Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level | Hacker News Reader

Why noise is necessary for our brains to perform at a high-level

ekin.substack.com

242 pointsekin151 comments

I've worked in private offices, cubicles, open plan offices, coffeeshops, libraries, and now many many hours in home both when other family members are around and when they aren't. I spend a lot of time thinking about sound and focus.

The conclusion I came to is that humans have a few emotional needs in order to reach deep focus:

1. We need to not be distracted and we need to feel certainty that we will not be distracted. Before we are comfortable untaking the work to architect a giant mental castle, we need to feel confident that someone won't come around to kick it down.

2. At a more primitive, simian level, we need to feel that we're in a safe environment. It's hard to focus on code if you're worried that a tree is going to fall on you or a lion will drag you off into the jungle.

When it comes to sound, those can be opposing. Because we are a social species, I think one of the things that makes us feel most secure is the ambient present of a fellow tribe. To our early ancestors, dead silence meant you were alone, and being alone in the wilderness was often a death sentence. We instinctively feel safest when we hear the chatter and hub-bub of relaxed tribemates puttering around nearby. We know we're not alone, that there are others will also be alerted if something happens, and that they also feel safe.

But the presence of fellow people can also mean that at any moment one of them might wander over and start talking to us. So hearing that ambient chatter can make it really hard to focus.

This is, I think, part of why working in a coffeeshop can be so effective. You get the sense of safety in numbers, but since they are all strangers and at least in the US the social norms go against talking to strangers, you know the odds are slim that you'll actually be interrupted.

> we need to feel certainty that we will not be distracted.

This, so, much. Working from home with a young kid around, it always feels like something's gonna fall, the cat is gonna fight back, mom is gonna get mad at him for some reason, or simply he needs me to go play with him. I never know if I have 5 minutes or 3 hours.

Nowadays I tend to not work so much during the day as I don't have the means to focus, then work into the night.

"Nowadays I tend to not work so much during the day as I don't have the means to focus, then work into the night. "

And be nevertheless woken up early in the morning by your toddlers ...

Sounds like you guys haven't established any work boundaries. It can be impossible if both of you work. But if not....

I've worked at home for about 17 years now. I have a 6 year old, two 3 year olds, and my wife is a stay at home mom. I don't get interrupted, and there's never been an age range where I would regularly get interrupted. At the most frequent, maybe once per week. Definitely not even once per day though.

You may have established boundaries, but you almost certainly have your wife to thank for 99% of the enforcement of them.

Was about to say, it's very easy to establish boundaries if you have someone enforcing them for you

The boundary that the OP needs to enforce is actually with the caregiver more than the children (although even young children are capable of learning and respecting boundaries). The caregiver needs to buy into the fact that it's beneficial for the bread winner of the family to have uninterrupted work periods.

When I read your statement it feels like you're saying you think the OP is just throwing proclamations over the wall rather than sitting down and having a family discussion about how to ensure the day is arranged in everyone's best interest.

Both parents are caregivers in a marriage, there's no single caregiver.

What happens if both work during regular office hours (as in my marriage)?

If you have very young kids, it's impossible to have a distraction free work environment at home unless you find someone to take care of the kids and enforce the no distractions rule.

People often assume, somewhat unfairly, that this person should be the mother. But what if mommy also has a professional career and ambitions?

During the pandemic, people who found working from home enjoyable tend to

a- not have very young children of an age they need constant watching or get bored if left to play alone, or

b- someone in the couple is a stay at home parent (usually the mother) who watches the children.

I have found WFH to be enjoyable and rewarding, but this is despite both of us being in high stress careers and due to reasons somewhat unrelated to work (no commuting, more time around the family, etc).

We have both simply adapted and now do our concentration-related tasks when our child is asleep.

> now do our concentration-related tasks when our child is asleep

My child sleeps maybe 1 hour in the afternoon and then during the night. Do you mean you can only concentrate then? What about coworkers who, quite reasonably, expect you to work with them and collaborate with projects during their work hours? What about meetings? What about emergencies in production, which never choose the most comfortable time to happen?

> no commuting

Agreed, this is the best of WFH, hands down.

"What happens if both work during regular office hours (as in my marriage)?"

OP specifically mentioned this is not the scenario we are discussing.

"If you have very young kids, it's impossible to have a distraction free work environment at home unless you find someone to take care of the kids and enforce the no distractions rule."

Again, neither OP or I are arguing against this.

"Both parents are caregivers in a marriage, there's no single caregiver."

Again, this feels like an uncharitable reading of my statement. Of course there are two caregivers but often there is one person in charge of the kids, hence my caregiver (singular) statement. Which partner it is, is irrelevant.

"People often assume, somewhat unfairly, that this person should be the mother."

How is this relevant to this post?

"b- someone in the couple is a stay at home parent (usually the mother) who watches the children. "

Also, these comments about "mother" are irksome to me since it feels like you're accusing me (or OP) of implying something I'm not. Not that it really matters but my wife and I (a father) work full time and during the pandemic I was the caregiver during normal business hours while my wife retained a normal working hours schedule.

I can't be accountable for what you find irksome. If during the pandemic you, the father, were the primary caregiver, know that:

- This is NOT the norm. This matters because what's more interesting is the general case, not the exceptions.

- It affected your work, in this case of a man instead of a woman, so the point remains: WFH is very hard for working couples with young children.

As for the relevance of the impact on mothers: it is VERY relevant and highlights the inequality that still remains in Western society. People by default assume the mother will take care, it's happened in every situation and every couple I talked with, and it's my own experience as well.

I'm not accusing you of anything, and if you feel personally addressed, that's on you.

"This matters because what's more interesting is the general case, not the exceptions."

That may be true, but in this case we were specifically discussing an exception where gender was not relevant.

Its seems unrealistic for a couple to both have busy careers and also children and expect to have it all without compromises or another caregiver.

But many people I met seem sold on the dream they can 'have it all' without thinking about the price

> another caregiver

Another caregiver is a viable option, but then again the pandemic hit and in some countries, for a while, it was forbidden to have strangers at home and daycare was closed.

Many people simply assume the woman must be the caregiver. This assumption by default will affect you even in workplaces which pay lip service to equality. Source: me.

The op made the rather disingenuous statement that people who could not be productive working from home were clearly just not doing it right, without considering that his anecdotal situation is the exception rather than the norm for many parents in this day and age.

He specifically said that it is likely impossible if both parents are working normal hours. So if there is one parent looking after the kids and the other parent is still being interrupted constantly then I don't think it's unreasonable to say that they could make some adjustments to improve the situation.

To pile a bit on the parent's take, I think it's just hell if none can set boundaries.

During the stay home period it meant for us that everyday we scheduled who does 100% work at what time, and who takes care of the rest in the meantime (might mean light work while looking after things)

That meant switching back and forth the roles about once or twice everyday, including when the other needs to cook or go to groceries.

In this respect, I think there is just no way to have both parents 100% working at home with a kid needing attention, and trying to reach that will only make everyone miserable.

> In this respect, I think there is just no way to have both parents 100% working at home with a kid needing attention

We were able to achieve this during covid with two kids doing distance learning as well. However, we were extremely fortunate that we were able to do shifts where my wife worked 7-3ish and I worked 3-midnight.

Reminds me of a coworker that had a baby at the same time as me and my wife. He was shocked at how poorly ours was sleeping, as his slept all night. Then at the holiday party, we remarked to his wife how nice it must be. She laughed and laughed. Turns out she was getting up multiple times every night while he slept all night, oblivious.

That was me, too. But I'm trying to make it up to her now.

There is no manual on how to be a parent. Don't tell our kids that we're making it up as we go.

I'm not sure why, but this feels like an accusatory response and uncharitable take on their statement.

Establishing boundaries like "don't interrupt the person who's working" needs to be a discussion that happens between the whole family. Of course, the caregiver will be responsible for the physical enforcement but the caregiver should understand that it is in the long-term best interest of the whole family that the worker is able to have uninterrupted work time.

Also, by the age of 4 most kids are capable of understanding and learning to respect boundaries.

I didn't take it that way. They're just pointing out that it's impossible to set those boundaries with young children. The poster they're replying to has a full time stay-at-home spouse providing for the kids during the day so they don't have to be interrupted, yet they're implying it's something that anyone could easily do. A 4 year old might not be capable of leaving you alone for a solid hour as time seems to pass glacially slow to someone at that age. Telling them to leave you alone for an hour is like telling your wife to leave you alone for 48 hours.

> yet they're implying it's something that anyone could easily do

I don't think they're implying that. In fact they said "It can be impossible if both of you work" which you can extrapolate to "It can be impossible if you're the sole caregiver".

Of course if you are the only person home, you can't expect a 4 year old to let you work uninterrupted for long stretches of time. I don't see anyone trying to argue that point of view though (certainly I would never say that).

Ya, my 3 year old's absolute maximum wait time is however long it takes her to count to 20.

The problem isn’t that by the age of 4 most kids don’t understand boundaries (they totally can and do).

It’s that as a parent it’s hard not to just have some part of your brain constantly scanning for any sign of your 4 year old trying to get themselves hurt or break something (as 4 year olds naturally do).

In other words, the boundary crossing is done by the adult and is really hard to turn off if you have any interest in your kid staying safe, fed, and entertained throughout the day.

I don't really understand this POV. If you have a trusted partner looking after your child, then the situation should be (at worst) no different than if your child was away at school or daycare right?

Fair point, and I agree. Missed that part of your comment above.

I like seeing my child. We often open the study door because it’s not fair for her to almost be with us but have a separation. When we need to work then the other will make sure there is separation but I want her to know that she’s our top priority. I also may never work at home in future so embracing having her around.

I’m not good at this, I certainly don’t think I have the answer, that’s just the current thinking in our context.

That sounds like you live in a relatively large suburban house instead of an apartment in an urban area :)

I know, I'm doing it wrong, but my position wasn't remote before the start of the pandemic.

Is this why I have my best thoughts in the shower?

I prefer to call it the personal wet meditation chamber

That's a lovely phrase. I actually use showertime to observe a different aspect of the sensory experience everyday; the touch of the water as it moves around, the sounds of water and soapbar moving, etc. On some days it can be a complete break from thinking about anything and just observing this flow.

Is that why you're so clean?

Personally, I think so. I get the same effect if I'm in the hot tub with the jets running. White noise blocks distractions pretty well, so my brain can get lost in thought.

You don't need a shower or hot tub for that, there are online noise generators with hundreds of different flavors such as https://mynoise.net/ - I prefer music most of the time however, the "rain sounds" are so relaxing that they make me sleepy...

Yeah, I use a sound machine at home for sleeping. We started with our kids when they were babies, then decided we liked having one in our room as well.

Haven't graduated to having one in my office, but maybe I should give that a whirl. Though one thing the shower & hot tub still have is temperature comfort. Warm and relaxing might be as important as the noise.

I’ve been programming to their rain on tent. I don’t get sleepy, but it’s a little jarring when I pull off the headphones, I want back in my tent!

https://coffitivity.com

good observations, I’ve had some similar theories that you have better articulated

https://noiz.io was a lifesaver during quar’. virtual coffeeshop, artificial rain storms, even an ST:TNG-style outer space hum

https://mynoise.net/ is my goto for noise. I usually go for basic pink or brown noise, but they have a bunch of other fun and interesting sounds too.

I have pink noise playing pretty much all the time at home. Not only does it mask some intermittent ambient noise, it's also too quiet without it. (Edit: I use sox in the terminal for this. Install sox then play -n synth pinknoise.)

Just noticed the same person made https://noises.online/ too, which is like a simplified, browser-only version of myNoise ... and you can share mixes like https://noises.online/player.php?g=ca3fa3ib3

your point #1 is _exactly_ what i've learned empirically too, and with great unbounded frustration trying to explain it to a particular super manic super adhd super video-watching person i'm married to.

And yet, as a freelancer/work-from-homer, I am told that my coffee shop receipts are not tax-deductible.

you need to reclassify it as temp hourly office space with coffee included (half-joking). coffee shops (implicitly or explicitly) price in the cost table time into the drinks. that’s why they’re like $5 rather than $2.

incidentally that’s also why we should all buy something every hour or two, and buying to-go is basically overpaying (which is fine, especially if you want to support your locally-owned coffee joint).

edit: i should add that i’ve preferred working from a cafe over home (or the library, or even a quiet office) since i started the habit in college. similar to the root comment, it’s because there’s enough familiar noise, but not too many familiar people (but greater than zero people).

Who told you that?

This is articulated particularly nicely and captures what I have observed myself. Thanks for sharing.

I almost can't work without the radio on. I can buy the comment that said we want people near us to work. I like working at home with the radio on, no one will bug me, but maybe it feels like people are around?

By "radio on" did you mean you're listening to a radio channel or to white noise?

bbc world service or DW usually. I'm not listening though, occasionally I tune in, usually when I need to tune out of the work, and then tune back into the work, but it's just on, and my brain is good at using it for little rests when needed. DW is on right now, they've been talking about Bolsonaro for over an hour, all I know is some report came out and it wasn't favourable, but they've been talking about it for over an hour. Works super well for me! :)

I'm a software engineer. I choose music or silence tactically. If I need to power myself through a task, I use music to do it. If I'm trying to solve a difficult problem or master a complex body of unfamiliar code, I need silence.

Before WFH become the norm in early 2020, there were days when I made no progress at all until everyone else had gone home. The precious hour between 5pm and 6pm -- when the cleaners came and talked to me and broke my concentration again -- was sometimes more productive than the entire day that led up to it.

What also helps, working alone, is the ability to talk out loud to yourself. For me, it's a superpower. I dread losing it if Management decides to pull us all back into the office when the pandemic is over. (Or, even worse, continually talking to myself without realising it. :-))

> I dread losing it if Management decides to pull us all back into the office when the pandemic is over.

One thing this pandemic will be remembered for is how it permanently changed the way desk jobs are done. If "Management" decides to pull you back into office, there are many more "Managements" who are waiting to hire you by giving you the option to remain remote.

I wouldn't be able to work if the radio was on. I can buy that we want people near us not to feel alone. I get that too when nobody else is in the house and I'm alone and not working. You suddenly focus on a lot of noises you otherwise wouldn't and wonder if they're normal. That cracking noise your roof structure makes in 0F weather? You don't even notice when people are around but you wonder if someone is breaking into your house if you're alone and hear it.

I work best when it's "completely silent". By that I don't mean actually completely silent but I certainly don't want radio or any other kinds of chatter. I also can't stand noise from ventilation, such as the AC. I do know that a lot of people even buy "white noise machines" e.g. for sleeping. I can't understand why people would voluntarily import that kind of noise. I actively try to get rid of it as much as I can, such as turning the AC way up ahead of going to bed and shutting it off for going to sleep.

All that to say that we're all very different. He doesn't state absolute truths.

    Imagine sitting in a noisy cafe but still working on your paper because you don’t know anyone and don’t have the context of any discussion.

This is a really hard environment to get anything done in. I have trouble just reading a book in such an environment, because usually you _do_ hear individual conversations from your neighbours. If it's so noisy that you can't, then the "white noise" is so loud that it overpowers everything and that is what disturbs me.

I wonder if our work involves different type of thinking? I advise early stage startups, most of my time is reviewing go to market strategy, reading companies docs generally, and then writing emails asking lots of questions. If I'm reviewing a 150 page board deck, it can take me 4/5 hours to do it properly + notes, and I have to think pretty deeply about the deck, but I couldn't imagine doing it in silence, I'd go nuts.

I'm a team lead. I have enough interactions with people. There are phases of one meeting after another (video conf) or maybe a half hour in between here and there in which there's communication on various channels and topics in slack.

There are also phases of not having that interaction and I might be checking how a particular piece of code works right now e.g. while triaging a bug that came in or I might be creating or reviewing a document, such as a flow chart, architectural diagram etc. Or coding something of various different degrees of difficulty.

During none of these would I want any radio (or other kind of) noise. Not even the deep thinking and not interacting with people phases. I am also introverted so I like these phases. They recharge me.

At some point the kids come home and I'll have noise again and by that time I want to be finished with work.

> We instinctively feel safest when we hear the chatter and hub-bub of relaxed tribemates puttering around nearby. We know we're not alone, that there are others will also be alerted if something happens, and that they also feel safe.

I can confirm that is false.

If it were an actual instinct, I would possess it as would essentially all people. I do not possess that instinct what-so-ever.

I do not gain an increased feeling of safety from the chatter and hub-bub of relaxed tribemates puttering nearby.

That context annoys me, rather than increasing my sense of comfort.

There are multiple types of primary human personalities, not one. I'm a non-tribalist personality type. That means tribes don't tend to like me and I don't tend to like tribes. The tribe and I are not friends, we're closer to suspicious enemies. I disagree with tribal order. By default my personality rebels against tribal structures and most systems like that. I don't do well following others that attempt to command me (tribal systems always have some manner of hierarchy). I operate at a vastly higher degree of effectiveness without lots of other people around. I'm happier and more productive on my own or in small teams.

This isn't a personality I developed over time through great effort. It has been that way at least as far back as 4-6 years of age. I've also spent my life from 15-40 years of age as an entrepreneur. I can be a decent employee, however I dislike it.

I'm a disagreeable personality (to others), as such I'm poorly suited to government, consensus structures, tribal systems, politics and the like. I also don't enjoy asking permission first and I never seek approval from others, I very rarely get a personal sense of reward from the approval of others. That said, the people I do like, I like immensely; and I'm kind toward others who are kind toward me, I believe manners are important, politeness/kindness are important. I used to refer to myself as a lone wolf personality type, as opposed to a tribalist personality type; however that phrase has a particularly negative connotation these days.

I seek to pile up a lot of money to get away from most aspects of society (in a comfortable manner), rather than to sit on top of society or eg receive prestige from a prominent place in society.

> The tribe and I are not friends

Then they aren't "chatter and hub-bub of relaxed tribemates", rather to you it is "the whispers and noises of your enemies". Of course that wont get you relaxed. The effect comes from hearing people you are comfortable around talking, if you have a distrustful personality then likely you aren't comfortable around many people but the effect is still there, just that you lack another link.

That really borders on the no true scotsman fallacy.

I agree with gp.

>If it were an actual instinct, I would possess it as would essentially all people. I do not possess that instinct what-so-ever.

I don't think it's necessarily valid to expect that all peoples have evolved the same set of instincts. Particularly given adaptation to vastly different environments over the last 200k or so years after leaving africa. This particular instinct would not likely be a prerequisite for survival and may not have occured even among all members of a given tribe.

Or OP is simply the kind of person who would end up dead 200k years ago. But a more civilized world allows them to survive and potentially thrive.

Technology (especially medical) and civilization are forces that act against evolution; to the extent that they probably seek to stop human evolution.

I don't disagree - call it the uniquely human tendency for self-domestication.

Today there are certainly drastically more opportunities for someone like me to not comform with the tribe. The risk is far lower than it would have been in past times. I tend to function like a robot in a traditional job context, my brain does some manner of emulation in those situations. Instead, I can be a remote software developer and never have to fit into a traditional team environment in an office, or slog through a corporate hierarchy. I can pursue high value contracting/consulting tasks that pay for the rest of my time to do what I want to do. I can trivially invest my earnings at zero cost into massive scale markets, again without requiring that I go through tribal/caste/cartel networks (bankers, brokers) to partake; specifically there is no permission required, no kissing of the banker's ring needed, I don't have to work through tribal networks to gain access, I don't have to win their favor (and they largely have no idea who I am in this context, whereas a thousand years ago the situation would have been entirely different for someone like me). I can fairly easily and safely roam at will, whether within the US or internationally courtesy of a passport. I plainly benefit from society, and I happily pay taxes into it (I benefit from the order and systems that helps deliver), even if I don't enjoy all aspects of society. There has never been a better time to be someone constructed as I am.

I suspect that I would have operated on the edge of civilizations many thousands of years ago. I would be more likely to do fringe things, and trade. I've always enjoyed trading, the economic action of it, although I dislike traditional sales. Roaming trader or hunter would be most likely rather than shop owner in a bazaar. The roaming would be ideal for multiple reasons. I also prefer to be awake during the night and always have; I can easily sleep during daylight hours and without a darkened space.

> f it were an actual instinct, I would possess it as would essentially all people. I do not possess that instinct what-so-ever.

The existence of variation does not disprove the existence of trends.

Of course. However the parent stated it as a "We" that was implied to span humanity. It doesn't.

When talking about all of humanity, does saying “we” really imply that every single person has this or that trait, or does it imply that people in general have this trait? We are social creatures. Do you think I mean every single human being that lives or has ever lived was social, or in general we are a social species? This just seems like intentionally reading their comment in the least charitable light as an excuse to argue.

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The waiter asking every 10 minutes if I want more coffee or would like to order something/ is everything alright is quite distracting though?

This is also why streaming like twitch is so effective as background noise. I can put on a streamer in the background and unlike a podcast, not feel the need to pay attention to what's going on at all.

Personally, having people around, hearing speech (and involuntarily passively processing that speech), on top of environmental noises, is utterly distracting and hinders any kind of productivity.

While I'm working, preferably alone, ear buds are in and a long instrumental track is played on loop, so that noise is drowned out, don't get distracted by having to select another song, and there's no need for my brain to process speech. It's amazing how well it works in keeping me focused.

As of late, been playing Autechre's "Bike"

Yea at work there was talk of installing an ambient noise machine in the new office because the “silence was too stifling”.

I have no idea what that meant then, nor do I now. I found the new larger space with ~5 people scattered around absolutely heavenly to work in.

I don't think there is one correct way. Sometimes I like some noise, sometimes I don't, sometimes I like having people around, sometimes I want to be alone.

In the end it's about being able to control your environment to some degree. That's what open offices and cube farms have taken away.

Being able to control room temprature is also very helpful.

Having mature dogs is fantastic in this regard. They generally won't bother you unless there's a good reason, but you can feel assured that a tiger will not be able to sneak up on you without the dogs warning you about it.

Are tigers a typical concern where you live?

Haha, no, but there may be some subconscious comfort in knowing the dogs have my back.

This does happen occasionally, in the following case last May -

"Tiger loose in Houston for a week finally captured":

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/tiger-loose-in-houston-...

This does happen occasionally, in this case last May -

"Tiger loose in Houston for a week finally captured":

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/tiger-loose-in-houston-...

Holy cow you have articulated what I've been feeling for decades. This is great!

Having the ambient noise and not feeling alone and vulnerable but also feeling safe and amongst people is like the perfect set up for deep concentration for me.

Your theory is interesting but what about the studies that link noise to stress and health issues?[0] Maybe background noises of voices have a different effect?

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5898791/

I think the kind of "noise" discussed in the study here is different from something like the hubbub in a coffeeshop:

> Recently, we demonstrated that aircraft noise exposure during nighttime can induce endothelial dysfunction in healthy subjects and is even more pronounced in coronary artery disease patients.

Obviously, no one enjoys being woken up at night by passing airplanes.

The study focuses on three main things: road noise, air traffic noise, and industry noise. As part of that, it shows the link between annoyance at a noise and the chronic stress, anxiety, and health issues that come from that. For instance, Fig. 7 shows people are far more annoyed by road and aircraft noise than other types, including “neighborhood” noise, and Fig. 8 that shows the link between annoyance and rates of various issues. So it doesn’t seem to be saying that any noise leads to negative effects, but that specific types of noises act as a kind of environmental pollution.

The place I focus the most is in an airplane.

Maybe as you are saying the presence of fellow tribe, but in this case I know they won't come to talk because we all have the seat belt, and when the is allowed to take it off, it's the social norm to minimise interactions due to the reduced space, people usually keep the norm to enable the corridor just for the staff and trips to the bathroom.

But additionally:

- Being offline, also makes you feel certain no one will interrupt you electronically.

- No one would expect you to get anything done in airplane, and that can feel like a liberation, meaning you can catch up and the time feels "free".

- Timing is programmed, start and end and the food breaks in between are scheduled and announced.

- And the noise inside the cabin combined with noise cancelling headphones, I don't know why, it helps.

Some of my most productive sessions are at night all quiet just me and my computer with no music playing and for sure no one would be talking to me. (Sometimes I do to myself.)

Maybe I don't care for tribemates?

I am Deaf myself and using my hearing aids all of my life. One thing I discovered that silence is the best productivity focus for me. During my job, I always keep my hearing aids off. This helps with my ADHD as I am easily distracted when there is a sound involved, sometime causes me to ‘hyperfocus’ in my “world” than doing my job. And interesting that I found that keeping my hearing aids off makes the time around me become slow. With the hearing aids on, it amplified the stimulation on my brain in a way which make it feel like the time is in turbo mode.

I recently discovered this “ability” and start doing my job without hearing aids. Basically, silence is golden for me and helps a lot with my productivity.

I have similar issues with distractibility with sounds. Music sometimes helps, and white noise is good, but sometimes I’d love to be able to just turn my ears off.

The worst situation is feeling the need for enough audio stimuli to feel “right”, but that level is too distracting to allow for focus.

Agreed with you there. It is so hard to find the right sounds that could help me to focus but it turns out it made it worse. There are few sounds that does help me to focus like heartbeating, I have a 30min opus file that is purely heartbeats. I gravities toward repeating sounds because they are easier to focus as they are rhythmic. Anything that are not rhythmic will mess with my pacing.

I find that wearing hearing protector earmuffs (like the 3M Peltor Optime, which cuts 30 dB) cuts out so much sound that I feel almost stone deaf and the rest of the world goes away. It takes a little practice for them not to be disquieting, but it helps if I turn my attention elsewhere.

I have ADHD, and when it works well, the hyper-focus effect is similar to what you describe with your hearing aids turned off.

But for me, the outside world's time seems to go faster, not slower. It's like the more I'm focusing on my task at hand, the less I notice the passage of time around me.

I'm curious why our hyper-focus experiences differ in that way.

My theory it is something to do with our senses. Since I have a hearing disability, so that ‘hearing’ sense is not functioning as in turn amplifying my other senses. I am going with the assumption that you are hearing (it a Deaf community lingo for people who have functioning hearings), so you have five senses operating at the same time. For me, I only have four senses operating at the same time. So with the hearing aid, my hearing sense will be “on” which maybe put more work for my brain to process everything else. Without the hearing aid, which my hearing sense is simply off. So, my brain can spend all of the “processing power” into other four senses which made me feel like the passage of time becoming slow. That is my theory is what I have so far. I don’t know if this is valid theory.

The phenomenon you're describing psychological flow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Where time perception starts to skip as the brain becomes hyper focused on a task. One of the things I've noticed (having ADD) is that it's easy to enter into flow and accomplish much, but can be difficult to master what you enter flow with.

> One of the things I've noticed (having ADD) is that it's easy to enter into flow and accomplish much, but can be difficult to master what you enter flow with.

Adderall is like that for me. It works wonders, but heaven forbid I'm focusing on the wrong thing as it kicks in.

Very odd question, but if as a person experiencing difficulty hearing who can get partial hearing from a hearing aid, can you experience binaural beats, which are essentially non-sound neurological artifacts of the brain processing and filtering slightly different tones?

Meta analysis of them here, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-018-1066-8 , full paper is on sci-hub.

Almost everything about binaural beats is very non-sciency and full of woo and nonsense, but if the ability to "hear" the brain artifact that doesn't register on the spectrogram of the sound caused by them were different for people experiencing hearing loss, experiencing the binaural beat "tone" in your head could indicate the persistence of some kind of physiological effect independent of direct hearing ability. If a person with reduced hearing didn't hear the binaural beat artifact, it would probably be just a harmonic or a simple wave interference pattern, and not the mysterious phenomenon it gets sold as.

I ask because they are a particular type of noise that you can use for focus and consistency to drown out other noises, similar to white, pink, rain sounds and other flavours of noise.

I am not sure if I can hear binaural beats. I tried a few of them in the past and always found them… mm what that word… like “metal rubbing on other metal” sounds which I don’t like and felt randomized. They don’t work for me. I am not sure if my hearing aids have something to do with it. Hearing aids does modify the sounds from the microphone and amplifies & output various range to get closer to “normal hearing level” to the ear. So, I don’t know if my hearing aids is outputting the binaural sounds correctly as it is intended to.

It is hard to find sound generators that would produce rhythmic beats rather than randomizing few beats here and there. Something like “beeee boop beeee boop beeee boop” or “swish bah swish bah swish bah” beats is what I prefer. My partner always looks at me funny everything I dance when my top-loader washing machine is on because it always produces simple rhythmic beats. Same for my dishwasher sounds.

Super interesting, thank you. Indeed, if the hearing aid EQ'd the input to bring out things in the range of speech, the effect in most of the artistic binaural beats tracks could be suppressed, as the effect is caused by a very specific difference between tones sent to each ear.

The beats are the artifact of directing two frequencies with a difference of only a few Hz, one per ear, and the "beat," phenomenon is a pulse we mentally feel as the result of the brain allegedly straining either to distinguish or consolidate the two tones from each ear as the same or separate. The tension between the tones does manifest as a kind of stimulation or subtle irritation, and higher frequencies could plausibly create an anxiety effect, like metal on metal you described.

Max Richter's "Sleep" is a recent artistic implementation of these, where different ones are used as a backing track throughout. I'm hacking around with reproducing them on a synth rig, but even then, the stuff written about them is mostly using pure sine waves, so even if you get interesting sound effects from other types of waves (saw, triangle, pulse, etc), there's not much in the way of empirical control.

Rare opportunity for the question to be on topic so had to ask, thank you!

It is more likely it is the hearing aids EQs are changing the sounds. Hearing aids is basically a computer in a tiny form, that why they are $2,000 to $6,000 USD each. Every hearing aids (each side of the ear) have a customized EQ for each wearer, it is conform to their hearing ability to pick up sounds. For myself, I can hear up to 2MHz and only audible at 100 dB with hearing aids. I can’t hear past 2.5Mhz range but I can feel the vibration in my cochlea. That helps me to know they are speaking outside of my frequency range. I often have issues understanding people who is using tonal language like East Asian languages, it sounds like they are speaking from a Walkman CD with skipping every 5 seconds.

Looking it up, 2khz is about C7 (c note at 7th octave), which most music is below, but you'd miss a lot of additional harmonics that could have context.

So, well into the speculative here, if binaural beats are indeed a real thing, e.g. that by offsetting a tone between two ears and frequencies it produces a third epiphenomanal artifact that is not explicitly "heard," but processed outside the range of what the ear can distinguish by the brain, it does imply we could take any sound and then modulate it so that it appeared or was realized in this meta effect range where the brain automatically processes it.

If binaural beats are not real, then there's a lot of speculative woo that automatically gets debunked. But if they are real, and there were a way to take a frequency or sound, and modulate it so that the effect could be processed by the brain as an artifact of its own processing and not as the actual physical "sound," that could be interesting. Maybe the way hearing aids EQ sounds also shifts frequencies and folds them into the range the listener can physically hear already. If there were a meta sound that binaural beats in effect claim to be, there would also be an FFT that would take a given sound input and transform it through stereo headphones to produce it at the frequency one could "hear" as an artifact of the brain reconstructing it.

I'm well into the territory of "dare to be stupid" speculation here, but the premise of creating a binaural beat to create this super-audible artifact, then modulating the artifact effect to transmit the information would be pretty interesting (probably even an ffmpeg one liner). I like cuban cigars and american whiskey if someone reading this becomes a billionare as a result of implementing it, but if it doesn't make a difference, there's a whole subculture of binaural beat internet woo that needs to know it isn't a thing. :)

I assume you mean 2 kHz, right? Normal human hearing doesn't go beyond ~23 kHz, and certainly not into MHz range.

I also have ADHD, but not hearing problems and suffer some of the problems you describe. However, silence doesn't seem to help my productivity and sometimes makes me anxious too.

What helps me is predictable sounds - like music I've listened to many times before.

I have certain albums that I have listened to straight through many times now while getting work done. They no longer distract me basically at all, so I can work very effectively.

I have also found that certain not types of older TV shows hit the white noise level where they get me moving, but don't pull me out of my thoughts too often. This is mostly for things where the goal is just to keep moving on something, not where the goal is to think deeply.

That is quite an interesting difference from me. I have to have sound or else there is absolutely no chance for me to focus. Primarily music with a lot of bass. Podcasts are bad though as that requires paying attention. Perhaps the music serves to block out other possible distractions. If you make me sit around in silence, I will be all over the place and unable to focus. It feels like I require some level of sensory input, and once that is maxed out I can actually get things done.

Funny enough, I learnt from my partner (who is hearing) that hearing peoples do not like silence or anything that are too quiet. If there is a silence between the sentence or words, people often will instinct-ly fills those silence with fluff words like “um”, “mm”, “well” to be still in turn of the conversation. If there is a silence, they will assume that it is their turn to initiate the conversation further. Deaf communities don’t use that kind of nuances and it is a culture shock for me to learn how hearing people MUST have sounds anywhere.

I wear ear plugs basically turning my ears 'off', that's the only thing that makes me productive.

This article does everything except actually answering the question in the title.

It's like a recipe blog, but for half-baked musings

Clearly more noise than signal from the author.

I think it may be a GPT3 blog:

>Noise is necessary for our brains to function in an orderly fashion. In the book The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver says that “The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth.”7 Andrew Smart adds that “there are many circumstances in which the addition of the right amount of noise actually boosts the signal.” So within the randomness of the noise, we can achieve greater creativity as the randomness of evolution brings the best out of humans.

Hmm imagine a GTP3 based VTuber on YT that used a random character generator

I like the thought. The article is not very coherent, you're right... But it did fool me.

It's insane to me that we have already got to a point where we are struggling to differentiate CG text from real articles.

It isn't a good article. Some of the things don't make sense. And it shies away from anything in depth. It really may be a GPT3 blog post, as others suggest.

went looking for some interesting neurological findings and found a very poor repurposing of a Nate Silver quote that was referring to statistics, not neurology.

I had a similar hope. Not long into the article, it was apparent that the author was not using the term 'noise' in a particularly well-defined way. For me, 'noise' is unstructured sound. People talking is structured, which is why it is a problem. I used to block out people in the office by listening to heavy metal, but in the end I found listening to actual noise was more effective for me to get my work done. So I was hoping the article was going to dig more into that side of things.

This was true for Von Neumann:

Von Neumann did some of his best work in noisy, chaotic environments, and once admonished his wife for preparing a quiet study for him to work in. He never used it, preferring the couple's living room with its television playing loudly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

It depends on where you are raised.

I need to make deals in cities like New York, or London or Paris, Frankfurt, or Madrid.

At buildings, specially hotels in those cities there is a constant hum, low level noise all the time that is specially present when you need to sleep.

People that are raised in cities are hearing this sound all the time. I was raised outside them so for me this sound is alien but for those people it means "home".

It was incredible being in Paris or Madrid center with COVID and hearing birds as background instead of road sounds.

I need birds or sea waves or tree leaves sounds in order to work and focus. Cars or air blowers sounds are really distracting for me.

Isn't it as simple as: to concentrate well - you need to remove distractions. Too much noise is distracting but, having zero noise is also distracting because inevitable something will cause noise and your attention will be drawn to it.

Hence why white noise is so effective because it's the middle of these two things.

I'd like to see less research about how we turn ourselves into optimal work machines and more research about how we reach a maximum vividness of conscious experience.

So what's stopping you from researching it?

I experimented a lot with different audio backgrounds during the writing phase of my phd. While music could be energizing, it quickly became a diatraction, while in a silent environment I easily felt tired or even sleepy.

What worked best was an endless loop of 'brown noise', (similar to 'pink noise' or 'white noise') , it blankets out all other sounds but I don't hear it any more after a few minutes.

Hilarious to see this as I'm loudly listening to music many people would probably classify as "noise" ([0]) ... I've always found that highly dynamic music really helps me focus and somehow really "get into the zone", particularly when programming. I've noticed over the years that the mental stimulation that occurs is pretty substantial. Even music with lyrics/vocals, I don't find it distracting. I'd say it allows the ability to tune out "outside world" stuff and, like someone said above, feel comfortable that interruptions and distractions are not going to occur. I can simply be present and not thinking ahead/back about unrelated things.

[0] https://accesstoarasaka.bandcamp.com/album/port

Silence is the best productivity focus for me. I wear earplugs under active noise cancelling headphones.

Having worked on a trading floor: noise is all around you: whether its people shouting at each other or the non-stop drone of CNBC in the background.

I can say that the former was always very distracting but the latter was always welcome and did boost productivity and focus.

For me, it's not so much noise but temperature and air freshness. I don't know why but if the stale is a tad too stale in my home office I just get distracted and can't focus well so I wind up opening the window before starting work so I can freshen the air and then close it to minimize the amount of city noises from creeping in. But I'll also say sound is important as well. It's why I like having a more clicky keyboard although my office mates are probably frustrated by my preference. A little bit of noise in the background is nice whereas full-on chatter pretty much puts my work to a stop.

Have you ever tried to monitor your CO2 levels? I thought it was all about temperature until I got one and learned that my home office climbs up to 2500 ppm.

At this level, it creates: "Fatigue, loss of focus and concentration, uncomfortable 'stuffy' feeling in the air"

I worked with a group whose office was basically a big supply area converted into an office to hold around 7 cubicles. Zero windows, and while I am sure the HVAC system cycled in fresh air, I doubt it was enough because by lunch time I was ready to fall asleep whenever I worked in there.

Biggest perk of working from home was having control over my environment. Because of that, I think I feel the best I have in years.

2500ppm? Good grief.

I notice a slight blunting of my mental edge at about 1000ppm. I always maintain enough ventilation to keep below about 800ppm. I don't guess; I monitor.

At work, in our delapidated office, I've seen up to 1800ppm by lunchtime. No wonder no one can concentrate in there.

It's not cheap, but you can buy heat-recovery ventilation for domestic properties: stale air is pumped out, fresh air is pumped in, and there's a heat-exchanger to warm the incoming air. Typically, air is extracted from rooms such as kitchens, bathrooms and toilets (so that you expel moisture, smoke and odours) and pumped into living spaces such as lounges, dining rooms and bedrooms. It doesn't provide enough air changes per hour to mitigate the danger from Covid-19, but it does do enough to keep CO2 levels down where you want them, and it avoids arguments with people who want to close all the windows and doors because they "don't like a draught".

In the summer, I managed to have my apartment at 800ppm. But come fall we need to close the windows since it's too cold outside and 1200ppm is the new normal.

I open all the windows once a day to create a draft and it drops to 600-800ppm. But by then, I need to close them all again to reheat the apartment. This has the side effects of getting rid of all the humidity in the apartment and then the heating makes the situation even worst.

Most people I know go the entire winter without ever opening any windows. I wonder what their CO2 levels are.

I think some background noise reduces distractions, because it causes our noticing apparatus to raise it's alert threshold, and we no longer notice every tiny micro-noise.

this is good. routine, easy-to-ignore, regular noise as a mechanism to relatively suppress distracting, oddball noises.

I think, we should not call a conversation we hear "noise", it disturbs our focus but it's not noise. Noise has no pattern and no meaning. But the most disturbing sound is the sound that repeats in fixed intervals. I believe repeating sounds in high volume is even used as a form of torture. So airplane noise is torture because it's loud and it repeats.

I find a conversation more distracting if it's relevant to me.

If we have to cram developers into open plan offices then each feature team should be dispersed throughout the building, so that the discussions each person overhears are less relevant to the person overhearing them.

Contrarian, or what? :-)

> So airplane noise is torture because it's loud and it repeats.

Airplane noise when a plane flies above you? or airplane noise inside the plane?

I find airplane noise within a plane great - it blocks out all the other noise.

Airplane noise, as mentioned in the article, they move close to an airport. I agree, inside the plane is white noise and not too bad.

This is why I built https://noisify.xyz (for myself mainly)

You should really use a crossfading version of the sample.

Fair point, I’ll swap it in.

interruptions used to make me irritated, then I accepted that the irritation was more distracting than the interruption...

Why not phrase this as “things not seen as distracting can help, while things seen as distracting can hurt”. For me, I can often debug real well to tunes as long as there’s no words. Having to listen to words breaks the flow. But to create hard code please leave me alone, go away and shut the door.

Same with me as well but add music with language I don't understand.

This whole article conflates "noise" with "alternative signal"

I've tried a lot of sources of white noise while working. My previous favorite was "submarine sounds", but thanks to La Palma, I've learned that volcano sounds are the absolute best for my concentration.

Áudios from Hemi-sync are specially designed for concentration. Using binaural beats and white/pink noise it can enhance synchronisation in the brain while the noise allows it to have something "to work on"

Unless that noise is a person chewing gum with their mouth open and blowing/popping bubbles all day long. I'm looking at you, Lisa.

Or chronic sniffles, Alan.

Or excessively loud talking to customers while walking around your cube, Justin.

This article doesn't seem to have corroborating scientific evidence.

Famously, Von Neumann did a lot of his work in front of the TV

And Einstein hated von Neumann playing German march music next to his office.

The question asked in the title pushes a false premise. Humans are different, I for example work fastest in complete silence.

I have always done my best coding with music cranked up to 11. No idea why, but the louder the better.

Maybe I should read it again, this did not answer the question posed.

A little surprised nobody is sharing focus-centric Spotify playlists!

I was really hoping for an in-depth discussion of noise within the brain. Then I was really hoping for an in-depth discussion of how and why certain kinds of noise may be helpful, in both creativity and/or maintaining focus. Its not that I disagree with anything that was written, but I really was hoping for something whose tldr didn't amount to: bad noise bad, good noise good.

suggesting that this is a function of some aspect of personality.

Skinny Puppy

This is why I built noisify.xyz

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