Listening To Music Before Bed May Disrupt Sleep
Whereas you’d dream blissfully listening to Tchaikovsky, your spouse would prefer Metallica’s greatest hits. Different types of songs can also alter our body chemistry and hormone levels. For example, listening to pleasant tunes can boost serotonin levels, which makes us happy.
One study found that music can improve sleep quality within three weeks. In the first place and as already noted, we are unable to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of music on sleep physiology and underlying sleep mechanisms based on survey results alone. The second limitation is that, due to the nature of the online survey, the subject matter and the methods of recruitment, we observed some sample bias in age, with a disproportionately high number of young respondents. However, we did see a broad range of participants with our youngest participants being 18 years old, and our oldest being 79 years old. This limitation means that the proportion of music users is likely to be over-estimated within the survey, though without any additional sources of information, it is impossible to know by how much.
The autonomic nervous system is part of your body’s natural system for relaxing music controlling automatic or unconscious processes, including those within the heart, lungs, and digestive system. Music improves sleep through calming parts of the autonomic nervous system, leading to slower breathing, lower heart rate, and reduced blood pressure. Get into the habit of listening to appropriate music each night once the lights have been dimmed – or switched off. As suggested above, studies have shown that a tempo close to that of your heartbeat works well, particularly if it slows down slightly over the piece. Your mind and body will become used to associating such things with sleep.
Listening to calming music at bedtime improved sleep quality in older adults, and calming music was much better at improving sleep quality than rhythmic music. The researchers said that calming music may improve sleep by slowing your heart rate and breathing, and lowering your blood pressure. As per studies, slow music or classical music is more relaxing that can help you sleep. Classical music or instrumental music can help slow the pulse and decrease levels of stress hormones.
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