If you're struggling to nod off, or stay asleep, at the moment, you're not alone. After a year of stress and struggle, many of us are finding switching off our brains and drifting into a restful slumber a tricky task.
But there are ways we can lull ourselves into sleep: spritzing a calming sleep spray, meditating and staying away from screens for the evening are all ways to help relax the body, still the mind and encourage shut eye.
And one of the most effective ways, according research, is to listen to music. This is because background noise can act as a distraction from anxious thoughts and improve sleep efficiency by drowning out environmental noises that disturb sleep, such as busy nearby roads and noisy neighbours.
Various studies have also shown that adults who listen to music as they hit the hay will enjoy improved sleep quality. Music can enhance sleep through the regulation of hormones, particularly the lowering of stress hormone cortisol and the increase of happiness hormone dopamine. But what to listen to?
Luckily, Premier Inn have analysed all the Spotify data to reveal the most popular artists and songs streamed globally whilst drifting off to sleep.
They analysed over 43,000 songs from sleep-related playlists on the music streaming service to find the favourite artists and songs people listen to at bedtime.
Interestingly, most of the top ten most frequent songs found in the playlists rest between 80-130 beats per minute (BPM), which incidentally is close to the average resting heart rate of a normal individual, 60-100BPM.
The data revealed that smash hit ‘Someone You Loved’ by Lewis Capaldi is the most popular song to drift off to, followed by Conan Gray’s dreamy pop tune ‘Heather’. The latter is one of the slowest songs in the top ten, at 102 BPM. Indie tune ‘All I Want’ by Kodaline has the slowest tempo in the list, at a peaceful 86 BPM.
Most Popular Songs in Spotify Sleep Playlists
- Someone You Loved – Lewis Capaldi - 110 bpm
- Heather – Conan Gray – 102 bpm
- All I Want – Kodaline – 86 bpm
- Before You Go – Lewis Capaldi – 112 bpm
- Dynamite – BTS – 115 bpm
- Say You Won’t Let Go – James Arthur – 105 bpm
- Lovely (with Khalid) – Billie Eilish – 115 bpm
- Be Alright – Dean Lewis – 127 bpm
- Bruises – Lewis Capaldi – 111 bpm
- When the party’s over – Billie Eilish – 83 bpm
- Falling – Harry Styles – 110 bpm
- All of Me – John Legend – 120 bpm
- If the World Was Ending feat. Julia Michaels – JP Saxe – 76 bpm
- Hold On – Chord Overstreet – 120 bpm
- Get You The Moon (feat. Snøw) – Kina – 119 bpm
The artists featured in the 13,000 playlists were also analysed to reveal which music act took the crown as the most frequent artist for bedtime music. South Korean boy band BTS took first place, with their K-pop songs appearing on average three times in sleep-related playlists. Their most popular sleep songs include ‘Dynamite’, ‘The Truth Untold’ and ‘Your eyes tell’.
Most Popular Sleep Artists
- BTS - 1712 tracks featured
- Billie Eilish - 785 tracks featured
- One Direction - 701 tracks featured
- Ed Sheeran - 699 tracks featured
- Deep Sleep Music Collective - 607 tracks featured
- Harry Styles - 549 tracks featured
- Lewis Capaldi - 547 tracks featured
- XXXTENTACION - 472 tracks featured
- Ariana Grande - 438 tracks featured
- Shawn Mendes - 396 tracks featured
Pop appears to be the most soothing genre for sleeping, with K-pop, folk-pop and pop rock all featuring heavily in the top 10. One Direction is the only other boyband to appear alongside BTS, while pop artist Billie Eilish is the most popular female sleep artist. Eilish’s top sleep songs include ‘lovely (with Khalid)’, ‘when the party’s over’ and ‘i love you’.
Sweet dreams!
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