Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, there, brain stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, chances are you know at least a few people who rely on the whirr of a fan to get a good night's rest. You might be one of them yourself. And if you look closely the next time you're checking into a hotel or waiting to board a cruise, you may spy travelers touting their own The effect that a fan provides during sleeping is
similar to white noise. We spoke with Kelsey Allen, a sleep expert with mattress manufacturers sleep Train, in an email interview. They said people who sleep with a fan are capitalizing on what we call white noise. Just like white light, which encompasses all the colors on the spectrum, white noise
encompasses all sound frequencies within typical human hearing. Technically true, white noise is generated only electronically, but ambient noises like fans, distant cicadas, or gentle rain can produce a similar effect. So what's going on in the brains of folks who need fans that makes them different from others? The answer likely lies and how our brains are fired sleep spindles
in particular, seem to be the key. These are spikes of neural activity that can be seen on electron cephalogram tests a K A e G S and present as short brain wave bursts that cause a spike or spindle to form on the e G. Reading. Research indicates that people who experience sleep spindles more often have a better defense against outside noise than those who don't experience frequent sleep spindles. And spindles don't come and go based on what you eat for dinner or whether you're anxious about
something happening tomorrow. A person sleep spindle production is likely to be static across time. How to sleep spindles accomplish this enviable feat of blocking noise. These spindles are produced in the portion of the brain called the thalamus, which is the area that all sound and sensory information must visit before being farmed out. Researchers think these spindles, these spikes of neural activity actually run into the sounds and
block them from waking a person up. Since sleep spindles are more common during R E M sleep, they're most successful at completing this task during such phases. One study out of Korea used optogenetics, that's control of both light and gene expression to influence sleep spindle production in mice. The scientists found that an increase in sleep spindles was correlated with an increase in n R E M sleep
a k A deep sleep. Thus, they concluded that effective modulation of sleep spindles could actually hold the key for curing patients with sleep issues, though further research is required. No one knows for sure why some people have rock star sleep spindles while others suffer through the curse of light sleeping. But it is often the change in sound rather the sound itself that wakes up the brain. And although you can get a white noise effect from a sound machine or even a m radio static a fan
has the extra advantage of cooling you down. Notes Dr Kevin Gaffney, a neurologist and sleep medical director at the Emissioner Neuroscience Center. He told us your normal body temperature of point eight degrees not nine point six, drops by one to two degrees at night. If you have to struggle to lower your body temperature, this can decrease your sleep quality. Yeah. Today's episode was written by Alia Hot
and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other brainy topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com