Some people choose to listen to soothing music or a guided meditation, but another option is a bedtime story. There are many parts to a healthy bedtime routine, including having a set time to go to bed, avoiding the blue light from screens, and finding a way to relax. As the story unfolds, you start to imagine what’s happening in the pictures, which prepares the mind for sleep and dreaming. Stories can help you shift down a gear and give you something to focus on apart from mind chatter. Listening to bedtime stories could be the answer if you’re the type of person who lies awake for hours before dropping off. This distracts you enough from those racing thoughts, helping you be lulled to sleep. Listening to a bedtime story allows you to focus your mind on the story’s narrative. This is roughly 6.5 thoughts a minute! And we can’t just switch them off when we want to go to bed. Have you argued with your partner that plays over in your mind? Or you can’t stop thinking about that new, exciting business idea?Īccording to a 2020 study, humans have over 6,000 thoughts a day. Listening to bedtime stories is a way to relax and unwind as part of a healthy bedtime routine. Most of us may occasionally experience sleep disturbances, finding it hard to fall asleep after a busy day. Sleep disorders affect up to 70 million Americans yearly, with 33% - 55% suffering from chronic insomnia. The benefits of listening to short bedtime stories include: We often have so much chatter in our minds that we need something to help us shut off our thoughts. The voice in the background is calmly telling the story in a non-jarring tone which can be incredibly relaxing.
Listening to bedtime stories is similar to having white noise in the background. What Are the Benefits of Bedtime Stories for Adults? While it might have been many years ago, your brain will remember this and allow you to feel similar sensations as you did when you were a child. By listening to a book, you’re ready to fall asleep without the need to put a book down or turn off the light.įurthermore, listening to bedtime stories takes you back to your childhood, when you felt safe, calm, and relaxed, listening to your parents reading to you. Hearing is the last sense to shut down and the first to come back in the morning. This means you can relax, let your mind wander, and fall asleep much easier. Secondly, having a bedtime story read to you is a more passive activity than reading yourself. This encourages the sleep hormone melatonin to get released, which signals your brain to get ready to doze off. Why Might Listening to Stories be Better Than Reading Them?įirstly, the light can be turned off when listening to short bedtime stories. Narratives only engage the listener enough to distract them from constant thoughts and not enough to wake them up and get excited. These bedtime stories are also prepared so that they have no real climax. The same goes for adulthood – the only difference being that our minds are steered away from our stresses and troubles, which calms racing thoughts and can help us to sleep. As kids, we took comfort from a parent’s voice telling us a story that took our little minds away from the thoughts of ghosts under the bed. Do Bedtime Stories Work for Adults?īedtime stories for adults are delivered calmly and soothingly, relaxing to listen to.
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There are paid and free bedtime stories that kids and adults can enjoy as they prepare themselves in bed. This is where online storybooks can help. Switching on our brain’s imagination before dozing off with fun bedtime stories can help us prepare for a restful night. In the rapid eye movement (REM)part of the sleep cycle, our dreams are at their most intense and are in pictures. For example, when listening to a fairy tale, we rarely think about the words being read to us instead, we paint a picture in our minds of what is happening. How Does Listening to Bedtime Stories Help You Sleep?īedtime stories are purposefully designed to help you fall asleep and can even be a shortcut to dreaming. While listening to short stories, such as fairy tales, might feel a little childish, they’re slowly becoming more popular for adults to relax and drift off to sleep. Common reasons include stress and anxiety due to work, finances, or relationship troubles.īut what should you do if racing thoughts keep you awake at night? Some people turn to meditation, others to relaxation techniques, soothing music, and reducing blue light exposure in the evenings.Īnother option is listening to bedtime stories.
A study of more than 11,000 adults in 12 different countries found that many people across the globe are not getting enough sleep.
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