Bedtime is now big business with startups and playlists springing up to lull you back to sleep
There are 1.8 million user-generated playlists on Spotify with the word “sleep” in the title
Sleep playlists on Spotify are becoming the go-to destination for insomniacs: more than three million people are listening to them every night on the music-streaming service, making it one of its most popular genres. Such high demand for soporific songs is prompting the creation of original works centred around sleep.
From British composer Max Richter’s eight-hour composition “Sleep” (described by Richter as “an experiment into how music and the mind can interact in this other state of consciousness”) to Thom Yorke’s “Radiohead Bedtime Mix” for Radio 1 and Jon Hopkins’ 2015 Late Night Tales mix album, artists of all genres are embracing songs to snooze to.
And where there’s a trend, there’s money: the market for sleep aids in 2013 was worth £41.7 billion according to BCC Research, and this is expected to rise to £57bn by 2019. Countless insomnia startups have sprung up in recent years, hoping to crack the issue – from cognitive behavioural therapy options such as Sleepio, which has its own music function, to wearables that vibrate when you snore and headphones with EEG brainwave sensors.
Let’s skirt over the smartphone’s detrimental role: studies have shown that the blue light emitted from screens disrupts the body’s circadian rhythms, making a good night’s rest more elusive. Software such as Apple’s Night Shift mode helps, but perhaps the real solution is an early bedtime for our devices.
