01 February 2005
Listening to music before bedtime improves sleep by more than a third says study

Older people with sleep problems reported a 35 per cent improvement after they started listening to 45 minutes of soft music before bedtime, according to a paper in Journal of Advanced Nursing (49.3).

Researchers studied the sleeping patterns of 60 people aged 60-83, randomly assigning them in equal numbers into a music group and a control group. They discovered that the 30 who listened to carefully selected music experienced physical changes that aided restful sleep. These included lower heart and respiratory rates.

“The difference between the music group and the control group was clinically significant” says lead author Hui-Ling Lai, Vice Director of Nursing at the Buddhist Tzu-Chi General Hospital and Assistant Professor at Tzu Chi University in Taiwan.

“The music group reported a 26 per cent overall improvement in the first week and this figure continued to rise as they mastered the technique of relaxing to the sedative music” she adds.

People taking part in the study were older adults with sleep difficulties who lived in a large city in central Taiwan. Those with certain medical conditions were excluded, as were people taking sleep medication, drinking high levels of caffeine or using existing relaxation techniques such as meditation.

The music group were able to choose from six tapes that featured soft, slow music. These included one tape of Chinese folk music and five that had been found effective for reducing postoperative pain in research by co-author Professor Marion Good from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland.

Sleep quality was measured in the music group before they started using the technique and then monitored over the three-week study period. The sleep quality of the control group, who did not use the music tapes, was also assessed over the same period.

People in the music group showed significantly better scores in overall sleep quality and in five of the six sub-categories used to measure sleep quality. These included better and longer night-time sleep and less dysfunction during the day. The only element that didn’t improve after listening to music was sleep disturbance.

“Music is pleasant and safe and the technique we used in our study is quick and easy to learn” concludes Hui-Ling Lai, a graduate of the Cleveland-based University’s PhD programme. “It is easy to use, is soft and slow (60 to 80 beats per minute) and does not cause side effects.”