Whitney Wei: Could you tell me more about the research you're doing on music preferences and sleep quality and any surprising findings coming out of that?

Samuel Morgan: My particular topic would be improving sleep quality by personalizing the music that we play. There is quite a lot of diversity in the music people choose. I think a lot of people have this very common sort of idea that it's going to be typical ambient sounds, but actually, if you ask people who use music to sleep, there's a fair degree of variation within that—some people even pick really random stuff like metal. 

This indicates that there isn't a one-size-fits-all music for sleep. There have been previous studies that show, for example, that if people prefer a certain type of music or are familiar with it, then they find it more relaxing, like subjectively. But what [my research] does is take this throughout the whole period of the night, not just relaxing at the start, to see if, even when you're in deep sleep, this preference is still activating your brain in some sense and making a difference. 

Whitney Wei: While there might not be "one size fits all" music for sleep, is there a single genre that is better?

Samuel Morgan: It's a very important question. I think it would be nice in some sense if there was some sort of universal sleep music archetype that is best for everyone. But there are a lot of different mechanisms at play. It doesn't necessarily need to be something present in the music itself. It could be a piece of music that you put as part of your identity, or maybe your friend likes it, or there are the technical aspects, where you really like certain harmonics or you're interested in certain kinds of slow-moving or fast-moving music.

Whitney Wei: What do you think about the growing culture of sleep optimization? 

Samuel Morgan:  I think there are two sides to it because, on one hand, it's very good for people to be aware of sleep quality and I think it's something that has been neglected a lot in the past. People wear their four hours of sleep like a badge of honor, and this isn't a good thing. But then, do you know Matthew Walker? He's a kind of pop scientist and he wrote a book called ‘Why We Sleep.’

Initially, he was going on all these podcasts and emphasizing the importance of sleep. But then later on, he regretted going so hard on this because it made people more neurotic about their sleep. I talked about sleep apnea before as an example of someone not perceiving themselves as having poor sleep, but objectively, they do. You can have insomnia cases where it's the other way around, where they are sleeping less than the average person but they’re not sleeping for only one hour, for example. But psychologically, they are perceiving their lack of sleep as much worse.

This goes both ways: their impression of how badly they slept might make them feel more tired during the day. And if they have this prior idea that they sleep badly and struggle to fall asleep, this can actually make the insomnia worse. One of the ways to deal with this is therapy. You don't necessarily need physical medication, because it can be psychological.

Whitney Wei:  In improving sleep, it seems like it's as much about the approach to sleep as it is the actual sleep itself.

Samuel Morgan: It's like if you're studying for an exam. You study in a reasonable way, like eight hours every day. Then you do the exam, you do well, and you're happy with it. But if you were really panicked and you study for sixteen hours a day, and you burn out completely before the exam, then you do badly. You were studying in a less mindful way, in a manner that undermines what you're trying to do in the end. In general, the routine before bedtime is important to improving your sleep, and that can involve listening to music.