Delta Wave Music for Insomnia, Sleep and Meditation

While exploring ASMR videos on YouTube recently, a recurring theme was using these videos as a sleeping aid. Incidentally if you need an introduction to ASMR (an effect that produces tingles, calmness and relaxation), you can look here. For myself at least, the ASMR effect is relaxing but I wouldn’t go as far as saying it puts me to sleep. What really did do that on the other hand was some bespoke music that targets another specific brain pattern, that of delta waves. Good news for any insomniacs out there! Let’s take a deeper look at what this music can be used for.

An Introduction to Delta Waves

Many people have heard of brain waves. For me, brain waves conjure visions of 70’s sci-fi television, gadgets with silly sound effects and actors in silver jump suits. Back in reality though, the brain is an organic machine that contains electrical activity, and this activity produces frequencies that can be monitored with an EEG (an… wait for it… electroencephalograph). This technology goes back to the 1930s and remains in use today. The frequency of brain activity has been monitored in humans during various states of conciousness and delta waves are most associated with the deeper sleep patterns.

Sleeping Father and Baby
Sleep isn’t always easy to come by.

The idea behind delta wave music is to produce a sympathetic effect in the brain. It’s basically a type of mood music. A person listens to the mood music in a suitable environment and experiences the desired effect. In this case we’re looking at a mood music that slows the mind and projects a mood of tranquillity, peace, and stillness that leads inexorably into sleep.

Listen to An Example

Understandably there’s a lot of takes on what makes a good sleep track and personal preference is going to be a big factor. So, with that understanding I’m going to now present a few of these different flavours. Try not to fall asleep just yet, although if you really like a track you can always come back and listen some more.

Artificial Soundscape

This track is entirely artificial in nature, creating an abstract soundscape to take you away from it all.

Natural and Artificial Sound

This track layers some rain, gentle thunder and birdsong into an artificial soundscape to create a relaxing blend.

Water and Instrumental Guitar

A gentle stream pairs up with an acoustic guitar for this one. Very gentle and melodic.

Okay, so that was just three flavours. If any of those had you thinking you could nod off to them at a later time, make a bookmark just in case. You are most welcome if you find this music useful to you. I also have to thank the people who make this music because… well, it seems the right thing to do. This isn’t the sort of music that’s ever going to fill a concert hall, it’s the kind that people listen to anonymously in the privacy of their homes.

If you want to look through more of Yellow Brick Cinema’s tracks you can find them all here.

If you want to find more delta wave sleep music generally you can find that here.

There’s a big selection out there so if this sort of stuff resonates with you, then I’d encourage you to dive in and take a look around YouTube and discover some of the artists and the music that they make.

How is this Useful in Our Lives?

Personally I’ve been a fan of meditation for decades now, specifically transcendental meditation in my case, though you might use another method or no method at all. Although it’s possible to meditate in silence, I find music to be a powerful guide that can produce a multitude of effects, from projecting peace to bringing forth a powerful surge of life force that I direct around my body. Music is a useful tool to have and these days portable players and smart phones are ubiquitous. It would be silly not to make use of everything at our disposal.

Sleeping Dogs
Dogs probably won’t listen to delta wave music, but they do look adorable.

For an activity such as meditation, a music track aimed at meditation need only be perhaps 15 minutes to an hour in length, depending what you want. In this regard there seems to be a much larger selection available and because they don’t strictly need to target delta waves, you can look at listening to all sorts of soundscapes from music to nature. I’m from the country and so I can happily listen to the wind, or rain falling through the trees, or some other background like that. I could probably fall asleep to that sort of thing as well.

On the matter of sleep or insomnia, longer tracks of an hour to 8 hours or longer are probably more appropriate. What I really like about sleep music over ASMR videos is that there’s nothing to concentrate on. I often find with ASMR that I end up concentrating on a detail here or there and it prevents me from relaxing into sleep. With a music track or soundscape there’s really nothing for the mind to snag on and so the effect is much smoother. Where I would still recommend ASMR is when you want to relax but remain alert and present in the moment. In fact, you can find a bunch of other articles about ASMR here on Pocket Myriad.

Sleeping Woman
It’s not always this easy to fall asleep.

If you are wondering if meditation is useful to you in your life then that’s another topic I could cover in the future. When it comes to sleeping, well, everybody does that already and I think sleep music is a lot more accessible to understand and get immediate use out of. All you have to do is find a nice track you like, put it on your player or phone and put it on at night. As someone who often has trouble winding down at night, I find music to be quite useful and certainly kinder on the body than sleeping pills (I’m not a fan of avoidable drugs).

Okay, that’s all for today. I hope you find some of this useful or at least informative, as ever. If there’s a related topic you’d like me to cover please leave your suggestions in the comments, or if you have anything else to say I always enjoy reading your feedback. You can also share my posts and follow my updates by using the social buttons.

Thanks for dropping in and enjoy your day!

~Cirian.