Health and Wellness

Does Music and Sound Truly Help You Sleep Better?

By Sucharitha Venkatesh

With the constant flow of thoughts in your mind, it may be difficult to unwind and sleep restfully. This is where sleep music or sounds of nature can help your mind quiet down and allow your body to be in its restful state. Music and sleep are a blend that can heal your body, mind, and emotions in powerful ways.

Sleep music is soothing and ambient music that plays in the background. Sounds of nature can often be sounds of wind, ocean, or rain. These kinds of music promote your mind to connect with yourself better while preventing yourself from thinking of anything unpleasant. Sleep music is perfect for anyone and of any age group as this is a non-invasive and reliable way of improving your sleep quality. Moreover, sleep music can also help you combat sleep disorders such as insomnia.

How sleep music and sounds of nature can help you sleep better?

Music turns away your attention from rumination and focuses on sleep. Since music can break the cycle of rumination, it prevents your mind from engaging in overthinking, negative thinking, fears, stress, and anxiety. The focus is solely centred on the present time and on relaxing your mind.

Music or sounds of nature have ways to reach your subconscious mind and stimulate healing effects for your body. For example, if your body is experiencing pain and as a result, you are unable to sleep peacefully; listening to sleep music can allow your mind to divert its attention from the pain and hence promote restful sleep.

Did you know? To promote faster recovery of soldiers after WWII, musicians were brought to US hospitals for both physical as well as emotional trauma healing. Hence, music has been an integral part of health and healing since ancient times (Breus, 2018).

There are many such instances in life where sleep music can help you sleep better; in the following section, we can look at some research-based benefits.

Scientifically backed benefits of music or sounds of nature on sleep

Sleep Quality

Sleep music will slow your breathing rate and heart rate, allowing your body to be at its most relaxed state. These two processes consequently slow down your nervous system, which promotes better sleep quality for you. This means you no longer have to experience restless sleep or a prolonged wakeful state. When your sleep quality is improved, you will be more energized upon waking up (Breus, 2018).

Happiness and improved quality of dreams

Sleep music has also been shown to promote the production of oxytocin and serotonin levels. These hormones induce happiness and make you feel pleasant. Thus, you can experience more restful sleep and better quality of dreams with soothing sleep music. It is an effective way to combat recurring nightmares (Sleep advisor, 2020).

Combating insomnia

Sleep music reduces the production of sleep-stifling hormones, such as cortisol. This allows your body to fall asleep easily and experience a proper sleep cycle. Hence, you will no longer experience difficulty in falling asleep (Breus, 2018).

Reduces overthinking

Sleep music is highly effective in lowering worries and mood disorders. It stops your brain from thinking about the past or your day and redirects your focus to the present. While promoting relaxation, sleep music, or sounds of nature help you fall asleep and enjoy a restful sleep. This is a widely-used therapeutic approach to healing depression and anxieties (Sleep advisor, 2020).

Reduces stress

Stress is an inherent part of our lives; learning to manage stress is essential for our health. Sleep music is one such way you can reduce stress. It distracts your mind from ongoing worries and induces pleasant thoughts, thereby reducing stress and worries of the day (Breus, 2018).

Helps you sleep in pain

Falling asleep when you are pain is a difficult task, but sleep music has shown to make this process easier. A meta-analysis of 70 research studies revealed that listening to music after surgery reduced the pain and reliance on pain medications for patients (Breus, 2018).

Creativity and productivity boost

Lastly, sleep music has been shown to improve your performance in daily life. It stimulates your creativity, productivity, memory, and stamina (Breus, 2018).

Sleep music or sounds of nature induces appropriate hormones for sleep and stimulates regions of your brain for improved relaxation. These benefits culminate into a restful sleep, deep sleep, combating insomnia, improved quality of dreams, and better energy levels upon waking up.

Thus, with continued use of sleep music, you will begin to notice that you are more energetic, happier, and positive. You will see that your anxieties, fears, stress, and overthinking patterns are starting to diminish and are being replaced by more optimism and happiness. This consequently will help your body, mind, and emotions be in a perfectly aligned state.

Now that you know all the wonderful benefits of sleep music or nature sounds on your sleep, you can incorporate this into your life. All you need to do is find a reliable sleep music channel such as www.calmradio.com and select the music that you find soothing. Play this sleep music every night for deep and restful sleep.

Listening to sleep music is super simple and the most therapeutic way to keep your mind and body energized and healthy! Begin now and witness these benefits for yourself!

References

Breus, M. (2018). The Many Health and Sleep Benefits Of Music. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sleep-newzzz/201812/the-many-health-and-sleep-benefits-music [Accessed 25 August 2020].
Sleep Advisor (2020). Effects of Listening to Music While Sleeping – Is It Bad? Available at: https://www.sleepadvisor.org/listening-to-music-while-sleeping/ [Accessed 25 August 2020].

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