Sleep hygiene is hotter than a pre-safety-switch electric blanket at the moment, with everything from silk pillowcases to podcasts and overseas retreats being touted as the cure for our society's inability to hit the hay
This week, a survey conducted by researchers at the University of Sheffield, revealed music is an aide commonly used by people looking to improve their sleep.
Listening to music to help you sleep can have consequences.Credit:Stocksy
The trouble is: a nightly lullaby might harm your sleep, rather than help it.
According to the – online, and voluntary – survey (which researchers said focused on understanding people's motivations for using music to fall asleep, rather than the method's efficacy), 62 per cent of people said they listen to music if they are struggling to nod off.
Classical music was the most popular choice (selected by close to 32 per cent of total people surveyed), followed by rock and pop. An adventurous 0.7 per cent of survey respondents said they nodded off to house music.
Those surveyed had very diverse beliefs about why the music was of assistance.
The most common belief – held by roughly one in six music users – was that the music allowed them to change their personal "state" (either physically or mentally, or by generally making themselves more relaxed), followed by the belief that the music would distract them.
Much smaller groups said they believed the music provided them with feelings of security, could affect the content and quality of their dreams, or said they just listened to the music out of habit.
Melbourne sleep psychologist and chair of the Sleep Health Foundation Professor Dorothy Bruck said she would not use the survey as evidence of the prevalence of people using music to soothe them into sleep – as participants self-selected to take part – although it is "interesting" that people are using music to help themselves sleep.
According to a 2016 survey conducted by the University of Adelaide for the Sleep Health Foundation, 35-45 per cent of Australian adults report having inadequate sleep.
"Often when we go to bed we are a bit hyper-aroused," Professor Bruck said.
"People might use music as a distraction and a way to relax, and that is fine. The thing that worries me is that, in using music on a regular basis, people are not using to self-soothe themselves."
While Professor Bruck said she has recommended some teenage clients use relaxing music to help them, the technique can be counter-productive for adults, who are more likely to wake up in the middle of the night.
Much like how babies may require a dummy or to be cradled in their parents' arms in order to nod off, adults who use music to lull themselves to sleep can run into problems if they wake up in the middle of the night and need to fall asleep again unaided.
"You may not be able to self-soothe yourself back to sleep because you've been relying on music to soothe you and distract you," warned Professor Bruck, who said her "very hardest" clients are those who have always fallen asleep in front of the TV.
"It's such a conditioned response: they haven't learnt how to self-soothe themselves in order to fall asleep."
Rather than using music or some other aid, Professor Bruck recommended people who have trouble sleeping learn how to relax themselves in the evening, so that they can replicate those techniques should they wake up in the earlier hours of the morning.
"Sit in a comfy chair in the living room and perform a body scan or a mindfulness activity for five or ten minutes," she explained. "In doing that on a regular basis, you learn the pacing and have that voice in your head telling you what to. Then you can do that in bed when you find you need the distraction."
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