Effects of Relaxing Music on Healthy Sleep

Maren Jasmin Cordi, Sandra Ackermann, Björn Rasch, Maren Jasmin Cordi, Sandra Ackermann, Björn Rasch

Abstract

Sleep is vital for human health and wellbeing, and sleep disturbances are comorbid to many mental and physiological disorders. Music consistently improves subjective sleep quality, whereas results for objective sleep parameters diverge. These inconsistencies might be due to inter-individual differences. Here, 27 female subjects listened to either music or a control text before a 90 minutes nap in a within-subjects design. We show that music improved subjective sleep quality as compared to the text condition. In all participants, music resulted in a reduced amount of sleep stage N1 during the nap. In addition, music significantly increased the amount of slow-wave sleep (SWS) and increased the low/high frequency power ratio. However, these effects occurred only in participants with a low suggestibility index. We conclude that listening to music before a nap can improve subjective and objective sleep parameters in some participants.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effect of music on sleep stages. (A) Both groups benefitted from reduced minutes spent in N1 after music compared to text condition. The within-group comparison was significant only for low suggestible subjects. (B) The interaction between sound and suggestibility in SWS increase was driven by low suggestibles showing a higher increase in SWS after music compared to text while high suggestibles did not benefit from music. The x-axes distinguish low (LS) and high suggestible (HS) subjects. The graphs show the values for N1 minutes and SWS increase in percent in the text (black bar) and music condition (grey bar). Asterisks indicate p values ≤ 0.05. Mean + /− standard errors of the mean (SEM) are displayed.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Power analyses during NREM sleep. Displays t-values of the analyses on SWA/beta Ratio (upper panel) and Sigma power (lower panel). The 1st column shows comparisons on music versus text in low suggestibles, while higher values indicate higher power after music. The 2nd column shows the results of the same analysis for high suggestibles. The 3rd column indicates results of the group comparison high versus low suggestibles on the difference music – text. Positive values mean higher power value differences in low compared to high suggestibles. Significant electrodes (non-corrected for multiple comparisons) are indicated with white dots.

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