It’s a Sunday night, 8pm.
You’ve had a large weekend and you’re eager to get an early night.
You wash your face, moisturise, put on your favourite silken pyjamas and slip into a bed of fresh sheets, your pillowslip spritzed with a lavender-scented linen spray.
Then you just lay there. And nothing happens.
You toss and you turn. You lay on your front, your back, your side. Maybe you turn yourself completely upside down. No matter what you do in desperation, you can’t seem to catch a single Z.
Whether it’s stress or worry, a foolish 5pm coffee or the blue-lit allure of the Instagram discover page, sometimes sleep evades us. It’s in these moments we need to call in the experts.
Cue Spotify‘s latest: a playlist curated by classical composer Max Richter and neuroscientist David Eagleman that’s scientifically geared to get you counting sheep better than Moses himself.
Sleep is an eight-hour composition of sounds engineered to transport you to the land of nod:
The playlist copped a guernsey at this year’s SXSW as a meditative eight-hour contemporary classical symphony, performed overnight as audience members tucked into beds. Richter genuinely wanted folks to sleep through his concert – and it worked.
Before creating his siesta-inducing sounds, he consulted neuroscientists to research the mechanics of sleep and its importance to our existence.
“I’ve always slept very well. I’m aware that I’m very lucky,” the 51-year-old told SXSW World.
“It’s increasingly unusual to sleep well and that comes back to how we spend our waking hours now. Everyone is just overstimulated. We’re all a bit exhausted.”
Space and pause are valuable elements within Richter’s arrangement, with solo piano to choral tones, strings and electronics.
“It’s my personal lullaby for a frenetic world,” Richter said on his website.
“A manifesto for a slower pace of existence. It would be great if people were to start playing it while they are getting ready for bed, so that they hear it in their sleep.”
The playlist is also available on Apple Music and Napster – check it out here.
Goodnight.
