The reasons and aims for listening to music while going to sleep: results from an ESM study

Current trends in music research are emphasising the importance of contextual factors in the use and effects of listening to music, such as mood, situation, and emotional goals. This undoubtedly has implications for the use of music in therapeutic settings, such as helping with problems going to sleep. Using data previously collected in experience sampling studies, we conducted an exploratory investigation on the choices and reasons why people listen to music to go to sleep with accounts reported in real-life situations at night when participants were going to bed. We found that listeners mainly used music for relaxation, which corresponded with increased valence, varying arousal changes, and relatively intensive and energetic music choices. This novel perspective echoes some previously reported discrepancies in what listeners use and what researchers or commercial applications typically prescribe as music for sleep. The data add granular information on emotional aims and development in context, and particularly highlight the relevance of valence. This initial exploration demonstrates the strong potential for this methodology to study sleep and listening behaviours. One particular avenue for future research is to investigate night-to-night variations in individual experiences.