Several things can prevent you from sleeping at night. Chances are, music helps you sleep faster, easier, or maybe it’s just a persistent habit of you to listen to music in bed. There is a high possibility that you’ll fall asleep while the music is still playing.
So, the question is, can you listen to music while sleeping? Is listening to music while sleeping bad to any extent?
Well, it’s scientifically proven that nighttime music can highly affect your sleep quality with persistent earworms. The same study says that listening to music while sleeping can hamper sleep-dependent memory consolidation, the last thing you want for your brain.
The best thing you can do with your habit of listening to music is finding the right music time outside bedtime. Let’s discover more into the facts and help you have a good night’s sleep with a better solution to your music experience.
How Does Music Affect Us?
Every one of us has had that experience of having a dull day only to get uplifted by a certain kind of music. In the same vein, some other kind of music can suddenly make your responses dull even when you were having a good time beforehand.
The human brain is designed in such a way that it responds to music. Moreover, the kind of response your body gives depends on the type of music you’re listening to. This can be caused by either the song’s lyrics or the kind of beat that makes up the music.
Beneficial Effects Of Music
Your response to a piece of particular music depends on whether or not you find the song pleasant to your ears. Songs have a way of altering your body’s serotonin level. Just in case you might be asking, serotonin is a chemical substance found in the body. This chemical has a major influence on your overall mood and sleeping pattern.
Music is very effective in boosting your problem-solving abilities. To effect this, it activates both the sides of our brain – the right and the left-hand sides. When you have both sides of your brain boosted simultaneously, you have a higher tendency to solve problems at ease.
Did you know that music has a positive impact on your memory abilities? It does this by triggering the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a part of the human brain that plays a major role in memory capabilities.
This is why memories from the past come alive when you listen to old music. It’s also the reason why you get that nostalgic feeling when you listen to different music from different times of your life.
Furthermore, certain kinds of music help you to feel relaxed. Ever looked for an explanation for why some kids sleep faster with a lullaby? When the music you’re listening to closely matches your heart rate, it soothes you on a biological level.
Lastly, you might be looking for something to take your mind off thoughts from several activities that transpired during the day. Calm and soothing music is a good way to get you distracted from these thoughts, giving your mind something else to focus on. This makes it easier for you to catch some sleep quickly and enhances your sleep quality.
Harmful Effects Of Music
Just like music can give you tons of beneficial results, there’s also a part of the story that might not be very pleasant. Mind you; this doesn’t dismiss music as dangerous; there are just some negative effects that you might experience depending on what kind of music you’re listening to. Let’s consider some of music’s harmful effects on its listeners.
Constantly listening to violent music with too much foul word content can alter your vocabulary, making a scholar sound like a rascal. Furthermore, constantly listening to such music can permanently influence their outlook on life and how they feel and act towards their environment.
Secondly, music can either make you aggressive or sober. That’s the reason why some ancient tribes used certain kinds of music with specific beats and wordings when they went to war. This music either sparked the aggression needed to scare the enemy.
You may have heard about drill music or not. It is a subgenre of rap music used by gangs to communicate violence towards other gangs and the police. Listening to such music promotes masculinity, illicit drugs, shootings, and threats against rival gang members.
Also, some music contains sexually-aggressive lyrics. These songs cut across several music genres, including pop, contemporary rock, and rap. So, irrespective of the music genres, these lyrics negatively influence their listener’s thoughts, behaviors, and emotions towards the opposite gender.
Furthermore, if you want to plunge into a bottomless pit of sadness, you can also use music to achieve this. Constantly listening to songs filled with nostalgic and melancholic lyrics can help you stay sad for long hours.
Sad music constantly fills you with negative feelings and thoughts, subjecting you to a negative thinking pattern. Furthermore, listening to such music for longer periods spanning several months can lead to depression.
Is Listening To Music While Sleeping Bad?
You now know that listening to some good music before your sleep is a healthy practice. However, the question arises: is listening to music while sleeping bad? It isn’t bad to have some music playing in the background while sleeping.
Listening to some pleasant music will help you fall asleep faster and even improve the quality of your sleep. However, there are things you should consider when you have thoughts of listening to music while you’re asleep. Read below to learn the advantages and disadvantages of listening to music while sleeping.
Advantages And Disadvantages Of Listening To Music While Sleeping
As we earlier stated, it’s not a bad practice to play some music while you’re asleep. We have taken the time to research the effects of sleeping with some music on. Also, using comfortable chairs for listening to music can help you listen to music in a much easier position compared to lying flat or sitting upright.
To decide your posture and music time, below are the advantages and disadvantages of listening to music while sleeping.
Advantages
Comfortable sleep
Different people have their favorite kind of music, giving them that unique feeling that only music brings. Such music can help to stimulate the production of serotonin in our bodies. Serotonin is a chemical substance found in the body that greatly influences our happy mood.
When this chemical is abundantly available in your body, you tend to stay happy. When you’re happy, it’s a lot easier to fall asleep and stay that way.
Relaxed from the beginning
Your heart has its custom beat range. Any music that comes with a tempo that falls within the heartbeat range biologically soothes the body. Such music should fall within the range of 60 beats per minute to 80 beats per minute.
Moreover, note that different persons have their sweet spots regarding what kind of music they find relaxing. So, you must find yours if you want to get the best effect out of this practice.
It can be a remedy for insomnia.
Listening to soft, soothing music before your bedtime can help you calm your nerves and forget the day’s worries. Doing this consistently can create a routine that automatically tells your brain to sleep when you have some music on at bedtime.
Disadvantages
Necrosis
This can’t be generalized as it only comes when you’re listening to music with your earphones on when you’re asleep. Necrosis is a health condition in which body tissues die due to inadequate blood supply. Your earphones can cause this if it blocks blood flow within any vessel in your ears.
You stand the risk of strangulation.
Nobody can tell which way they’ll turn in their sleep. So, if you’re sleeping with wired earphones, you could be endangering yourself to strangulation. There are low chances of this. However, it is wise to be careful. Wireless headphones will make a good substitute in that case.
Excessive Buildup of ear wax
Using earphones for too long can cause the buildup of excessive wax in our ears. Despite wax being useful in protecting our ear canal, having it buildup excessively can be harmful to our hearing.
Obstructed response in case of emergency
It’s almost impossible to hear when someone is calling, or there’s an unusual noise when you’re asleep. How much more when you have music playing in your ears? There could be an emergency while you’re asleep. Therefore, if you must play music while sleeping, the volume must be considerably low just in case of an emergency.
Should You Listen To Music While Sleeping?
If you’re having recurrent nightmares, then you should consider using music to improve your dreams. When you fall asleep, the first stage of your sleep witnesses your brain entering a semi-hypnotic phase. This stage has your brain generating alpha waves.
At this level of sleep, your brain can still respond to external influences. So, whatever feeling you had due to the music you were listening to before falling asleep will still be felt in this stage of your sleep.
This mood can translate to the deeper stages of your sleep. Also, some people claim to still hear the music they’re listening to in their dreams. However, such information remains anecdotal evidence since there are no scientific proofs yet.
What Types Of Music Should You Listen To While Sleeping?
If you’re looking to get asleep quickly or get a peaceful night’s sleep, you can get it done with some music. However, not all kinds of music will help you fall asleep fast. Some kind of music will make it difficult for you to get some sleep.
Generally, the kind of music that will get you to fall asleep falls within the range of 60 BPM to 80 BPM. This rate is similar to the heart’s natural beat, thereby making it easier for your body to feel relaxed.
Along with this, you might prefer a certain genre of music. So, whether you prefer blues, classical, jazz, or reggae, it’s entirely up to you. However, note that any music that is too loud or has a very fast beat will most certainly keep you awake.
Music genres such as heavy metal, modern jazz, and their likes will increase your anxiety level, making it hard for you to sleep.
Final Thoughts
Listening to music while sleeping will help you get better and more relaxed. That’s for sure. But now that you know why is listening to music while sleeping bad, you can do your math and makeshift the timing for better relaxation. Sure, you can listen to music and sleep just fine, but only if that music is soothing and doesn’t increase your anxiety further.
So, on the last note, despite the benefits of listening to music, avoid listening to heavy metal or rock music to sleep faster and stay calm. Also, have a timer on the music so that it doesn’t keep on playing all night and put a negative message in your head not to get a deeper sleep.
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