Music and sleep: Ideas for a healthy routine

What type of music should you listen to before sleeping?

During the day, you may be used to listening to pop, rock or energetic music to help with productivity. These types of music are particularly stimulating on the brain. John Hopkins Medicine states that listening to music can reduce anxiety, stress and even blood pressure. Music can also improve mood, alertness and memory in individuals. 

This is also concluded through a study by the Journal of American Geriatrics Society, which states that adults who listened to calming music experienced a better quality sleep than those who listened to more upbeat music. 

There are certain types of music that you may find helpful to listen to before sleep. These include jazz, soothing instrumental music and nature sounds. These styles of music and sounds are recommended due to their consistent rhythms. 

This can ensure your brain doesn’t become stimulated by loud sounds, helping you sleep better. These genres of music can also increase dopamine and serotonin levels. This can improve your sleep health by increasing the production of melatonin and helping to relax you.

Other sleep-inducing sounds

It’s not just music that can help you sleep, but also certain sounds. Those synonymous with sleep include brown noise, white noise and ASMR. ASMR is often used as an easily accessible relaxation inducer. The National Library of Medicine states that ASMR has been proven to reduce stress. 

Brown and white noise have been accredited for their ability to aid in sleep. People are also turning to something known as ‘pink noise’ too. WebMD explains the difference between white, brown and pink noise and their effects. These effects include induced sleep and tuning out unwanted background noise, which can be an effect of all three. 

Music to help you sleep

Here we will list some playlists that are specifically designed to help you sleep. These include brown and white noise and classical music. There are also songs that are slowed down or have a more consistent melody. 

These are normally the ones people choose for pre-sleep music. You can also train your brain to feel sleepy at the same time each night by conditioning yourself to associate music with sleep. Did you know that listening to calming music before sleep can also reduce cortisol levels? Cortisol is known to promote wakefulness, so decreasing it allows for better sleep.

You might want to think about listening to calming sounds rather than reaching for your phone or TV remote. Doing this can have a more positive effect on your sleep quality, as the stimulating and distracting blue light emitted from screens can negatively affect your sleep quality. This happens by melatonin being suppressed by blue light, causing sleep to be negatively impacted. We’d recommend a wind down routine that includes music. 

This can be easily integrated into your usual routine by omitting a task and replacing it with music time, which can be at the same time each night. Do this for a few nights and see how your sleep pattern changes for the better. 

Please be aware that using headphones before sleeping can disturb your sleep and can potentially increase the risk of ear infections. This is due to headphones trapping bacteria in your ear and disrupting the air circulation. 

In order to create a music sleep routine, we’d recommend listening to these playlists listed below. There are plenty of other ones to listen to as well, from classical music playlists to nature sounds. You’ll want to think about winding down around an hour before you sleep. So, you could spend thirty minutes getting ready for bed, and thirty minutes listening to  music or sounds. 

Relaxing music for sleep

If you’re wanting to find some relaxing night-time tunes, why not try this Fall Asleep Music playlist? Browse through the songs and see which one works best for you! You can also check out this Music That Will Put You To Sleep playlist for an alternative selection!

This ASMR Sleep Playlist is perfect for those of us who are a little more experimental with the methods we use to fall asleep. ASMR may not work as well for you, but have a listen and see if you find yourself getting sleepy. 

If you’re interested in the hype surrounding brown or white noise, we recommend listening to this Brown Noise Playlist. Alternatively, give this White Noise Playlist a listen and see which works best for you!