Thoughts & Things

The Five Best Spotify Playlists for Bedtime

If you're anything like me, you find it much easier to sleep if there's some form of peaceful music playing. Silence is distracting. Silence means I'm thinking about something, imagining a conversation, writing a book in my head, pondering world peace, and so on. Music helps keep my mind focused, whether it be for sleep or work or mental activities. Of course, certain music can be too distracting. The last thing I want is to attempt sleep, and get caught up in a pop tune solo sing along fest.

Over the years, I've found some really handy music to sleep to. Albums of instrumental songs, piles of classical music, and the odd bit of relaxing folk rock. Since I started using Spotify this past winter (I'm late to the party, I know), I've found some playlists that are perfectly engineered to help get you relaxed enough to sleep. Here are my five personal favourites.

Sleep
Sleep is filled with just over five hours of music, and was made specifically to help ease people into sleep. It's mainly a melodic ambient focused playlist, with enough length to it to help get you to sleep and keep you there. There's lots of soft, piano-based sounds, and it is all soft and soothing.

Sleep Tight
Sleep Tight is similar to the Sleep playlist. It clocks in at five hours, giving it just enough time to keep you in bed even after you've fallen asleep. This one is changed up on a semi-frequently basis, which means you get fresh picks of contemporary classical and melodic ambient streaming through your speakers.

Calm Vibes
Calm Vibes is another similar playlist, but it certainly stands on its own. If you're looking for something a bit shorter, this one is only a bit over the two hour mark, which leaves you with a bit less if you have an easier time at falling asleep. It has some lovely contemporary classical, occasionally blended with some post-rock and some ambient.

Mellow Beats
Mellow Beats is made up of relaxing hip hop instrumental beats. It's just under five hours in length, giving it time to ease you into unconsciousness. It has beautifully constructed music that was meant to be heard as instrumental only, as well as the instrumental tracks for tunes that normally would have vocals. A great playlist to relax to if you enjoy hip hop.

Jazz Vibes
Jazz Vibes is a little over three hours of jazz inspired chillout electronic and hip hop instrumental beats, and it is fantastic. I like electronic music best when it's inspired by non-electronic genres, so this suits my needs perfectly. Worth trying for anyone who relaxes to jazz, hip hop, or chillout. It is one of the shorter playlists on this list as well, making it ideal for folks who prefer something less lengthy to sleep to.

(I have committed to blogging daily with Give It 100. This is Day Forty-Six. Six days of leave taken total.)