I was hoping this article would be about smaller &quot;microinterruptions&quot; as opposed to 20 minute &quot;active interruptions&quot;. I recently moved to NYC and I feel that my quality of sleep has decreased compared to when I lived elsewhere. I&#x27;m certain it has to do with noise-related interruptions throughout the night.<p>I was woken up briefly twice tonight, once by my flatmates returning home and talking to each other and again by the heating pipes clanging as I live in a prewar and the steam boiler turns on at 5 every morning. I also imagine the train noise from the Metro  North&#x2F;other outside vehicle noise has an effect I&#x27;m not aware of.<p>If anyone has studies about optimizing sleep quality given these kinds of conditions, I would be very interested to read about it.