Is listening to music before bedtime good for your sleep?

A long and tight night's sleep is essential both for our body to function well the day after but also to avoid long term problems with our health.

Music can be a great ally in our bedtime routine and helps us sleep well.

The physical reasons

By listening to the slower pace and harmony of certain classical music, our heart rate slows down a little, leading to lower blood pressure and deeper breathing. Pieces with a rhythm of 60 to 80 beats-per-minute are particularly good, as they encourage your breathing to match. Music such as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or Debussy's Claire de Lune are therefore more suitable than music such as Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. 

The psychological reasons

Classical music also has the power to bring the mind into a state of peace. When our life is particularly hectic, it can be difficult to break away from thoughts and worries. Classical music reduces tension in both the body and the mind.

The proof of the pudding…

The Institute of Behavioral Sciences in Hungary has done research into the influence of our pre-bedtime activities on the quality of our sleep. In the course of the experiment one group of people listened to classical music for almost an hour before going to sleep, one group listened to an audiobook, and one group did nothing at all. 

The conclusion was that the quality of sleep was drastically improved in the group which listened to music in comparison to the other two groups. The leading physician of the experiment even suggested to prescribe classical music as a possible method of treating insomnia, a condition which currently affects almost one in ten of people in the world.