Somnus

Sleep-related difficulties problems affect over 50% of people worldwide. In some countries people get less than 5 hours sleep a night. Getting a poor night’s sleep affects all areas of your life, work and relationships as well as your mental and physical health and wellbeing. A research programme was conducted at The British Academy of Sound Therapy to discover:

• More about the quality and duration of people’s sleep
• How their sleep affected their life, health and wellbeing
• Whether a music programme designed specifically to enhance sleep was effective
• If so in what ways?

SOMNUS X is a 10-minute piece of Consciously Designed Music (CDM) composed by Lyz Cooper, sound therapy researcher and founder of BAST, composed specifically to help induce sleep.  The aim of the study was to find out if SOMNUS X made a positive impact on participants’ sleep over a 7 day period.
A worldwide call out for participants through social media networks invited individuals that considered themselves to have serious sleep difficulties to take part in a 7-day music listening programme. N=88 took part in the study. Participants answered a questionnaire based to discover quality and duration of sleep and the impact of sleep on health, wellbeing, relationships and work/productivity before and after 7 days of listening to SOMNUS X. Participants could listen to the track several times during the night and/or as needed.

41% of participants felt they definitely had a sleep problem, 45% sometimes had a sleep problem and 14% felt they did not have a sleep problem but were still kept in the study. The findings showed that the difficulties decreased by the end of the study. Interestingly some of the categories seemed to increase post-test but this was due to participants selecting ‘slightly’ as opposed to ‘severely’ with sleep difficulties, for example. The results were very encouraging. At the end of the questionnaire people were invited to comment and SOMNUS X received comments such as:

“It’s a fabulous, well-crafted piece of music!” – Mary stokes. Canada

“The track is a beautiful tool for falling asleep to and allowed me to find peace when falling asleep rather than having constant thoughts making me anxious and frustrated.” – Grace, Portsmouth UK

“The track was enriching on so many levels with its cacophony of sounds and noises that enabled a really deep positive sleep to occur. Felt bouncy and alive the next day …. ready to tackle any challenge I faced.” – Amanda Harrison UK

“SOMNUS X has really helped me fall asleep more quickly and feel relaxed. It also helped if I woke up in the night. I’d recommend to anyone having issues getting to sleep.” – Sara, Portsmouth, UK

“Beautiful to listen and successful in effecting good quality sleep and all the associated benefits.” – Richard F – Glasgow

Several people commented that they would prefer a longer so there are plans to create a 45-minute SOMNUS track soon. As there was a marked decrease in people experiencing sleep difficulties future studies will include a separate ‘0’ nights category so the number of people that no longer had sleep difficulties when listening to SOMNUS X can be measured.

You can listen in for yourself for free on Spotify or you can buy the track on iTunes or Google Music. Please share it with your friends, family, colleagues… anybody wanting some extra shut eye!