What are some soothing sounds that have helped you relax and fall asleep?

The sound of my fan puts me to sleep every night.

Rain/Thunderstorms.

Traffic noise. It seems to be prevalent everywhere I’ve lived.

The dishwasher. Hard rain on the roof.

of all things, hairdryers… I think it’s the “white noise” effect, but it’s done it for as long as I can remember to this day. a good heavy rain works too though I find that it mostly helps me to sleep in rather than knocking me out, something about the sound is just very naturally rhythmic and relaxing.

Steam radiators in the winter. When you hear the hissing and knocking, you know it will be a warm night.

oh i thought of another one, bullfrogs in unison at night

I used to use a white noise machine to fall asleep. Now I’m so tired, it doesn’t matter if it’s on or not!

The sound of running water. I’ve always thought of creeks as consistent and beautiful, so the sound is naturally comforting to me. So is the sound the thunder – I love that natural power. :)

I find the music of Bon Iver unbelievably relaxing and it lulls me to sleep pretty quickly. Not quite in the league of rain or hair dryers, but I think he has a pretty unique and unusual sound.

A cat purring. I used to wake up in the night to turn, dislodging my cat, and she’d purr me back to sleep.

Storms
Lit fireplace
Window ajar with sound of train in the distance
Ocean waves
Delicate wind chimes

Waves coming in to the beach.

Rain on the roof.

The piano music of Jim Brickman or Chris Rice.

People talking in the next room. It reminds me of when I was little and would be sent to bed early but could still hear my family talking. It still puts me to sleep now.

The sound of my wife breathing is the most soothing sound in the world.

@gemiwing I love that, too. Also, my youngest used to have the room across the hall and her tv would send me off.

I like to sleep with the fan or humidifier running. Not too loud but loud enough to drown out any outside noises.

The sound of a grand-father clock ticking – reminds me of being at my grannies as a wee boy. Makes me feel instantly relaxed.

Car engines, fans. The spattering sound of light rain outside is nice. And the vast silence that can only be had by driving out into the middle of nowhere and sitting under a tree.

Rain, distant storms, crickets, waves, an aquarium, the heater coming on, the sound of a loved one sleeping next to me.

I know this will sound odd, but waves lapping against the side of a ship. I should explain I heard this on a dvd. I don’t sleep well, I haven’t for many many years so my routine at night is to put on a dvd so that I fall asleep watching tv, usually i press the repeat button so that I don’t wake up because the dvd has stopped, but before I learned how to do that (many thanks to bro in law) I fell asleep one night watching one of my favourite movies, “Master and Commander” with Russell Crowe. Well the movie had finished and it didn’t, as it usually would for some odd reason, wake me up. I slept like a baby and when i woke up in the morning, the dvd had gone back to its “menu” screen as dvds do. The menu screen on this disc has the constant very, very gentle sound of water slapping against the side of the ship. Its such a wonderful sound, very gentle, very sootheing, just lovely :-) Another sound I love is rain against the window, not a storm or anything just very gentle rain.
hugs everyone xx

For those of you with Apple mobiles theres an App out there on the I Phone/Pod Touch called “White noise”, which lets you hear lots of the sounds mentioned above – I got the Lite version for free :-)

@Buttonstc I love Jim Brickman, as well. I just saw him in concert, and he was excellent!

I find instrumental music to be quite soothing to fall asleep too as well

classical music
drum of washing machine
sound of beach:]

my math teacher :/

I used to need complete silence to sleep, but when my daughter was born and I began to wake up at her every whimper and movement, I needed something to drown those noises out. Conveniently, the baby was sick and we needed to run a humidifier, and my mother let us borrow this huge old-fashioned one, that makes a constant whirring noise. I don’t sleep well without it now.

@laaaa Soothing, or boring? :-)

@Sandydog

I have the same app and use it when I travel. White noise was one of the first of these types.

I picked it up about a year ago.
But now there are a ton of these apps, both free and paid.

There are also a lot of them labeled “binaural beats” which are similar variations on the same basic idea.

I’ve tried out a whole bunch of them and those who like a lot of variety may enjoy them.

But my needs are pretty simple and either the fan or the rain ones in white noise do the trick for me.

The news shows on NPR

I had an International Marketing teacher once that could put me into a 75-minute coma, if I wasn’t careful.
Though her voice was kinda shrill, now that I think about it. Maybe it was the lecture’s content?

@Dr_Dredd

well his voice is just makes me sleepy. Like the guy from that Barren’s Jewelry with the boring voice.

That and the fact that his lessons are also very boring.

So yeah, boring.

My dad use to live next to a train track and when we spent weekends with him I found the sound of trains passing by every hour or so very relaxing. When I was older I moved in with my dad (in his new house) on a permanent basis and my bedroom overlooked a very busy main road. I loved the sound of the constant traffic. I have always needed noise to soothe me into sleep. As a very young child I would leve the radio on all night. Now I have my own flat and I am pleased to say that there is constant traffic noise.

No baby crying.