Is it the noise that keeps me up on a typhoon night?
I recorded one night of my own during typhoon season. Loud sound lasted 6 minutes, peaking at 07:48, and I do not write about the cause.
When a typhoon gets close
When a typhoon gets close, there are nights that just feel lighter to sleep through. I can never quite tell whether it is the wind and rain I am reacting to, or the pressure itself.
Every time I hear "you cannot sleep on a typhoon night," I wonder whether the cause is the noise or something else in how my body feels. What I feel and what is actually making noise in the room are not necessarily the same thing.
The rain and the wind shaking the window keep coming in from outside the whole time. Separately from that, there is also a heavy, sluggish feeling in the body. When both arrive together, I cannot tell on my own which one made the sleep lighter.
Checking it is mostly a matter of recording the night itself; that is the only way I have found so far. I see the same kind of posts every year around typhoon season, so I am probably not the only one who notices it.
So I recorded one night of my own during this stretch of the season, with the phone left in its usual spot. It needs no special preparation.
What was left from the night of September 24
On the night of September 24 I recorded for 9 hours and 18 minutes. What was left on the morning screen: loud sound for 6 minutes, peaking at 07:48. How I felt on waking was "ordinary."
For this night I kept two tags, that I had the humidifier on and that I slept on my back. Adding a tag does not change that night's numbers; it is only a clue for lining up nights later.
I decide the start and end myself with a tap, so the length shifts a little from night to night. That length, 9 hours and 18 minutes, is not far from usual.
The loud minutes came to 6, a small slice of the whole night. The room did not get noticeably louder just because a typhoon was approaching.
The recording ran from 01:05 to 10:23. It was a night with a typhoon approaching, but I have no memory of waking up to any sound from outside the window.
I can put the wind and the pressure beside that night's record on the same date. But this is only one night. I have not gathered several days to compare, so I cannot yet say whether this particular night was different from any other.
Recording and your record are free, always. The sound is sent nowhere. Only the loud stretches are kept.
A method that is just placing the phone
What I actually did was put the phone by my pillow and tap once before sleeping. Screen down, in the usual spot. Recording keeps going after the screen goes dark, and I end it with a long press in the morning.
Sound recorded closer picks up louder, so I keep the spot the same every night: not on the pillow itself, on the small table right beside it. Nothing special: no separate microphone, nothing worn on the body.
The screen before sleep only checks the microphone and the free space. Once that is confirmed, one tap starts the night, and it keeps recording until I end it myself. Being a typhoon night did not mean I did anything differently.
Being asked for microphone permission only happens once. It can be changed later in settings, and without it nothing is recorded and nothing is lost.
What stays, and what does not
Where the sound goes is explained the same way every time, in one sentence: "The sound is sent nowhere. Only the loud stretches are kept." A whole night's sound is not kept as it is; only the loud 6 minutes and the quiet stretch right after it stay on the phone.
The loudest single moment can be played back in my own ears. The second and third loudest are kept too, and I can listen to them in order. Every other minute of sound is never kept at all.
Recording and the record are always free. The recording stays on this phone for 14 nights and the oldest is cleared automatically; there is nothing to delete by hand.
If there is a recording I want gone, I can delete it myself, one at a time. Leave it alone, and the oldest ones simply clear themselves.
What about tonight
I have only placed that night's wind and pressure beside that night's record. I am not saying it is the cause. Whether the typhoon was the reason I could not sleep is not something this one record can say.
What I can say is that my own night of September 24 was loud for 6 minutes. Each time this season comes back around, I plan to put the phone in the same spot and line up a few more nights.
The typhoon news can tell me the wind speed and the storm's path in detail. What it cannot tell me is what was actually sounding in my own room.
Whether it is the noise or some other reason, I do not know yet. What I do have is the record of what was actually sounding in the room that night.
Tonight, is the sound in your own room the same as usual? The answer is not in the forecast. It is in your own record tomorrow morning.
For anything about treatment or making it stop, a doctor is the surest person to ask. All Nagi can do is record the night's sound so you can hear back, in the morning, how long it was loud and when it peaked. No verdicts, only the record.