One of the best ways I find to fall asleep is listening to relaxing music. Of course, not everyone has the same taste in music.
For me, some easy ambient new age music is wonderful. I also love the sounds of rain or ocean waves.
Here are some factors in finding appropriate music to sleep to?
1) The pace or tempo of the music to sleep to is important because if it is too fast or too slow, it could have a reverse affect of what you are trying to obtain. Music that is too slow could allow your mind to wander. On the other hand, music that is fast may actually speed up your nervous system. An example would be to think about music to workout to versus music for a massage.
2) The volume level of the music is critical. If it is too soft and external noises such as cars going by on the street can be heard, they could actually drown out the music and keep you awake. If the music is too loud, it could literally blast you out of bed because your sense of sound increases as you drift off into relaxation and sleep.
3) Peaks in the music that you are playing or sudden bursts of sound from notes in the song could actually be a distraction or startle you from becoming relaxed and falling asleep. Think of a door being slammed hard when you are just drifting off to sleep. Most likely it would not be a sound you would want to hear.
4) Talking in music to sleep to can be welcomed to some and a distraction to others. I have one CD that I love listening to but the bad part of this CD is that the artist decided to add a track at the end that has some talking in it. Imagine that you are almost drifting off to sleep and then talking starts waking.
5) Guided Meditations are a wonderful thing to listen to and if you can set them up in a play list where they play once, than it moves on to other music, this would be the ideal thing to do. For some people though, having anyone talk while you are trying to sleep is difficult. Once again, it depends upon what works for you.
6) White noise can be very good to use for music to sleep to because it helps drown out external noises. If you live in an area where external noises are a problem or if you just can’t sleep with too much silence, try some white noise such as ocean wave sounds.
7) Find music that is calming to your mind so that you don’t have to think about it. It should just allow your mind to drift off and your body to relax.
8) The speakers or system you use to play your music all night needs to be adequate to serve this purpose. Having clear sound with the appropriate volume levels is critical to have music to sleep to. Often times this ambient music is more delicate in nature so if you have poor speakers, you might pick up part of the sounds which would make the music to sleep to off balance in your brain.
9) Sometimes it might be helpful to create a playlist with faster paced music at the beginning and then as the songs go, the tempo of them would slow down. By doing this, it may match your body where you might be more energized just before going to bed but as you allow your body to relax and fall asleep, it slows down. The goal is to match the body rhythm so it takes you from your current state into a slower and more relaxed state gradually.
10) Music that gets into a repetitious melody or pattern potentially could interrupt your deeper sleep and dream process. What your ear and brain hear is what it will entrain to through the night. Be careful in the the music you pick because you want to enhance your sleep, rather than interrupting yourself at night.
Here are some songs that I include on my personal playlist when I want to relax and sleep! Each one is available on iTunes, Amazon, and many other online digital music sites.
1) Relaxing Ocean Wave Sounds
2) Massage Music
3) Relaxing Spa Music
