The Top 10 Podcasts for Restful Sleep
One of the most underreported losses in today’s frenzied world is quality sleep.
If you are one of the more than 30% of adults experiencing insomnia, it might help to reframe your ideas about sleep. Sleep can be a practice, just like meditation, making music, working out, or writing. Committing to a peaceful nighttime routine can greatly increase your chances of falling and staying asleep, but brewing a warm cup of tea and dimming the lights can only go so far. If you need an extra push to finally pass out, audio cues can nudge you across the finish line. Here are our ten favorite podcasts for slipping into a soothing, restful sleep state.
This podcast specializes in bedtime sleep meditations, bedtime stories and daytime meditations including mindfulness and self care.
Tracks to Relax
The quintessential podcast for guided sleep meditations, Tracks to Relax is an encyclopedia of soothing audios for slowing down both body and mind. Choose from nature visualizations, bedtime stories, calming affirmations, and sleep hypnosis episodes, all uttered in the deep, rich voice of certified hypnotist and NLP practitioner, Alan Crossley, who uses neuro-linguistic techniques to ease you into sleep.
An antidote to today’s frenzied world. Step back, let go, immerse yourself: it’s time to go slow.A lo-fi celebration of pure sound.
Slow Radio
This highly-acclaimed segment from the BBC brings a diverse array of soothing lo-fi audio elements into one place. From nature sounds like ocean waves and signal fires to the utterly manmade sounds of cider making, Slow Radio brings everything off the beaten path to your eardrums. Think of it as a more sophisticated form of white noise.
Sleep meditation and stories Podcast
Get Sleepy
For a more narrative-driven approach to your wind-down, try Get Sleepy, a series of guided meditations and relaxing stories from Slumber Studios, the only professional recording studio dedicated solely to sleep. With episode titles like “Sunset on Coral Isle” and “Dreams of Pastry in Paris,” you know this show will have you floating away to your happy place.
Twice-monthly community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, where every conspiracy theory is true.
Welcome to Night Vale
One of the zanier and better-composed podcasts out there today, Welcome to Night Vale takes you through the news of the day in a surreal, fictional town with a totally different range of possibilities from our own. You’ll hear about secret art showings in the Whispering Forest and Mandatory Annual Spring Cleaning Day, but most importantly for active, analytical thinkers, you’ll let go of your ties to logic, helping your brain relax and doze off after a busy day.
Insomnia? Mind racing at night? Worries keeping you up? Tune in for a bedtime story that lets you forget your problems and progressively gets more boring until you fall to sleep.
Sleep With Me
Sleep with Me is another strange, narrative-driven podcast with a unique premise: the narrator tries to make the story more and more boring as it progresses. By turning the core tenet of storytelling upside down, fictional host Dearest Scooter keeps your brain occupied while letting it know it doesn’t have to pay attention. It works like late-night trash TV, but without all the sleep-harming light.
The Matt Walker Podcast is all about sleep, the brain, and the body.
The Matt Walker Podcast
If better understanding the science of sleep would help you take better care of it, try this enlightening podcast from one of the world’s leading researchers on the subject. Matt Walker is the author of the New York Times best seller, Why We Sleep, as well as a professor of neuroscience at UC Berkeley. Sleep science is a bit dull for you? Let it bore you to sleep!
Your poetry ritual: An immersive reading of a single poem, guided by Pádraig Ó Tuama.
Poetry Unbound
Not technically a sleep podcast, but still sleep-inducing in its own right, On Being Studios’s Poetry Unbound features a collection of hand-picked poems from some of the world’s leading poets, read and analyzed by acclaimed Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama. While the poetry itself is quite riveting, the tone and rhythm of the poems, along with Pádraig’s reading voice, could put an angry giant to bed. Try it with an herbal tea. A cup and a poem each evening could make for a stellar destressing routine.
Music for Sleep, Meditation, Yoga and Studying By Jim Butler
Deep Energy Podcast
No words here! Just ambient sounds and music created specifically for sleep and meditation by longtime New Age musician Jim Butler. One of the most popular original music podcasts in the world, Deep Energy offers a library of dreamy atmospheric music, often accompanied by seasonal nature sounds. Our tip: skip over the ads in the beginning to fully enjoy the gorgeous ambiance offerings.
Sleep and Relax ASMR is a weekly podcast that creates audio experiences designed to help people sleep and relax.
Sleep and Relax ASMR
Looking for sleep sounds and ASMR audios? Look no further. Rain, thunder, waves, whispers, white noise, and other soft, soothing sounds will clear your sleepy mind and knock you out before you know it. Nature sounds and ASMR tracks are often used to reduce anxiety, so if you experience racing thoughts or have difficulty with silence, give these a try.
Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis podcast
Sleep Cove
Another great sleep meditation podcast, Sleep Cove offers sleep hypnosis tracks, guided meditations, visualizations, and bedtime stories that will help you get in the zone to fall asleep. From the history of candle making and anxiety-relieving meditations to The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Greek mythology, Sleep Cove is a one-stop-shop for your bedtime ritual.
