"Deep sleep is critical to maintaining a robust memory but both decline with age. A small new study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience suggests that one easy way for older adults to get deeper sleep and stronger memories is to listen to a certain soothing sound called pink noisea mix of high and low frequencies that sounds more balanced and natural than its betterknown cousin white noise. It may sound strange but previous studies have found that playing socalled pink noise during sleep improves the memory of younger adults. We wanted to see if it would work in older people too says senior author Dr. Phyllis Zee professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Older people tend to get less slowwave sleep and are at greater risk for memory impairment. Zee and her fellow researchers had  adults ages  and older spend two nights in a sleep lab. On both nights the participants took a memory test at night went to sleep wearing headphones and an electrode cap and repeated the memory test in the morning. On one of those nights headphoneclad participants were played a series of short bursts of pink noise during deep sleep spaced out enough to prevent the brain from getting used to and ignoring them. The noise is fairly pleasant it kind of resembles a rush of water says Zee. Its just noticeable enough that the brain realizes its there but not enough to disturb sleep. The sounds were timed to match their slowwave oscillations. No noise was played during the other night. Heres what pink noise sounded like to study participants in the box below. After analyzing everyones sleep waves the team found that peoples slowwave oscillations increased on the nights punctuated by pink noise. Come morning people who had listened to it performed three times better on memory tests than they had the other night. On the nights without the noise memory recall did not improve as much. Northwestern has a patent pending on the new technology and one of the study authors has cofounded a company that plans to market it commercially. But first says Zee larger and longer studies are needed to confirm the findings and show that there are benefits to longterm use rather than on just one night. The researchers hope to develop an affordable device that people can use at home. Zee says that the effectiveness of pink noise is all in the timing. The effect here at least for memory is quite related to the ability of the sound stimulus to enhance slowwave sleep she says. Thats very much tied to what part of the slow wave the stimulus is hitting on. That doesnt mean there arent benefits to other soothing background sounds. Music nature sounds and white or pink noise apps may still help improve sleep she sayswhich in itself is good for the body and for the brain."