Lullabies for Adults: How Music Could Help You Sleep
By Samuel Harley
Feeling sleepy? Clair de Lune, a masterpiece for solo piano by Claude DeBussy, is often cited as one of the best pieces of music to fall asleep to. Why is it that some people like to listen to music as they fall asleep? At first glance, the answer to this question may seem rather obvious — certain types of music can be calming, allowing one to slow their heart rate, breathing, and thoughts, thus making it easier for them to gradually fall asleep. But what particular qualities of music achieve this most successfully, and how many people actually use music in this way on a regular basis? Researchers from three separate UK Universities came together to seek out more information on how people use music to help themselves sleep (1).
In today’s productivity-valuing society, sleep problems are becoming more prevalent than ever before recorded (2). Loss of sleep, even for a single night, has been linked to increased rates of depression, driving accident rates, and short-term memory impairment (3). Longer term sleep loss can have even more disastrous effects, being linked to reduced cognitive speed and efficiency, obesity, diabetes, and dementia among many other things (4,5,6). As a result of this epidemic, the use of pharmaceutical sleep aids has become increasingly common, which comes with a host of negative side effects (7). Because sleep loss and disturbances are known to be strongly linked to stress, music serves as a potential answer to this problem, in that music is known to reduce anxiety, regulate mood and arousal, and decrease negative thoughts (8,9,10).
By collecting data through an online survey report over the course of two years, researcher Tabitha Trahan and colleagues discovered a great deal about how and why individuals are currently using music to aid their sleep (1). The survey targeted the general public and received a sizable 651 responses. The average participant was 33 years old, with a range of 18–79 years of age, and around 80% of participants came from the UK. The survey asked participants questions to gauge their musicality, sleep habits, and perceived reasons as to what music helps and why.
The survey found that 62% of participants use music to help them sleep, and they reported using music that spans 14 musical genres comprising over 500 artists. The sleep quality of participants was found to be linked to their age, levels of stress, and use of music. This means being young, experiencing lower amounts of stress, and using music to help aid sleep were all associated with a higher quality of sleep. Additionally, the respondents who were most likely to use music to aid their sleep were younger people with higher musical engagement.
But why is this music helping people to sleep, exactly? These same researchers analyzed responses from participants and found four themes that best describe why people believe music is helping them to sleep:
1. Music has unique properties that help stimulate sleep
2. Music is part of a normal sleep routine, making it habitual
3. Music induces a physical and mental state conducive to sleep
4. Music distracts listeners, blocking out sounds that are disruptive to sleep
These effects of music were reported by respondents to explain why they believe music helps them sleep. In regards to exactly what type of music helps induce sleep, the following genres were reported:
While the amount of people who prefer falling asleep to classical music is certainly large, it was more so found that these choices aligned with the person’s preferences rather than any consistent musical structure.
This research helps us to better understand how music is used by individuals to aid them in sleep, why they use it, and what music works for them. We see that music is used as a sleep aid most commonly in younger, musically-oriented individuals for a variety of reasons, and that the music used is best linked to the preferences of the individual. Through answering these questions, researchers are now better able to tackle the greater issues of whether or not music actually has the power to cause us to sleep better, and what qualities of music best accomplish this effect. Once these key questions are answered, this research may be able to help millions of people living with sleep loss or disturbances without the immediate use of powerful, potentially-harmful sleep aid drugs.
Listening to Claire de Lune, I feel an immense calm fall over me. The soft, rolling bass line and the rise and fall of both the melody and its loudness are reminiscent of a rocking motion, lulling listeners into another world- one that is darker, quieter, and radiates peace. So many pieces of music- particularly classical music- bring me to this place. Perhaps one of the songs below will bring you there too: (enjoy!)
References:
1. Trahan, T., Durrant, S., Müllensiefen, D., & Williamson, V. (2018). The music that helps people sleep and the reasons they believe it works: A mixed methods analysis of online survey reports. PLoS One 13(11).
2. CDC. Insufficient Sleep Is a Public Health Epidemic [Internet]. CDCFeatures: Data & Statistics. 2014.
3. Chee, M. W. L., & Chuah, Y. M. L. (2007). Functional neuroimaging and behavioral correlates of capacity decline in visual short-term memory after sleep deprivation. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(22), 9487–9492.
4. Lowe, C. J., Safati, A., & Hall, P. A. (2017). The neurocognitive consequences of sleep restriction: A meta-analytic review. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 80, 586–604.
5. Knutson, K. L., & Van Cauter, E. (2008). Associations between sleep loss and increased risk of obesity and diabetes. In D. W. Pfaff & B. L. Kieffer (Eds.), Molecular and biophysical mechanisms of arousal, alertness, and attention. (Vol. 1129, pp. 287–304).
6. Spira, A. P., Chen-Edinboro, L. P., Wu, M. N., & Yaffe, K. (2014). Impact of sleep on the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 27(6), 478–483.
7. Ford, E. S., Wheaton, A. G., Cunningham, T. J., Giles, W. H., Chapman, D. P., & Croft, J. B. (2014). Trends in outpatient visits for insomnia, sleep apnea, and prescriptions for sleep medications among US adults: Findings from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey 1999–2010. Sleep: Journal of Sleep and Sleep Disorders Research, 37(8), 1283–1293.
8. Koelsch, S., Boehlig, A., Hohenadel, M., Nitsche, I., Bauer, K., Sack, U. (2016). The impact of acute stress on hormones and cytokines, and how their recovery is affected by music-evoked positive mood. Sci Rep 6(23008).
9. Linnemann, A., Ditzen, B., Strahler, J., Doerr, J. M., & Nater, U. M. (2015). Music listening as a means of stress reduction in daily life. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 60, 82–90.
10. Thoma, M. V., la Marca, R., Brönnimann, R., Finkel, L., Ehlert, U., & Nater, U. M. (2013). The effect of music on the human stress response. PLoS ONE, 8(8).
11. Picture: https://www.readersdigest.ca/culture/sleep-music-songs-science/
