If children can drift off to sleep easier with slow tempo Christmas music, perhaps it could work on adults too! — 123rf.com
The end-of-year holiday period is not always the most relaxing time for children.
Between seemingly endless family dinners and the excitement of opening presents, the youngest among us often experience disrupted sleep patterns and may even have trouble calming down at bedtime.
One study suggests that some Christmas music can help.
But not just any song celebrating the magic of the festive season will do the trick.
This research claims that certain Christmas songs help children fall asleep faster.
Experts from the Bed Kingdom website came to this conclusion after cataloging the key characteristics of over 300 tracks in sleep-related Spotify playlists.
They then applied these criteria to different Christmas tunes to determine which would be most conducive to falling asleep.
It turns out that acoustic songs with a slow tempo (less than 100 beats per minute) lend themselves particularly well to this.
These include Mother’s Daughter’s The Secret of Christmas, Michael Bolton’s White Christmas and Michael Bublé’s Silent Night.
Most relaxing Christmas songs are melancholy ballads, such as Frank Sinatra’s I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Kelly Clarkson’s Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and Doris Day’s Christmas Present.
The self-proclaimed Queen of Christmas, Mariah Carey, does appear in this ranking, but not for her famous All I Want for Christmas Is You.
Her song Christmas Time Is in The Air Again, released in 2010, appears in 10th place thanks to its soothing tempo.
Generally speaking, if you want to help your children find sleep through music, favour Christmas songs with a slow tempo.
“Ensuring a restful night’s sleep during the festive season is of utmost importance. A carefully curated sleep playlist should help listeners unwind and recharge, with discernible features like a reduced tempo, quiet dynamics, and simple rhythm patterns,” explain the Bed Kingdom specialists.
Here are 10 Christmas songs that should help little ones doze off easily:
1. The Secret of Christmas by Mother’s Daughter
2. White Christmas by Michael Bolton
3. Silent Night by Michael Bublé
4. Angels We Have Heard on High by Andrea Bocelli
5. I’ll Be Home for Christmas (If Only In My Dreams) by Frank Sinatra
6. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Kelly Clarkson
7. O Holy Night by Ellie Goulding
8. Christmas Present by Doris Day
9. A Cradle in Bethlehem by Nat King Cole
10. Christmas Time is in the Air Again by Mariah Carey. – AFP Relaxnews
