Dr Dougal Sutherland: The benefits of pink/white noise for concentration

While everyone knows about white noise, there are a few more colours of noise out there, each with a different sound and potential impact. Recent studies have found that pink and white noise improved concentration and memory for adolescents and young adults – but only those with ADHD.

Dr Dougal Sutherland joined Francesca Rudkin to run through green, brown, pink, and white noise, and the impacts they can have on people.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks that'd be Doogle.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Sutherland joins us now and our well Being segment. Good morning, Google.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Good morning, Francesca.

Speaker 4 (00:19):
How are you.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm really really good. Thank you. You've got an interesting
topic for us today, because I think we've all heard
over the years about the benefits of different types of noises.
I think you've definitely heard if you've had a baby
at some point in the last twenty years, you would
have heard about that sort of white noise that might
help your baby get to sleep in things. I had
no idea though, Google, we'd move. We now have green noise,

(00:41):
brown noise, pink noise, white noise. It's it's it's growing.
I was thinking about noises.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
That's a complete rainbow of noise, really, isn't that that?
Every time you kind of look at it, there seems
to be more and more. So we've got agen say,
we've got white noise, which is and I'm not a
technical expert in noise to be to be perfectly frank,
so I'm kind of going I think I understand what
that means. You understand it when you hear it. White
noise is essentially random all the frequencies we can hear.

(01:09):
And then there's green noise, which is I equate it
to a bit like hearing you know, brooks burbling and
rivers gushing and the rain sound of rain on the roof,
that type of thing. And we've got brown noise, brown
noises low frequency sound, so sort of I guess that
sort of booming, kind of deeper sound. And then we've

(01:32):
got pink noise, and pink noises kind of like white
noise apart from the top. The sharp frequencies have been
kind of tuned down so they're a little bit less intense.
And there's all this research about, oh, is this good
for us our brains or is this not good for
our brains? As you say, sometimes we use it to
I use white noise at home. I put it on

(01:52):
my headphones. My daughter's watching TV and I want to
be in the in the lounge, but I don't. I
want to read and I want to concentrate and not
hear her terrible TV programs like so I sent to
you that for that. But there's lots of sort of
debate around is this good for us or is this
helpful or not helpful.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, as I mentioned, I've never heard of white and
pink noise, and we've actually got some examples to play
for people. So here here's here's we start with white noise.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Libby.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Here's some white noise that's kind of like the jet engine,
the jet sort of that that the plane engine, isn't it?
And that that's sort of okay, So that's your white es.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
That's good. That's white.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Okay, pink what's pink lobby? Okay, it's similar but as
you say, different frequency Google.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, yeah, and it sounds that that that made me
think of rain on the roof a little bit too.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah. I thought it was a wave coming in, but
it never quite broke.

Speaker 4 (02:57):
Yes, yes, yes, that's a good that's a good explanation
of it.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
So there's been some recent people have been looking at
the impact of white and pink noise and they're thinking
that there could be a potential it could improve concentration
and memory for adolescents and young adults, but only those
with ADHD.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah, which is not what you'd expect, right, you would expect.
So so that you know, what they did is generally
you play give people headphones and play some different sorts
of noise through them and see see if their concentration
levels or their attention span their memory improves.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yeah, and they found that pink can white noise were
helpful for young people and young adults who have ADHD,
it actually helped them concentrate more, whereas for people who
didn't have ADHD, it actually interfered with their concentration, which
is sort of Immediately my immediate thought was, that's a

(03:54):
bit back to front that you would expect that, you know,
playing a whole lot of noise to somebody who doesn't
concentrate well in the first place is really going to
mess with them. But in fact that's not what they found.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
It was. It was the opposite way around, which I
found quite quite fascinating.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Really, No, because my daughter has ADHD and she's always
got a couple of things on the go, so she
constantly has music playing, which enables her to relax and
focus on studying, listen to a teacher, whatever else she
needs to be doing. So whereas I cannot work worth
music or something else going on, it distracts me. I

(04:29):
need to be focused if I'm if I'm preparing a
show and reading and writing, I need to be completely
focused on that. I can't. It's almost sort of distracting
to have something else going on. So I do kind
of get that. I understand how that noise might just
it just might help soothes that somehow and then allows
you to focus on, yeah, something else.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah. The theory is that that that people say DHD,
their ability to concentrate, those parts of the brain are
actually understimulated, and so that by playing this white noise
it turns there. It sort of stimulates your attention more
and gets them to a peak of ability to concentrate.

(05:10):
Whereas if you stimulate it too much, which is what
perhaps those of us without ADHD experience, if you stimulate
it too much, it becomes overload. So there's almost a
sweet spot if you like, of concentration if you if you,
if you you might need something to bring you up
to that sweet spot if you don't, if you have ADHD.
But if you don't have ADHD, having that that that concentration,

(05:32):
that memory stimulated actually pushes you out of the sweet
spot and over the top. So it's really fascinating, And
let's be clear, it's not it's not sort of a
huge it's not a massive cure all for ADHD, but
it could help, so, you know, particularly maybe for kids
like your daughter, playing some white noise or some pink
noise might be really helpful, particularly around studying and times

(05:53):
that they really need to concentrate.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
I think she'll tell me she's got a much better
playlist on her Spotify idle that she'd prefer to listen to.
But it is absolutely worth worth trying today if you
are someone you know, if you do have your ADHD
and and thinking, oh, give it a go.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Nothing.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Look, I think it's things like ADHD you can try.
Lots of different things work for different people. You just
gotta try them, don't you Doogle really nice to talk
to you. Thank you for your time. This morning. Google
is from Umbrella Well Being.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
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