Can Music Help You Sleep?

I'm John Legend, chief music officer at Headspace and I'm hosting a new series about the different ways that music can improve our lives. (ethereal music) If music can rouse you and wake you up, can it also help you relax and give you a better night's sleep? There's the way we use music within our sleep routines, hold the key. To find out more, we met up with Cognitive Neuroscientist, Dr. Sahar Yousef. This is such a hot button issue these days for most folks. And it's because people really aren't sleeping enough. But I have found that people get oddly obsessive about how many hours they're sleeping or how they're even sleeping. Yeah. But I never really hear people talk about when they sleep. When is the optimal time for your unique biology Okay. to go to bed and to wake up? So it's unique for every person now? It is unique for every person. Okay. So I wanted to actually introduce you, if I may, to the optimal state curve, okay? Okay. On the y-axis, we have performance or in other words, how are you feeling? So how is your body performing, your mind performing? Exactly. Okay. And then you have arousal here, arousal meaning, how physiologically alert and stimulated are you? Okay. I don't know, if you know what this curve is gonna look like but it is an inverted U-shaped curve. Okay. Okay, what does this mean? When arousal is low, Performance is low. Performance is low. When arousal is too high, we are way too stimulated, you're anxious. So you wanna be in your mid zone to be completely focused. So I'm actually gonna ask you, where do you think you are on this curve right now? Well, we'll both be honest. Right this moment? Yes, yeah. I had some coffee this morning. Okay. I'm carrying on a stimulating conversation. Okay, I'm gonna put you right here. How about that? Okay. I'm gonna actually put both of us here Okay. 'cause that's how I'm feeling. Every single night before bed, I want folks to start to become aware of where they're at on their optimal state curve. I'm a cognitive trainer, so I am a firm believer in you own this, Okay. know where you're at, change it. So for example, if you feel like you're too anxious, you down regulate. So you either move yourself into the sweet spot but you really don't wanna be at the sweet spot when you're going to bed, right? You wanna be down here. Yeah. You want lower arousal so that you feel sleepy and then you can actually get some shut eye. Okay. Number one way to do that is the breath. Okay. Ready for some exercises? Let's exercise. Let's do this. Well, the first is breathing techniques. So an upper chest breath, you're only gonna be breathing into the upper respiratory system. And we are going to be doing is actually breathing in through the mouth and out...