There is something rather lovely in finding that, as adults, we still choose to send ourselves to sleep with a lullaby – even if it is more likely to be Ed Sheeran’s hit Galway Girl than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
A new study by researchers at the University of Sheffield, published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, sought to discover how people use music to help them get to sleep. Of the 651 respondents, 62% reported listening to music to drop off, claiming they believed that it stimulated sleep and allowed them to shut out external distractions.
It also revealed a diverse range of choices, with respondents citing 545 artists from 14 genres, with Sheeran one of the most often referenced, along with Bach, Mozart, Brian Eno, Coldplay and Chopin.
The physiological and psychological effects of music in lulling us to sleep is not wholly understood, although we know it works on the parasympathetic nervous system and can lower heart and respiration rates, as well as blood pressure.
For those wishing to take up music as a sleep aid, it can take around three weeks to achieve its full effect. The Sleep Foundation, a US not-for-profit organisation that promotes understanding of sleep and sleep disorders, also recommends choosing a style of music that is familiar to you, and preferably one that is relatively slow – around 60 to 80 beats a minute.
Some music has been specifically devised for sleep. In 2015, composer Max Richter released Sleep, an album of compositions for strings, organ, vocals, synths and electronics, running at eight and a half hours in length and developed with David Eagleman, a neuroscientist.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
