I often have difficulty falling asleep at night without the assistance of podcasts. Left to my own devices while lying in bed, I’ll start planning my next day, thinking about the future, or worse, pondering every terrible decision I’ve ever made.
So I listen to podcasts to lull me into a peaceful slumber. But not just any podcast will do. These “falling asleep” podcasts need to have certain characteristics:
- They must be interesting. It can’t be a boring podcast, or I will get irritated by how boring it is and that irritation will keep me awake.
- The hosts must have soothing voices. I’m trying to fall asleep here, folks. The hosts can’t have extremely grating or piercing voices, lest I’m jostled awake while I’m drifitng off.
- The subject matter must be inessential. I don’t mean “inessential” to be a slight here. Pretty much all of the podcasts I host (with the possible exception of “The Tobolowsky Files”) I consider to be “inessential.” All I mean is that I can’t listen to important news about the world presented in a straightforward fashion, since that will likely upset me and prevent me from sleeping.
- It’s a conversation between people, vs. a highly produced show. I don’t go for the long-form, intense storytelling podcasts while I’m falling asleep, because I want to listen to these shows while I’m awake. In the past, when I’ve tried listening to shows like Planet Money or Radiolab while in bed, I will fall asleep during it, then get annoyed later when I need to wake up and re-listen to the entire thing again.
So with all that said, what are the shows that I fall asleep to? Before I list them, I want to make clear: Just because I listen to these podcasts in this fashion, it doesn’t mean that I think any of these podcasts are “boring” in any way. They simply fulfill all of the curious and extremely specific characteristics I listed above.
Here they are:
Battleship Pretension — Tyler Smith and David Bax have been hosting this podcast for longer than I’ve been hosting the /Filmcast. They are extremely well-informed, articulate movie geeks, but they also speak with a lovely, calming cadence that I find ideal for provoking thought and also falling asleep to.
The Flop House — Elliott Kalan, Dan McCoy, and Stuart Wellington discuss films that are critical and commercial failures in an engaging and funny way.
The Accidental Tech Podcast — Marco Arment, John Siracusa, and Casey Liss cover weekly tech news from the perspective of those who are power users and skilled reviewers. My favorite component of this show: Siracusa’s and Arment’s extended rants.
The Bugle — Hosted by Andy Zaltzman and a rotating list of co-hosts, this podcast covers the week’s political news with a sense of humor that is drier than the Mojave. The show isn’t quite the same after John Oliver left to host Last Week Tonight, but Zaltzman himself is still a great talent.
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I realize that many people listen to the above podcasts without falling asleep to them. I’d encourage this! But for me, they fulfill a very specific purpose in my life and I’m grateful for that.