with the noises.

White Noise and Pink Noise

To put it simply, white noise consists of a large spectrum of all frequencies that are audible to the ears of human beings. However, pink noises may sound similar to white noise, but they have less of the higher frequencies. Comparatively, pink noise is deeper than white noise.

There is limited research present on the latter, nonetheless, a National Library of Medicine study found that it increased deep sleep and dramatically improved memory in older adults.3

Sleeping Or Working – Listen To Rain Sounds On Websites, Apps Or YouTube

  • Websites and Apps

Google Play Store
Image By Mika BaumeisterUnsplash Copyright 2020

There are some websites like Rainy Mood and Shut Eye where you can listen to rain sounds as background noise while working or sleeping. Instead of using a browser, you can download it as an app on your mobile phone.

You need not just stick to rain sounds as you can even listen to as many sounds as you want on some websites and apps that have recorded or artificially made sounds like white noise, rain on leaves, fire, fan, frog, cricket, bird, train, apple, waves, piano, wind, keyboard, clock, seagull, guitar, thunderstorm sounds, and more.

  • YouTube

YouTube
Image By Alexander ShatovUnsplash Copyright 2021

YouTube is another popular choice to listen to relaxing sounds for sweet dreams. Furthermore, many channels have either long videos of relaxing sounds already uploaded and ready to listen or they do live shows for relaxing sounds or in some cases both.

Some of the examples for white noise and rain sounds for sleeping on Youtube Channels are Relaxing White Noise, New Bliss, Relaxing Ambience ASMR, and Epidemic Ambience.

Conclusion

In short, rain sounds can be a good thing to listen to while sleeping as it is no secret that it offers comfort. According to a behavioral sleep medicine specialist4, rain is stable, calming, predictable, and non-threatening. So, steady rainfall sounds can help lull the brain into falling asleep and block outside noises. Simultaneously, it frequently induces a more meditative state, which brings on relaxation.

Rain sounds for sleeping are considered similar to the hum of white noises, but they are closer to pink noise that is becoming more and more popular nowadays. In other words, you can get your REM cycle back on track by trading the ping of push notifications for the sweet pitter-patter of raindrops.

Sweet Dreams!
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  1. Zhou, Tian‐Jun, and Ru‐Cong Yu. “Atmospheric water vapor transport associated with typical anomalous summer rainfall patterns in China.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 110.D8 (2005). ↩︎
  2. Fehsenfeld, F. C., et al. “Laboratory measurements of negative ion reactions of atmospheric interest.” Planetary and Space Science 15.2 (1967): 373-379. ↩︎
  3. Glisky, Elizabeth L., Susan R. Rubin, and Patrick SR Davidson. “Source memory in older adults: An encoding or retrieval problem?.” Journal of experimental psychology: learning, memory, and cognition 27.5 (2001): 1131. ↩︎
  4. Thomas, Arthur, et al. “Where are the behavioral sleep medicine providers and where are they needed? A geographic assessment.” Behavioral sleep medicine 14.6 (2016): 687-698. ↩︎

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