I have podcast subscriptions to like 10 different history podcasts and they put me to sleep within 5 minutes most of the time. The key is that it has to be interesting enough to engage me, but not so interesting that it keeps me awake.

The History of English podcast is my favorite for that. It’s the entire history of English from Indo-European onwards. It’s 100+ hours of readings from old English poetry or medieval monastic rule books interspersed with word etymologies (Did you know that ‘green’ and ‘grow’ and ‘grass’ are all from the same root word?). Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely fascinating but I challenge anyone to stay awake longer than three minutes listening to it in bed.