Music for Sleeping: 3 Music-Based Sleep Aids To Create Healthy Sleep Routines

According to the National Sleep Foundation, 40 million American adults have a chronic sleep disorder. But nearly three times that number — 60% of adults and 69% of children — report trouble sleeping a few nights a week or more.

For children with autism, those numbers are even higher, affecting as many as 80% of those with a diagnosis.

Many factors can contribute to sleep difficulties, such as environmental influences, including noise, light, and temperature. For children with autism, studies suggest problems are compounded by circadian rhythm cycle disturbances and abnormal melatonin regulation. Sensory processing also comes into play for children sensitive to sound, light, and touch. Also common among children are anxious feelings about bedtime, resulting in difficulty falling and staying asleep.

No matter the reason, lack of sleep comes with a high cost to everyone. Lack of sleep negatively impacts a person’s learning ability, health and safety, and overall quality of life.

A lack of adequate sleep can affect judgment, mood, ability to learn and retain information, and may increase the risk of serious accidents and injury. Chronic sleep deprivation may lead to many health problems — diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, and obesity. If you’ve ever had a tough time falling asleep, you know the effect it can have the next day.
– Alex Doman, founder of Advanced Brain Technologies

Many people struggle to find a safe, natural, and effective solution to sleep without detrimental side effects from pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter supplements. While there are numerous options, including special pillows, sleep masks, earplugs, and sound machines, they may not always produce the desired results.

Advanced Brain Technologies specializes in producing scientifically designed music to help people sleep, including Sleep Genius, Music to DeStress, and Sleepy Baby. Slower tempos and rhythms in the music encourage brain waves to entrain to natural sleep rhythms. As sleep improves, auditory-based learning, attention, and mood increase, making music effective for people of all ages.

Sleep Genius

Sleep Genius is the most scientifically advanced sleep program in the world. A sound-based sleep aid produces a calm, relaxed, drowsy feeling while gently training a listener’s brain into a natural healthy sleep rhythm.

ABT created Sleep Genius following research helping NASA get astronauts to sleep. The scientifically engineered system helps activate and regulate the brain’s sleep systems for optimal deep sleep. Developed by experts in neuroscience, sleep, and music therapy, including ABT founder Alex Doman, the Sleep Genius program helps anyone sleep faster and more comfortably.

Unlike most other products used to promote sleep, the goal is to train a person’s brain until it improves and maintains positive global sleep patterns on its own. Once this occurs, a listener should be able to discontinue the use of Sleep Genius, only using it on an as-needed basis. This will take approximately 3-6 months and is effective for most people who use it following our guidance.

Sleep Genius uses sound, but differently than music alone or sleep machines. The Sleep Genius program uses the brain’s sensory sleep organization to prevent the roller-coaster of drowsiness/wakefulness from insomnia by combining the two sensory systems most capable of affecting sleep cycles; the vestibular and auditory systems.

Auditory-Vestibular Control of Sleep

The vestibular system is profoundly interconnected with and affects substantial control over sleep processes. The auditory system is the sensory system most able to affect arousal under sleep and near-sleep conditions.

The vestibular system is essential for maintaining balance and orientation and is required for normal sleep. While the vestibular system is not part of the global “sleep regulatory system,” vestibular stimulation modulates known arousal centers. Meaning that the activation of the vestibular system helps calm a person. There has been continuous research attention to the possibility of a direct sleep-vestibular system connection since the 1960s (Leslie et al. 1997).

The importance of activating the vestibular system for better sleep is apparent in the natural movements many parents use when calming an infant. Gentle rocking or bouncing is a natural movement to induce sleep or a sense of calmness for babies across the globe. That gentle rocking or bouncing sensation is not just habit but science.

Studies show how effective rocking can be. For instance, premature infants given active rocking treatments for two weeks showed enhanced quiet sleep than matched control infants (Cordero et al. 1986). When adults are swung less than three inches each way in a head-to-toe direction for two nights, nocturnal sleep latency is reduced (Woodward et al. 1990). In older adults, low-frequency bed rocking yields significantly greater consolidation or otherwise fractionated sleep patterns (Iber et al. 1989).

The use of calming sounds delivered via the auditory system, such as low amplitude pink noise, lowers the listener’s heart and breathing rates. The sleep-inducing technology, embedded within the acoustically-modified music created for Sleep Genius, can be used so that the beating frequency oscillates at the rates observed in different stages of sleep, simulating normal neural processes for maintaining sleep and driving the sleeper from one stage to another. In other words, the music is arranged to mimic natural sounds and rhythms to induce and maintain a deep sleep.

Clinical testing has demonstrated the effectiveness of the Sleep Genius methods in inducing sleep by reducing the time it takes to fall asleep and increasing efficiency in subjects ranging in age from 1 to 62. It decreases the time it takes to fall asleep and increases sleep efficiency in up to 77% of people with normal binaural hearing.

Use Sleep Genius with SleepPhones, with high-quality, ultra-thin flat headphone speakers that are comfortable enough to wear while lying down or sleeping on your side. They block out ambient noise without using earplugs that are painful & fall out.

The use of the vestibular and auditory systems in these ways makes Sleep Genius a natural and effective solution for anyone looking to improve their sleep. One parent, who had tried almost everything, felt skeptical about Sleep Genius. After trying it, she said;

Music to De-Stress

Create a sleep routine with Music to De-Stress from the Sound Health Music Collection to help prepare kids and adults mentally and physically for sleep.

Music to De-Stress is ideal for:

• Calming the mind to reduce stress
• Inducing sleep
• Calming anxious feelings
• Coping with physical pain
• Easing muscle tension
• Reducing hyperactivity

Music to De-Stress is enjoyed through speakers and offers a sophisticated combination of therapeutic benefit and artistic achievement. These masterful classical recordings consist of calm, consistent rhythms that restore harmony to mind, body, and spirit. Listeners can enjoy a full hour of expertly orchestrated Mahler arrangements, combined with soothing ocean sounds, that can melt away stress and anxiety, helping a person settle into a relaxed state, preparing for a great night’s sleep.

Sleepy Baby – Music for Babies

Just as food nourishes a baby’s growing body, the elements of music – melody, tone, and harmony – nourish a baby’s rapidly developing brain.

Research shows that music has a beneficial effect on the network of neurons that will be the foundation of their later learning, language development, and music ability even before children are born.

Sleepy Baby contains very delicate and beautiful music to help calm and relax a little one, creating an environment for a more peaceful mood. Lullabies from many cultures, including French, English and Welsh, were included to help a child fall asleep and stay asleep.

Why Sleepy Baby Works:

• The volume of the music softens track by track from the beginning selection to the end.
• The tempo gradually slows down to encourage the baby’s system to slow down.
• The frequency range of notes progressively gets lower. For example, a clarinet and viola are used in the arrangements for Sleepy Baby to enrich lower frequencies.
• The music sounds progressively farther away.

By playing this music, parents help build a strong foundation for the innate potential of their infant or toddler. This music can be enjoyed through speakers and is appropriate for children from birth to 36 months.

While articles are frequently written about adults who suffer from insomnia or other sleep problems, there are also many children and teens who cannot get a good night’s sleep, particularly those with special needs. No matter the reason, lack of sleep comes with a high cost to everyone. Lack of sleep negatively impacts a person’s learning ability, health and safety, and overall quality of life. Music stands out as the safest and most beneficial among the many natural sleep alternatives.

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