If you’ve ever struggled to get to sleep, you’ll know how distressing it can be. Staring at the ceiling unable to drift off doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world – but when it’s 3.30am on a Sunday and you haven’t slept a wink, it can feel catastrophic.

Research has shown that insomnia is on the rise in the UK, with women three times more likely than men to report having trouble sleeping. According to the latest Great British Bedtime Report, more than half of women are kept up at night due to worry and stress, compared to 39% of men – and of those who have trouble sleeping, 57% of women say it affects their energy levels most.

So what’s to be done? By now, you’re probably used to hearing about how technology affects our ability to switch off at the end of the day. But while you should certainly avoid staring into your phone, laptop or tablet screen before bed, your favourite smart device could actually be the key to a successful slumber – if you use it to play a sleep-inducing podcast. 

Today, more and more people are turning to podcasts to them you towards dreamland. One of the world’s most popular and long-running sleep podcasts, Sleep With Me, has been downloaded over 70 million times, while another, Sleep Whispers, receives an average of 8,000 downloads a month.

According to sleep expert Dr Neil Stanley, this is no surprise. “Children like hearing the same bedtime stories again and again,” he says. “It’s enough to distract them from their worries, but they don’t have to fully concentrate. It’s the same for adults.

“If you’re listening to the radio or a podcast, you’re not worrying about your mortgage or your relationship or your job,” he continues. “It distracts your brain from the stresses of the day without you having to pay close attention.”

Dr Stanley explains that you will be “cognitively aroused” by watching a TV programme or browsing Instagram before bed, making it difficult for your brain to switch off.

“It’s true that blue light [from screens] is too stimulating,” he says. “But on the most basic level, if you’ve got your eyes open you’re not falling asleep.”

Podcasts and radio programmes, which don’t provide visual stimuli for our brains to try and process, don’t present this problem – allowing us to lose focus and drift off more easily.

However, Dr Stanley explains that not all is created equal when it comes to bedtime listening.

“Noise is relevant or alerting if it is meaningful,” he says. “So if you’ve got the BBC Radio 4 news on and suddenly they announce that Donald Trump has fired missiles at Syria, your brain will go, ‘Oh I need to listen to this’.”

If you’re looking to be lulled into a peaceful slumber, it’s better to choose podcasts and programmes that you can listen to without “actively engaging” – in much the same way that children listen to bedtime stories with half an ear.

Below, we’ve rounded up 13 of the best podcasts available online to help you wind down and nod off. Sweet dreams.

Game of Drones

In this aptly and hilariously named podcast, sleepy podcast extraordinaire Drew Ackerman (Sleep with Me) uses his signature nonsensical and long winded story telling to recap Game of Thrones episodes.

Don’t ask us how but, in doing so, Ackerman manages to make one of the most exciting and thrilling television shows on the planet into the most soothing drivel you’ve ever heard that will have you drifting off before you know it.

Listen here.

Sleepy

Here’s an example of a podcast that does what it says on the tin. Since March 2018, host Otis Gray has been reading chapters from classic books, poetry and novellas in the hope of helping people drift off.

Gray’s deep, rich baritone is profoundly soothing, and the stories he chooses are so comfortingly familiar that you’ll be out for the count in no time: think Little Women, Peter Pan and The Wind in the Willows. Dreamy.

Listen here.

ASMR Sleep Station

You might already be familiar with the concept of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), or it might be a completely new phenomenon to you. Either way, it’s a seriously big deal on the internet.

In a nutshell, ASMR refers to the sensation of euphoric relaxation experienced by some people when they listen to certain sounds, such as whispering, tapping, hair-brushing and other sensory ‘triggers’. There are literally thousands of ASMR videos on YouTube, often starring pretty, doe-eyed young women whispering conspiratorially into the camera – but given that you shouldn’t be looking at a screen right before bed anyway, we’ll skim over them.

The most popular ASMR podcast is ASMR Sleep Station, which features hour-long episodes that consist solely of a man’s whispering voice, often reading boring Wikipedia pages in their entirety. You’ll either find them transcendently soothing or deeply creepy – but worth a go, eh?

Listen here. 

Desert Island Discs

The iconic Desert Island Discs theme tune alone – all gentle classical strings, soft seagull cries and the sound of waves lapping against a distant shore – is enough to transport us into a dreamy state of reverie. But not every episode of this long-running BBC Radio 4 radio show, in which notable figures select and discuss their favourite songs, will work before bedtime. Loud, fast and unfamiliar music is likely to leave you feeling jangled, so avoid the episodes featuring former party animal Davina McCall (who picks Nineties club anthem Can You Feel It by Todd Terry as one of her tracks) and Caitlin Moran, who favours Madonna’s Vogue.

Instead, dive deep into the Discs archives. The 1965 Marlene Dietrich episode, in which the legendary actor discusses her life and loves in that smoky purr of a voice, is ideal. Much of the music has been cut, meaning that you won’t be jolted awake by any unexpected change in tempo, and it even features the faint white-noise crackle of a real vintage radio.

Also recommended are the episodes featuring Australian-American concert pianist Hephzibah Menuhin (1958), Welsh actor and playwright Emlyn Williams (1955), and the English conductor Isidore Godfrey (1970).

Listen here.

Atmosphonic – Sounds to Help You Sleep

If listening to human voices distracts you from getting some shut-eye, this might be the podcast for you. Each episode is around an hour long, and consists of solely of relaxing sounds recorded live around the UK. Our favourites are ‘Brighton Tide’, which sounds exactly as you’d expect, and ‘The Fountain and the Aviary’, an hour and two minutes of a trickling fountain and softly twittering birds recorded in a garden in Hertfordshire.

Listen here. 

Sleep and Relax ASMR

Like Atmosphonic, this podcast focuses almost entirely on relaxing nature sounds. But Sleep and Relax ASMR’s tranquil audio experiences will make you think you’re actually out in the wilderness. The episode of ‘Footsteps into Winter’, for example, is 25 minutes of the sound of boots crunching softly in deep snow, while ‘The Rowboat’ will lull you into dreams of paddling gently down a river.

Listen here. 

Myths and Legends

This popular podcast is surrounded by a mythology all of its own: the show’s researcher, producer and narrator, Jason Weiser, apparently recorded many early episodes while sitting in his car in Syracuse, New York. It’s now a much slicker operation, but the premise remains the same. Weiser selects a folk tale from times gone by, retells it in his own words, then spends some time digging into the story’s history and meaning.

The breadth of stories Weiser covers is extraordinary, from the original versions of well-known parables (Puss in Boots, Oedipus) to obscure and outlandish fairy stories from far-flung corners of the globe. Particularly lovely are his retelling of a Japanese folk tale about a butterfly that lands on a dying man’s face, and a Chilean story about the smartest woman in the world

A low-key warning: Weiser’s enthusiastic East Coast accent and habit of inserting casual, contemporary phraseology into ancient stories may grate on some British listeners. But if you’re used to the rhetorical tics of broadcasters on This American Life and Serial, you’ll relax right into Myths and Legends.

Listen here.

Sleep With Me: The Podcast That Puts You To Sleep

“Anytime you see a cheese with like, a lot of syllables, right, that’s when you’re like, hmm. I never thought about this until right now. I just walked in, oh, first of all, what if you just walked into some cheese? Depending on if it’s a soft cheese, that could be a problem…”

If you’re struggling to follow the train of thought of the person above, that’s precisely the point. The Sleep With Me podcast consists of surreal, one- to two-hour-long episodes with titles like ‘Project Platypus’, ‘When Dumplings Fly’ and ‘A View to a Kitten’, and each is specifically designed to be so incomprehensible that listeners’ brains simply switch off.

The podcast’s enigmatic, gravelly-voiced narrator Drew Ackerman, aka ‘Dearest Scooter’, is prone to meandering down narrative dead-ends, drifting aimlessly between dull and confusing topics. Listening to him often feels like sitting through a particularly boring university lecture in a surreal dream – in other words, it’s perfect for sending you to sleep.

Listen here.

In Our Time

Another gem from BBC Radio 4, the unabashedly cerebral In Our Time been on the air for almost 30 years. And while it certainly wasn’t designed to send listeners to sleep, it’s perfect for putting on just before bed.

Each episode is chaired by plummy-voiced veteran broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, who discusses a different idea, historical figure or event with a rotating cast of solemn experts and academics. One week, the gang might be chatting about the Roman writer Seneca the Younger; another, maths in the early Islamic world; another, the Salem witch trials.

The guests’ extensive knowledge means that every episode is diverting, whether you know anything about the subject matter or not – but they’re slow-paced enough to allow you to tune out without feeling guilty.

Listen here. 

The New Yorker: Fiction

Seriously grown-up bedtime stories. Every month, The New Yorker’s softly-spoken fiction editor Deborah Treisman invites a highly regarded author to choose a short story from the venerable US magazine’s archives. After discussing the story for a few minutes, the author reads it from start to finish.

No story from this podcast is likely to disturb your sleep, but a couple of episodes are particularly worth highlighting. Brooklyn author Colm Tóibín’s deep southern Irish accent, combined with a short story from 1950 by Sylvia Townsend Warner, is a quiet delight. Similarly soothing are Brokeback Mountain author Annie Proulx reading JF Powers, and Joseph O’Neill reading Muriel Spark’s The Ormulu Clock.

You Must Remember This

Within the first few seconds of an episode of You Must Remember This, you know you’re about to hear a cracking yarn. The theme tune sounds like it’s straight out of a romantic movie from the Forties, and host Karina Longworth has a smoky, languorous way of speaking that is both eminently relaxing and perfectly suited to her subject matter: the glamorous women of Old Hollywood.

Longworth, a former film critic for LA Weekly and founder of cinematical.com, is fascinated by the forgotten histories of 20th century cinema. As a result, each episode of You Must Remember This is dedicated to unpicking mysteries, distinguishing myth from fact, and exploring the impact of individual actors on culture and society.

How did Grace Kelly come to represent a particular image of blonde sexuality in the popular imagination? How did the Manson family infiltrate Hollywood? And how did Isabella Rossellini take her legacy into her own hands in the Nineties? You Must Remember This has all the answers, and then some.

Listen here.

Guided Sleep Meditation by Tracks to Relax

This podcast is so relaxing that it comes with a warning not to listen to it while driving. Some of the episodes are themed around calming sounds – the crackle of firelight, the soft rush of ocean waves – while others are based on feelings and moods, such as ‘Peace and Harmony’ or ‘Love and Kindness’.

Throughout each episode, the mysterious, unnamed host guides you through deep breaths and other mediation techniques, before leaving you to be soothed into slumber by gentle sounds. It sounds a little Stone Circles at Glastonbury, but it works.

Listen here. 

History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

If binging The Good Place has piqued your interest in philosophy, try this podcast by Professor Peter Adamson, who teaches the subject at King’s College London and Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. 

Adamson is an esteemed academic, and his choice of subjects will appeal to history buffs – the role of women in the ancient Greek city of Byzantium, anyone? – but his measured, melodious voice will also help you nod off. Who knows, you might wake up more Chidi than Eleanor.

Listen here. 

Sleep Whispers

This podcast features “ramblings and readings” of everything from Wikipedia pages to poems, plays and short stories. It was launched in 2018 by host ‘Whispering Harris’, after he experienced trouble sleeping.

“I often have trouble quieting my own mind at night,” he explains. “The squirrels in my brain just won’t stop running around and it keeps me awake. What works best for me is to listen to something I find interesting enough to keep the squirrels focused, but not too engaging or vocally strong to overexcite the squirrels.”

Listen here. 

This article was first published on 12 April 2017 and has been updated throughout. 

Images: Getty Images