Ask HN: Who else can only fall asleep listening to audio content?

Radio play-by-play of baseball games.

I’m not really a baseball fan and I don’t care who wins or loses the games. But the calling of the pitches and the banter between the announcers provide something for my mind to latch onto so that I don’t think about work, war, climate change, or other topics that would keep me awake. I usually drift off in less than ten minutes.

I started this a few years ago listening to classic radio broadcasts downloaded from the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/classicmlbbaseballradio

The first game of the 1949 World Series between the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers was particularly suitable for drifting off, because it went scoreless until the bottom of the ninth inning. I must have listened to it four or five times.

https://archive.org/download/classicmlbbaseballradio/1949%20...

This past April, I took out a one-year subscription to MLB streaming radio. I am now recording as mp3s all of the games this season for one team. Last night, I fell asleep to the May 7 game. This season’s full set of games should last me the rest of my life.

I listen to the mp3s on the iPhone app Bound with the timer set to 30 minutes.

I've been falling asleep to a podcast called "Sleep With Me"[0] for the last two years or so. For most of my life, I've had a lot of trouble falling asleep thanks to a fun combination of anxiety and an overactive mind. Thanks to the podcast, I fall asleep within ~20 minutes of lying down almost every day.

In each episode, the affable host tells a story (or reads a catalog, or recaps a Star Trek episode, etc) in the most meandering, boring way possible. It sounds weird, but it's just interesting enough for me to stop thinking about other things - but not interesting enough that I want to stay awake. I highly recommend it to anyone that has similar problems.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm writing ad copy for the show, but it literally changed my life for the better.

[0] https://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com/

Off topic, but I can't stand the paradigm of "consuming audio content". Some call it listening to music or sounds.

I usually just ask the wife how her day went

I love Ben Eater. I really do, but I found every time I listen to this playlist at night, I would fall asleep. I decided to use it to my advantage. I've tried it dozens of times now and it never fails to put me to sleep.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypH19whXTVoG3oKS...

I can fall asleep without it, but have a much easier time drifting off to an audio book than I do trying to go to sleep in silence. I've gone through hundreds of books over the past few years. I tend to get ~30 min of listening in and then am out. I have a timer that cuts off playback at an hour and then the next night I can rewind to the last bit I remember.

Sometimes, and I think it's a problem. I find on those nights I don't actually tend to fall asleep in a peaceful way, and my sleep tends to not be as good in general. Sometimes the audio will keep me awake past my natural falling asleep point, and then I become alert again to turn it off.

The audio itself is usually a podcast, ranging from some kind of sleep sounds podcast, to a sleep meditation, to a Waking Up (heh) conversation, to some financial podcast or Stuff You Need To Know. None of them have been ideal and I don't like that I'm sometimes compelled to reach for one of these things as a crutch.

Things that usually result in a better sleep for me are reading a book to the point of sleep, and most recently plotting out the story I'm writing in my head - just thinking about it, basically. I try to stick with one of these options most of the time, but sometimes the urge to just put something on still wins out.

I can sleep without it, but most nights I prefer to have some relaxing sounds playing. I most often use something like this "Blizzard and crackling fire sounds"[1] track, or a "thunderstorm and heavy rain"[2] one. The other one I use a lot is some variation of this Blade Runner based "cyberpunk city ambiance"[3] track.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK3cMcH9e_c

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDq6TstdEi8

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5zX1eRKEDM

Yes, definitely.

I have found a podcasts in a field I am mildly interested in -- not enough to be so engaging that it keeps me awake, but not so boring as to let my distracting thoughts overpower it. I put the volume as low as I can, but not so low that I'm focusing hard to listen/follow the conversation.

I don't have any data about how fast I'm falling asleep, but I'd say it's probably 15-30min typical. A single one hour show can last me a few nights with a bit of overlapping playback -- e.g. night 1 start at 0min, night 2 start around 20-25min in, night 3 start about 35-45 min in and sometimes hit the end & have to start the next episode.

I mostly listen to raindrops on a tent [1]

[1] https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/campingRainNoiseGenerator....

You can surely fall asleep easily listening:

- Neapolitan neighbors arguing animatedly for 1 hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgVIzt2cAog&t=2175s

or, alternatively,

- Matteo Salvini (representative of the Italian Lega party) who lists things in the soft lo-fi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNyethAqJzk&t=1969s

I listen to 50/60's music from Sirius/XM as they finally included streaming in their regular auto satellite subscription. Previously I listened to various Internet oldies stations but I was always unhappy with the music interruptions for commercial. No commercials with most Sirius/XM channels.

Concentrating on the lyrics when my mind is racing as I try to sleep helps to interrupt the intrusive thoughts.

White noise, nature sounds and people talking are not enough distraction.

I personally listen to Audiobooks, mostly adventure / tale or similar. I find that it needs to have a dream like quality. Jules Vernes is great for it, the Count of Monte Cristo was a delight. I don't really follow the story as I miss basically more than half of it. Steer away from books where there is too much "action" ( LOTR was a total failure ) or too realistic ( you don't want some Houellebecq in your dreams ).

Just a recollection you stirred up I had not thought about in years: my freshman (and sophomore) roommate in college could only fall-asleep with the television on, but of course did not want it playing all night, so every evening he would start a Shawshank Redemption VHS tape from the beginning when getting in bed. He did that for two entire academic years, never changing the movie. I used to have the first 12-15 minutes of it memorized.

I have this problem when I'm sleeping alone or when my mind is unsettled. Neither is that common, as I don't hit the bed till I'm very tired. When it happens, I usually listen to my audiobooks (fiction) to fall asleep. If that is too stimulating, I turn to this google podcast called "Boring books for bedtime". It's quite effective.

There certain youtuber voices that I really appreciate. Markiplier, Game Theory, Internet Historian, I did a thing, SmallAnt, and Summoning Salt are my favorite content creators recently. I noticed I like long form content essays a lot and educational/analysis type content has a smoothness in tone I appreciate.

Sometimes layering it with rain helps too.

I look for content that seems interesting in the moment but doesn't necessarily make me feel like I have to rewind if I miss anything. It's the best to just leave on in the background.

The youtube algorithm has been pushing 2+ hour iceberg streams to me recently as well.

Speedruns and Summoning Salt videos are classics I go to when I can't find anything specific and don't want to go searching. The Games Done Quick format is amazing. 100% speedruns are a solid category. I rarely know the game, so it hits that perfect place of interesting when I start and don't care about finishing and can leave on in the background for days without worrying about anything too scary or serious. I'm sure there are games with startling audio or video, but Games Done Quick is an event where they marathon different people speedrunning different games back to back on twitch and all of the donation money goes to charity. This summer they raised over 3 million dollars for charity. Additionally, I can safely assume the streams are going to be kid friendly so I know there's nothing too crazy that can happen. I don't personally care if speedrunners are family friendly or not, but family friendly content is generally smoother in tone which is helpful for falling asleep. SmallAnt focuses heavily on Nintendo games and from what I understand Nintendo has fairly strict rules for what's allowed by content creators. I don't agree with it from a content moderation standpoint, but at the same time, it makes content much more easily searchable and predictable when I need something neutral for sleep. Glitch runs and TAS (tool assisted speedruns) are cool too because they incorporate bots and technical exploits like memory overflow and race condition logic errors into breaking game logic in order to complete a speedrun fast. Pokemon yellow is crazy, it has been brought down to 1 minute 18second for the entire game.

I do pay for youtube premium so I don't have to worry about ads. Ads can be disruptive and wake me up. Most youtubers have a playlist of their streams which is a nice set and forget so I don't wake up to weird recommendations.

I usually listen to Wolfram's Science and Technology for Kids and Others. Steven explains all sorts of difficult concepts from first principles. There are hunders of hours as Podcasts and on youtube. Be aware though, some episodes can have an opposite effect and keep me up for hours instead of having me fall asleep :)

I find that most lectures or podcasts that have calm voices do indeed help me sleep I can suggest https://youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g , to daydream about space and the far future before falling asleep

I fell asleep to "The Amp Hour"... and at 3AM woke up and found the author of LTspice talking about why he wrote "self authoring code".... and I've been up ever since. Thank goodness I don't have to be at work at 7:00 AM 30 miles from here.

Calcium just before bed may help. I'm not a health professional. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/magnesium-the-most-powerf_b_4...

Every night I put on the latest Sudoku solve from Cracking the Cryptic to fall asleep. https://youtube.com/c/CrackingTheCryptic

I listen to a magic the gathering set review. They read the text of every card in a set and give it a letter grade rating. It’s like someone going through the grocery store and reading the ingredients label of every can.

I have started listening to Lore before sleeping. I find Aaron's voice really soothing. https://www.lorepodcast.com/episodes

Live on Patrol youtube streams, turn down the volume though

Various ASMR stuff on YouTube does it for me, vast majority is designed for sleeping to. Ephemeral Rift and Goodnight Moon are favourites.

I listened to Baldemort's Warhammer lore, now I have a couple relaxing songs I doze off to.

Soccer match replays or soccer podcasts or soccer discussions on YouTube.

I listen to Ben Shapiro podcasts, loud, with a plastic bag over my head. I usually lose consciousness in less than two minutes.

The sound of silence.

Nothing

not me