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From night wakings to recurrent insomnia and daytime drowsiness, millions of people around the world suffer from sleep disorders. Several options are available to help them sleep better, including listening to K-pop, according to a recent European study.
From night wakings to recurrent insomnia and daytime drowsiness, millions of people around the world suffer from sleep disorders. Several options are available to help them sleep better, including listening to K-pop, according to a recent European study.
The PLOS One journal recently published the findings of a Danish study looking into the effects of music on sleep. It turns out that many musical styles can improve sleep quality in humans, while helping to calm brain activity.
To reach this conclusion, researchers from Aarhus University analyzed nearly 1,000 Spotify playlists themed on sleep, including 130,150 different songs. Among them are many slow and quiet acoustic instrumental songs, but also much more upbeat tracks. The scientists say that a catchy song can make it easier for some people to fall asleep if it is already familiar to them. Indeed, repeated listening allows the brain to anticipate what is coming next, which produces an effect similar to that of a slower song without much rhythmic variation.
While surveys say that music lovers favor classical music for deep, restful sleep, the research team at Aarhus University found that K-pop is also a popular choice when it comes to hitting the sack. Specifically, "Dynamite" by the hit boy band BTS. This song appears in 245 of the playlists analyzed, making it the most popular song among Spotify users to help them get to sleep. "Lovely" by Billie Eilish and Khalid, Brahms' "Lullaby," Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," Debussy's "Moonlight" and the nursery rhyme "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" are also among the sleep music favorites.
However, the researchers cannot say for sure whether the above-mentioned songs improve sleep quality or actually help listeners get to sleep faster. "Because the motivation of the listener might have a large influence on the type of music people choose to listen to before bed, future research should investigate to what extent different reasons for using music as a sleep aid may drive the specific choice of music," the study authors write.
This research is still far from determining the exact role of music in helping us fall asleep. In fact, scientists from Baylor University state in a separate study, published in 2021 in the journal Psychological Science, that familiar, repetitive music can trigger "involuntary musical imagery" that degrades sleep quality, even if it seems relaxing.
