I’ve tried Apple Music’s New Sound Therapy Playlists, And They’ve Solved My Sleep Troubles

TechRadar

Apple and Universal Music Group announced a partnership to bring Sound Therapy to the Apple Music platform for free for all subscribers. This collection of albums, which includes remixes of UMG artists’ tracks from artists like Glass Animals, Imagine Dragons, and Katy Perry, is designed to help you focus, relax, or sleep.

Transcript

00:00I've been testing Apple Music's new sound therapy playlists and they've

00:06solved my sleep troubles. Let me explain. Apple and Universal Music Group have

00:11teamed up to bring sound therapy to the Apple Music streaming platform and the

00:16new tracks are free for all subscribers. They feature a collection of albums and

00:20playlists that include typical relaxing rain sounds alongside remixes of UMG's

00:26artists music including Glass Animals, Imagine Dragons and Katy Perry. Each

00:31albums goal is to either help you focus, relax or fall asleep. To do this the

00:35song's lyrics have been stripped away leaving just the instrumentals behind.

00:39These singerless tracks are then enhanced by audio engineers and scientists to

00:43include sound wave profiles which are meant to help you achieve your desired

00:47mental state. Now I'm no sound psychologist but I am an Apple Music

00:51subscriber so for the past couple of weeks I've been a guinea pig in my own sound

00:55therapy experiment to see what this new Apple and UMG collab can do for me. So

01:00as I've mentioned already there are three tiers of sound therapy on Apple Music.

01:04The most energetic if you can call it that though it is generally more bombastic

01:09than the other categories is the focus tier. According to Apple's description

01:14this collection of music harnesses the power of gamma auditory beats and white

01:18noise to support concentration and a cognitive performance. A cursory glance at a

01:23few scientific studies suggest the impact of these kinds of auditory stimulants ranges

01:27from zero to minimal on concentration but they were generally very similar to the

01:33lo-fi tunes or instrumental tracks usually from a film or video game that I've relied on

01:38to help me focus while I work or study. So it's not an immediate failure. Though for a short

01:44time I did think it might be a failure as while listening through a focus mix I could clearly

01:48make out a modulating yet distinct white noise hum in the background of tracks. Thankfully

01:54those early distractions from the first time you spot it in the mix do fade away as you

01:59let the music occupy background noise rather than letting it be the focus of your attention.

02:04The hum becomes like breathing. By that I mean if you focus on the white noise hum then

02:09like breathing it becomes way more apparent. Drift into focusing on whatever task you're working

02:14on and the hum becomes part of the beat's soundtrack and becomes as unnoticeable as automatically

02:19drawing in breath. Though much like the focus category I'm not yet convinced that the relaxed

02:24sound therapy is wholly better than the playlists I already rely on. In this tier's description

02:29Apple reveals that relaxed sets have infused the original music with theta auditory beats

02:35which are meant to help you loosen up. There's a particularly fantastic relaxing remix of Heatwaves

02:40by Glass Animals which extends the song to a little under an hour across 19 parts. I've found these

02:46albums are ideal for a post work wind down. I'll stick them on my Sonos speakers and chill out on the

02:52couch to read a book, sit up and construct the Lego Deku tree I've been steadily working my way through

02:58recently or bring some chill vibes to my kitchen while I cook dinner. Much like the focus category it's

03:04excellent background noise though outside of reading I can't listen to words while reading words.

03:10I'm unconvinced it's entirely better than my current selection of podcasts, informative YouTube

03:15videos or whatever dropout show I'm currently binging. At least whatever audio editions Apple

03:21and UMG have made here aren't quite as in your face as with the focus category. However while sound

03:28therapy has left me whelmed in its first two tests the sleep tier tracks have definitely transformed

03:34my bedtime. My fiancé and I like to fall asleep to sound. Unless I'm absolutely exhausted I find

03:40sleeping in a quiet room super off-putting. Unfortunately we usually want to sleep to

03:45different noise. For me it's typically a YouTube video something from Wanova Productions, Last Week

03:51Tonight or Wolfie VGC. Something fun but informative even if that information in Wolfie's case is all about

03:57competitive Pokémon. For my fiancé it's either the next episode in her latest rewatch of a show,

04:03favourites include The Good Place, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Currently Handmaid's Tale, or a compilation

04:08of Dragon's Den clips. That's the UK version of Shark Tank. Playing competing audio at the same time

04:14leaves us both unhappy and we each find the other's videos massively grating. My usual technique is to

04:21wait for her to fall asleep then switch her video choice to one of my own. It's hardly ideal though. Since

04:26testing these sound therapy sleep tracks we've finally found a solution that we both love and we now use it

04:32every night. Again there are a few music remixes, this time enhanced with pink noise to help you drift off,

04:38but playlists tend to be devoted to the sounds of running water or forest breeze, that sort of thing.

04:44Admittedly the pink noise of campfire crackling or rain on a tent isn't anything new in the audio

04:49world. There are countless apps and hours long online videos devoted to relaxing natural noise to

04:55play while you're trying to fall asleep. But this sound therapy has been a game changer because one,

05:00it's free and ad free with our existing subscription and two, it's playable through our Sonos speakers

05:06and controllable with both of our phones. So if one of us wakes up in the night we can easily restart

05:11the playlist without having to climb over the other to grab their phone and rewind the video.

05:16Since using these sound therapy solutions we're usually both out like a light in about 15 minutes.

05:21It's the easiest I've fallen asleep in months and I think I'm feeling a little better rested each

05:27morning to boot. Admittedly I'm not convinced these sound therapy options are yet worthwhile enough

05:32to swap from another music platform to apple music just to gain access to them, but they are handy if

05:38you're looking to get more out of your existing subscription. Even albums in the relax and focus

05:43categories have entered my music rotation despite not being the immediate go-to solution like the

05:48sleep tracks now are. If you want to experience apple music's sound therapy for yourself, subscribers can

05:54easily find the whole collection by tapping on the search icon in their app and then tapping on the

05:58sound therapy box you should see on that page. Let us know in the comments what music you use to focus

06:04or sleep to and we'll see you in the next video!

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