They've seemed to configure Cloudfront to block access from Singapore.
show comments
gullywhumper
Northwoods Baseball Radio Network is my favorite. It’s a fictional baseball league based primarily in Wisconsin. Games are called by a droning announcer. Even the fake commercials between innings are monotonous.
I listen to it during the day too. I’m very tempted to score some of the games, but I’m a little worried I’d find holes like only 2 outs in an inning or missing innings in a game.
The problem with that podcast is that most of their selections are genuinely interesting - I even listened to them on long drives (e.g. "Origin of Species"). Even something I thought would boring like or "Farm Engines and how to Run" them turned out to be fascinating.
This one, on the other hand, seems to be genuinely boring. I couldn't get past the intro.
show comments
kelvinjps10
What I do is to put a podcast in a language I'm learning, radio France is very good for this. I have a good level of French but my listening still needs work, at the beginning I can understand what they're saying but around the 20minutes or 30 mark my brain becomes too tired, I stop understanding and then I fall to sleep.
m-hodges
My favorite go-to-sleep move is to load up Ben Eater on YouTube. I actually love Ben Eater’s content, but his voice and his lack of dopamine-chasing production make for perfect go-to-sleep encouragement. And then I have a genuinely interesting video to pick up when I’m not tired.
kelvinjps10
I was starting to get chill
Until I heard this And then it hits you. That signal is at risk. It could be snatched right out of the sky. Congress has just passed the Rescissions Act of 2025, H.R.4, eliminating all federal funding for public media. At Marfa Public Radio, this means one third of our budget is disappearing. For now, everything's still humming, machinery whirring, tower broadcasting.
Now I got worried, is this actually true, wanted to look it up and now it was hard to fall asleep again.
They shouldn't put stuff like that in the podcast supposed to help you sleep
PaulRobinson
Not sure how accessible all this is outside of the UK (you'd need to check the BBC Sounds website & app), but the BBC has perfected a couple of great "gets you to sleep" radio outlets.
The oldest is Radio 4, the BBC's national spoken word radio station (there's also Radio 5 which focuses on sport and news, Radio 4 is more a mixture of comedy, arts, culture and news).
Late at night (UK time), there are programmes that were for many years my soundtrack to getting to sleep - news, a short programme (on Sunday it's a recording of some church bells from some church somewhere in the UK countryside - it changes each week), followed by the shipping forecast. The service "signs off" with the national anthem before switching over to the BBC World Service at around 1am through until 6am when it switches back to the iconic Today programme.
The shipping forecast though - that's the gold. If you've never listened to it before, try and find a recording. As an island nation with a decimated but still strong fishing trawler fleet, it's framed as essential safety information, but in truth its just an iconic, beautiful, ever-changing structured poem, read on national radio several times a day. It is perfect for helping calm the mind, it's a weighted blanket for the brain.
Somebody, somewhere realised that a continuity announcer slowly rattling through the shipping forecast was so good at putting over-active minds to sleep that they created a podcast - "The Sleeping Forecast" - which is a mix of slow/ambient music with old shipping forecasts read over them. I love it, but my partner finds it "weird" so I can't listen to it without wearing headphones late at night.
This, somehow, then led to the realisation that Radio 3 (the national classical music station in the UK), could provide more of the same. Cue other programs - Sleep Tracks, Night Tracks - where there is a composition of calming, quieting music, mostly rooted in classical tradition but overall just very ambient and calm.
And then the final inevitable chapter: in the world of DAB radio and digital platforms (including the BBC Sounds app that seemed absurd at its inception but now slowly becoming loved), the BBC realised they could cheaply put together a whole new station: BBC Radio 3 Unwind (or "3U" for short).
All of this being the BBC, there are no ads. No pledge drives. 3 Unwind has no news programming. It's my new go to when anxiety hits.
The BBC isn't perfect, the funding model needs to evolve, but while we have this - just in case one day we don't - do try and enjoy this stuff if you can.
show comments
colemannerd
Marfa is an amazing little town. I was there 3 months ago; while it is out of the way, even as a visitor, everyone is nice and genuinely there to provide an amazing artistic experience. If you ever want to experience the actual weird, southwestern, cowboy country, go to Marfa. And have a drink outside this public radio station. It's quite a nice getaway.
show comments
water-data-dude
I started listening to an audiobook of Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust with the best of intentions. It's high quality literature, and it unquestionably has artistic and human-ness value!
However...it's become my "put this on with a 30 minute timer if I'm having trouble falling to sleep" tool. I'd probably have better luck with the physical book. The narrator, John Rowe, does an excellent job, but his voice is so damn _soothing_.
show comments
wxw
> It's a sleep podcast wherein we read you the boring documents essential to our jobs, in the hopes we might lull you into slumber.
What a great idea, I feel li... zzz
bad_username
> Ever wondered what NPR's code of journalistic ethics involves for the newsroom?
I have been thinking a lot through the years about the choice between joirnalistic ethics and journalistic activism in the ranks of organizations like NPR. This is an extremely important topic because today's media are as impactful politically as the "regular" political process.
My point is, such discussion would not make me sleepy, the opposite would happen.
show comments
hombre_fatal
My sleep strategy has been scary story montages on Youtube, whether r/nosleep style compilations from Mortis Media or 30min short stories.
The unique selling proposition is that the inherent intrigue makes them interesting enough to listen to in the first place.
The problem with most recommendations in this thread is that I’m still awake for 10+ minutes (or much worse) while I’m laying in bed so “Sleep to physics/calculus” just isn’t going to cut it.
I wonder how many people who can listen to audio where the gimmick is that it’s so boring actually needed sleep assistance in the first place.
superasn
One trick that makes me sleepy really fast: After I close my eyes, I imagine someone throwing black paint on them. The first coat is kinda gray and has lots of blob and not fully black. Then another coat. And another. Each one gets darker until it's just pure black and I'm usually asleep by then.
For some reason, my brain follows it, and I fall asleep much faster. It works way better for me than box breathing or most other sleep tricks I've seen. Sharing in case someone else finds this useful.
show comments
tzury
For me, Edward Witten (1), Sheldon Axler (2), Patrick Winston (3) and many others do a far better job.
One of my greatest memories is performing at the Chinati Foundation. Marfa is such a gem with tons of cool people just being creative out in the desert.
show comments
ChrisMarshallNY
When I first read that, I saw "Mafia Public Radio."
Listen to The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. It's bureaucratic language, which could put you to sleep. But then it also contains some ideas that sound utterly unrealistic and utopian in our current times, even as mere aspirations. Thinking about what we've lost since 1967 makes me lose my sleep.
Listening now, after a day long coding binge, and I need to wind down.
It has a decent sleepy background vibe to it too. Reminds me of Joe Perra Talks You To Sleep (Adult Swim). I dig it!
zx8080
> The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your country.
Thank you very much.
So tired of the cloudflare shit.
show comments
khimaros
another is "Sleep With Me" by Dearest Scooter which are nonsensical steam of consciousness monologues.
fsckboy
i want a sleep app that reads me things that will put me to sleep, but i need it to track when i may have gone to sleep, or more importantly when I have not, so i can restart the next night past the point i've listened to. but it needs to be some crazy simple UI, i don't want the light on my phone to turn on, i don't want to fiddle, just skip forward, skip back, that's about it
there's all sorts of stuff that is dry but interesting that I'd like to plow through over time, a few paragraphs a day would suit me fine
show comments
a34729t
Meh, not math finance. Thats literally lorezapam.
alex1138
Am I the only one that can't fall asleep to music? I need human voice rhythms, so podcasts, or whatever. The downside is not learning anything from the podcast because I'm asleep and it works its way into dreams sporadically
show comments
lxgr
Too many American websites these days put random geoblocking in place.
What’s even more frustrating is when it happens without any explanation in mobile apps via breaking a few specific APIs.
Just yesterday I was struggling with a bank/fintech that would send me through KYC every time I’d open the app from abroad as an existing user, which would then hang forever. Using a US VPN, everything would work normally. Good thing fraudsters don’t have access to US VPNs…
show comments
preetham_rangu
been using long youtube lectures for this for years. the sweet spot is something just interesting enough that your brain can't fully let go, but not interesting enough to actually keep you awake. theoretical physics talks hit it perfectly for me.
the problem is occasionally you find one that's genuinely fascinating and you're suddenly wide awake at 3am having learned something.
https://archive.ph/GkyK5
They've seemed to configure Cloudfront to block access from Singapore.
Northwoods Baseball Radio Network is my favorite. It’s a fictional baseball league based primarily in Wisconsin. Games are called by a droning announcer. Even the fake commercials between innings are monotonous.
I listen to it during the day too. I’m very tempted to score some of the games, but I’m a little worried I’d find holes like only 2 outs in an inning or missing innings in a game.
https://www.sleepbaseball.com/
There is a similar podcast, "Boring Books for Bedtime": https://www.boringbookspod.com/episodes.
The problem with that podcast is that most of their selections are genuinely interesting - I even listened to them on long drives (e.g. "Origin of Species"). Even something I thought would boring like or "Farm Engines and how to Run" them turned out to be fascinating.
This one, on the other hand, seems to be genuinely boring. I couldn't get past the intro.
What I do is to put a podcast in a language I'm learning, radio France is very good for this. I have a good level of French but my listening still needs work, at the beginning I can understand what they're saying but around the 20minutes or 30 mark my brain becomes too tired, I stop understanding and then I fall to sleep.
My favorite go-to-sleep move is to load up Ben Eater on YouTube. I actually love Ben Eater’s content, but his voice and his lack of dopamine-chasing production make for perfect go-to-sleep encouragement. And then I have a genuinely interesting video to pick up when I’m not tired.
I was starting to get chill Until I heard this And then it hits you. That signal is at risk. It could be snatched right out of the sky. Congress has just passed the Rescissions Act of 2025, H.R.4, eliminating all federal funding for public media. At Marfa Public Radio, this means one third of our budget is disappearing. For now, everything's still humming, machinery whirring, tower broadcasting.
Now I got worried, is this actually true, wanted to look it up and now it was hard to fall asleep again. They shouldn't put stuff like that in the podcast supposed to help you sleep
Not sure how accessible all this is outside of the UK (you'd need to check the BBC Sounds website & app), but the BBC has perfected a couple of great "gets you to sleep" radio outlets.
The oldest is Radio 4, the BBC's national spoken word radio station (there's also Radio 5 which focuses on sport and news, Radio 4 is more a mixture of comedy, arts, culture and news).
Late at night (UK time), there are programmes that were for many years my soundtrack to getting to sleep - news, a short programme (on Sunday it's a recording of some church bells from some church somewhere in the UK countryside - it changes each week), followed by the shipping forecast. The service "signs off" with the national anthem before switching over to the BBC World Service at around 1am through until 6am when it switches back to the iconic Today programme.
The shipping forecast though - that's the gold. If you've never listened to it before, try and find a recording. As an island nation with a decimated but still strong fishing trawler fleet, it's framed as essential safety information, but in truth its just an iconic, beautiful, ever-changing structured poem, read on national radio several times a day. It is perfect for helping calm the mind, it's a weighted blanket for the brain.
Somebody, somewhere realised that a continuity announcer slowly rattling through the shipping forecast was so good at putting over-active minds to sleep that they created a podcast - "The Sleeping Forecast" - which is a mix of slow/ambient music with old shipping forecasts read over them. I love it, but my partner finds it "weird" so I can't listen to it without wearing headphones late at night.
This, somehow, then led to the realisation that Radio 3 (the national classical music station in the UK), could provide more of the same. Cue other programs - Sleep Tracks, Night Tracks - where there is a composition of calming, quieting music, mostly rooted in classical tradition but overall just very ambient and calm.
And then the final inevitable chapter: in the world of DAB radio and digital platforms (including the BBC Sounds app that seemed absurd at its inception but now slowly becoming loved), the BBC realised they could cheaply put together a whole new station: BBC Radio 3 Unwind (or "3U" for short).
All of this being the BBC, there are no ads. No pledge drives. 3 Unwind has no news programming. It's my new go to when anxiety hits.
The BBC isn't perfect, the funding model needs to evolve, but while we have this - just in case one day we don't - do try and enjoy this stuff if you can.
Marfa is an amazing little town. I was there 3 months ago; while it is out of the way, even as a visitor, everyone is nice and genuinely there to provide an amazing artistic experience. If you ever want to experience the actual weird, southwestern, cowboy country, go to Marfa. And have a drink outside this public radio station. It's quite a nice getaway.
I started listening to an audiobook of Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust with the best of intentions. It's high quality literature, and it unquestionably has artistic and human-ness value!
However...it's become my "put this on with a 30 minute timer if I'm having trouble falling to sleep" tool. I'd probably have better luck with the physical book. The narrator, John Rowe, does an excellent job, but his voice is so damn _soothing_.
> It's a sleep podcast wherein we read you the boring documents essential to our jobs, in the hopes we might lull you into slumber.
What a great idea, I feel li... zzz
> Ever wondered what NPR's code of journalistic ethics involves for the newsroom?
I have been thinking a lot through the years about the choice between joirnalistic ethics and journalistic activism in the ranks of organizations like NPR. This is an extremely important topic because today's media are as impactful politically as the "regular" political process.
My point is, such discussion would not make me sleepy, the opposite would happen.
My sleep strategy has been scary story montages on Youtube, whether r/nosleep style compilations from Mortis Media or 30min short stories.
The unique selling proposition is that the inherent intrigue makes them interesting enough to listen to in the first place.
The problem with most recommendations in this thread is that I’m still awake for 10+ minutes (or much worse) while I’m laying in bed so “Sleep to physics/calculus” just isn’t going to cut it.
I wonder how many people who can listen to audio where the gimmick is that it’s so boring actually needed sleep assistance in the first place.
One trick that makes me sleepy really fast: After I close my eyes, I imagine someone throwing black paint on them. The first coat is kinda gray and has lots of blob and not fully black. Then another coat. And another. Each one gets darker until it's just pure black and I'm usually asleep by then.
For some reason, my brain follows it, and I fall asleep much faster. It works way better for me than box breathing or most other sleep tricks I've seen. Sharing in case someone else finds this useful.
For me, Edward Witten (1), Sheldon Axler (2), Patrick Winston (3) and many others do a far better job.
1. https://youtu.be/UW_M7hotSlk
2. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGAnmvB9m7zOBVCZBUUmSinFV...
3. https://youtu.be/TjZBTDzGeGg
One of my greatest memories is performing at the Chinati Foundation. Marfa is such a gem with tons of cool people just being creative out in the desert.
When I first read that, I saw "Mafia Public Radio."
"Youse gonna sleep wid' da fishies..."
short of this radio, you can also play Stellardrone https://stellardrone.bandcamp.com/
I love this. It's funny but also weirdly effective as a reminder that local radio is held together by a huge amount of invisible, unglamorous work
I used to fall asleep to NPR as a kid, so this resonates. Curious if anyone else has a go-to station or podcast they use as a sleep aid?
Just thinking about that little big neck of the world puts me to sleep. In the best of ways. I love West Texas.
I wonder why the telephone number read aloud, and that on the web page, are different.
fastsleep.app does kinda similar thing... but instead of long podcasts, you are given something to imagine at a time interval.
Like if you hear "calm river", imagine that. If you hear "heavy rain over a tree", imagine that.
In short → Close your eyes, listen & imagine.
The Odd Lots podcast puts my wife to sleep
Sean Carroll's Mindscape is my favourite.
Though sometimes it is very interesting and might delay sleep a bit
I’d like to filter the offerings to get the most monotonic voice
clicks fingers instead of clapping.
What a brilliant idea. I’m here fo…zzz.
Bryon Gysin wrote series of corresponding letters with William Burroughs on radio.
One refers to toothpaste manufacturing, the cold anticipation marketers should have.
Too bad they missed the opportunity to read it, very, slowly.
Wdym... this is riveting stuff!
IWTWMBY
I am using https://www.youtube.com/@EpicNate for the same purpose. Works like a charm.
See also the Myths and Legends podcast: https://www.mythpodcast.com/.
Listen to The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. It's bureaucratic language, which could put you to sleep. But then it also contains some ideas that sound utterly unrealistic and utopian in our current times, even as mere aspirations. Thinking about what we've lost since 1967 makes me lose my sleep.
https://www.marfapublicradio.org/podcast/marfa-public-radio-...
Listening now, after a day long coding binge, and I need to wind down.
It has a decent sleepy background vibe to it too. Reminds me of Joe Perra Talks You To Sleep (Adult Swim). I dig it!
> The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your country.
Thank you very much.
So tired of the cloudflare shit.
another is "Sleep With Me" by Dearest Scooter which are nonsensical steam of consciousness monologues.
i want a sleep app that reads me things that will put me to sleep, but i need it to track when i may have gone to sleep, or more importantly when I have not, so i can restart the next night past the point i've listened to. but it needs to be some crazy simple UI, i don't want the light on my phone to turn on, i don't want to fiddle, just skip forward, skip back, that's about it
there's all sorts of stuff that is dry but interesting that I'd like to plow through over time, a few paragraphs a day would suit me fine
Meh, not math finance. Thats literally lorezapam.
Am I the only one that can't fall asleep to music? I need human voice rhythms, so podcasts, or whatever. The downside is not learning anything from the podcast because I'm asleep and it works its way into dreams sporadically
Too many American websites these days put random geoblocking in place.
What’s even more frustrating is when it happens without any explanation in mobile apps via breaking a few specific APIs.
Just yesterday I was struggling with a bank/fintech that would send me through KYC every time I’d open the app from abroad as an existing user, which would then hang forever. Using a US VPN, everything would work normally. Good thing fraudsters don’t have access to US VPNs…
been using long youtube lectures for this for years. the sweet spot is something just interesting enough that your brain can't fully let go, but not interesting enough to actually keep you awake. theoretical physics talks hit it perfectly for me.
the problem is occasionally you find one that's genuinely fascinating and you're suddenly wide awake at 3am having learned something.