Nod off with bedtime stories for grown-ups
And other surprising ways your phone can help you go to sleep
EVEN when you’re dog-tired, switching off at the end of the day can be difficult. And anxiety over the coronavirus pandemic has made it a lot more challenging.
While it isn’t easy to quiet a fretful mind – particularly when many of our worries are genuine and justified because of the crisis all around us – there are a wealth of tranquillity-inducing podcasts available for your mobile phone to help you drift off.
Whether it’s whispered conversation, bedtime stories or white noise that soothes you, it’s all there to download and help get you to the land of nod.
So why and how do these podcasts work (or not)?
Dr Neil Stanley, an independent sleep expert who works with Sleepstation and The Sleep Council, says: ‘Some people do have soothing voices and are easy to drift off to.’
Dr Stanley, author of How To Sleep Well, adds: ‘Some people live next to the sea, so listening to the waves crash is a good sound to fall asleep to, because it’s their everyday sound.
‘If you live in the midlands, your brain would probably be thinking, “What’s happening here? Are we being flooded?” ’
Essentially, any sound or topic of conversion you perceive as negative or which taps into your internal fears will keep you alert.
Dr Stanley says: ‘It’s about the context.
‘If a sound is meaningful and perceived as a threat, or odd so you have to listen because you don’t know what it is – that’s a problem. You won’t be able to fall asleep to that sound. If you can basically ignore it, then it’s OK.’
Choosing the best dream-inducing podcasts isn’t easy but, having slept on it, here are my top five.
ICE CREAM DREAMS
Sleep With Me: The Podcast That Puts You To Sleep by Drew ‘Scooter’ Ackerman, sleepwithmepodcast.com
THIS describes itself as ‘a silly bedtime story podcast for grownups’, with more than 870 episodes to choose from. Millions of people download them for free every month.
I plumped for It All Started With An Ice Cream Bar, ‘a bedtime story of how an heir to an ice cream fortune helps a friend’. I snuggle down, with one earphone in, and the volume low. At first, I’m bemused. Drew is an affable American with a chewy accent, rambling on about an ice cream bar that’s also a debate club, but also stumbling and leaving many sentences unfinished.
I’m vaguely aware he’s half talking nonsense.
I can’t quite follow his point and nor can he. He keeps darting off on tangents, remembering things he’s forgotten. It’s all very pleasant, and not nearly as annoying as it should be. The next thing I know, I’m surfacing from sleep to pull the earphone out my ear.
The following morning, I’m able to appreciate the cleverness of this podcast and its ‘trapezoidal logic’. Your brain can’t focus, so it stops trying and you drift off.
CLASSIC CALMER
Sleepy, sleepyradio.com
THERE’S an excellent choice of bedtime-story podcasts out there. If you prefer a female narrator, you might try Scare You To Sleep – some deliciously spooky stories, sent in by listeners, not always perfectly plotted, but conducive to feeling snug and safe under the covers. However, I’ve chosen Sleepy, because the stories are classics – Black Beauty, Peter Pan, The Little Princess – and to be read your childhood favourites in midlife, it turns out, is a treat.
Deep-voiced host Otis Gray, a
New York radio producer, has an expressive yet understated delivery and I’m rapt. My only problem is that I remain awake from sheer excitement.
But, after 25 minutes of The Little Princess, vivid and spellbinding though it is, I’m sleepy (as it says on the tin). I reluctantly turn it off. Sleep comes as easily as it did when I was ten.
PURRFECT CAT NAP
Sleep and Relax ASMR, sleepandrelaxasmr.com/
THIS wins a place because so many people find this podcast a catalyst to sleep. For me, however, the ambient sound of waves, a street pub in Rio or a Parisian café leaves me crossly awake, provoking no autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR).
This is the technical term for ‘brain tingles’, a deliciously relaxing sensation that some people experience when hearing tapping or whispering.
I try a Deep Sleep Meditation, but find the detailed instructions wearying in a non-drowsy sense. Bubble Wrap Popping sounds like fireworks going off.
A whispered ASMaRticle – on the English Parliament of 1327 – is more the ticket. As is an episode on The Definitive Guide Of Cat Breeds. While I rarely tire of cat talk, the host’s waffle sends me to sleep after a while.
A podcast with something for everyone, eventually.
CARELESS WHISPER
Sleep Whispers, sleep whispers.com
THIS podcast, hosted by ‘Whispering Harris’, is so effective that it takes me six attempts to review it.
His podcasts include stories, trivia, chat and readings of Wikipedia pages. The soft sibilance of his words seems to tickle and stroke the inside of my head.
It’s a physical sensation, as well as emotional – he’s chatting yet shhh-ing you to sleep. I realise it’s triggering ASMR.
Very quickly, his whisper felt hypnotic, and helped me to conk out at night, overriding any internal chatter.
When I rose at 4.30am to let the cat out, which usually leaves me wide awake till six, Harris gently soothed me back to sleep.
RIGHT AS RAIN
Atmosphonic: Sounds to help you sleep, atmosphonic.net
THERE are only 18 episodes of this podcast; simply hour-long recordings of the Brighton tide or Lowestoft waves, for instance. No host, no chat (if there is I didn’t manage to stay awake that long.) There’s an afternoon thunderstorm recorded in Hertfordshire, and morning birds from a garden in Lincolnshire. However, it’s not all nature – one episode is entitled The Old Radiator.
And there are recordings from further afield, such as the sound of the fast-moving water of the Urrioafoss Falls in Iceland.
I found Inside A Car, In The Rain every bit as effective as a lullaby. And this is key – what you find soporific is familiar.
And what could be more familiar for listeners in Ireland and the UK than listening to the rain. But whatever it is, rest assured, you will certainly find a bedtime podcast that suits.