12 Best Sleep Podcasts (Sleep Stories & Meditation)

Noisy neighbours, a racing mind, stress or a snoring partner – there are many reasons why we might struggle to arrive at the land of nod.

There’s a range of clever techniques to help people stop the squirrels running around their head when tucked up in bed. And one of the best is sleep podcasts.

As major sleep geeks and sleep podcasters ourselves, we know this industry inside-out.

Here are our best sleep podcast picks, ideal for helping you fall asleep through relaxing sleep stories, sleep meditation and sleep sounds.

Send Me To Sleep Podcast

We don’t want to blow our own trumpet or anything (noisy trumpets aren’t going to help you sleep either) but we believe our Send Me To Sleep Podcast is one of the best out there.

Our podcast has been designed to help you fall asleep through three of the most successful types of audio that regularly works for people who count sheep into triple figures…

We serve up weekly new episodes of sleep stories, sleep meditation or sleep hypnosis. You could be drifting into sleep to a Sherlock Holmes story one week, and dropping off on a sleepy train ride the next.

Although lots of research and work goes on behind the curtain, the podcast is hosted by Andrew, our friendly sleep enthusiast with a calm, relaxing voice.

Send Me To Sleep Podcast is available on all podcasting platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts (just search “Send Me To Sleep Podcast”).

Get Sleepy

Get Sleepy by Slumber Studios includes sleep meditations that uses sounds of natural flowing rivers, other nature and wildlife.

But as well as these sleepy meditation sounds, the podcast also includes a simple relaxing story, such as a boat ride, a camping trip or other outdoor expedition.

We decided to include Get Sleepy on our list of the best sleep podcasts because it combines something proven to work well (sleep meditation) with a unique storytelling aspect that isn’t found on many other podcasts for sleep.

Moreover, the people who tell the story have some of the most relaxing and soothing voices around.

Deep Sleep Sounds Podcast

Deep Sleep Sounds is created by the guys and gals at Slumber Studios, who also produce Get Sleepy, which we featured earlier.

This podcast is unique in that it focuses on white noise, sleep sounds (as the name suggests), rain, nature, and wildlife sounds.

Wondering what the difference is between Deep Sleep Sounds and Get Sleepy?

Well, Deep Sleep Sounds doesn’t provide narratives like Get Sleepy, and focuses on recurring sounds instead. For example, you might choose to listen to an episode of someone trekking across fresh snow.

And new parents love it because it has been known to help newborns sleep too!

And if you love their podcast, check out their mobile app as well at https://deepsleepsounds.com.

Sleep Cove

Sleep Cove is another great sleep podcast created by Christopher Fitton. He worked as a hypnotherapist for years and noticed a rise in the number of people who were coming to him for help with sleep problems.

Subsequently, Christopher decided to create a podcast that includes hypnosis and sleep meditation techniques.

Sleep Cove is different from many other podcasts available because of its hypnosis theme (something our podcast also finds value in).

Christopher, the narrator of the podcast, speaks to you directly to lull you into a state of relaxation, hopefully leading to a good night’s sleep. Yet, the meditation style sounds and even some bedtime stories help to keep things fresh.

Sleep Cove is completely free on all podcasting platforms. With over one million downloads at the time of writing, it is definitely among the best podcasts to help you fall asleep.

Sleepy

Sleepy is a bedtime story podcast that was launched in 2018 and is spearheading the niche already. It was created and is still hosted by Otis Gray, a radio producer known for his cultural writing and deep voice.

Otis decided to take on the project after some of his radio listeners had told him they had fallen asleep to his shows due to his voice and tales. Naturally, he created this fantastic sleep podcast that centres around storytelling.

Otis’s bedtime stories come from the classic canon and include the likes of Little Women, The Jungle Book, Peter Pan and Moby Dick.

Sleepy derived from nature sounds and meditation to concentrate on slowly preparing the body for bed with calming but recognisable entertainment. And that is what makes the Sleepy podcast one of the most innovative and best around.

Sleepy has already won recognition for its status among sleep podcasts – and it gets a big thumbs up from us too.

Nothing Much Happens

Nothing Much Happens is a sleep-inducing podcast by a yoga teacher from Michigan named Kathryn.

Kathryn says one of her earliest childhood memories was making up stories to help herself fall asleep and has never stopped trying to come up with small tales that help people relax. Legend has it that her brain is a library of soothing bedtime narratives…

The stories in the Nothing Much Happens podcast are fantastic and toe the line between entrainment and relaxation perfectly.

Kathryn has created a lot of sleep podcasts over the last years and even divides them into series and episodes just like a Netflix show.

The success of Nothing Much Happens has resulted in Kathryn becoming a published writer with her bedtime stories now available as a book or e-book around the world.

It is Kathryn’s ability to mash together the simplistic stories and her insomnia-curing vocals that have won her a place on our best podcasts for sleep round-up.

Sleep Whispers

Sleep Whispers is a podcast dating back to 2016 by a podcaster with the semi-pseudonym, Harris.

Although Harris is only the podcast creator’s middle name, Harris does reveal their true identity if you listen to the 132nd episode of the podcast – but we won’t get into that here (no spoilers from us!).

The types of episodes on Sleep Whispers can be categorised into stories, fade-out episodes designed to bore you to sleep, general chatting episodes and even Wikipedia episodes.

The last type of episode includes some fun fact learning as Harris tells us about some cool and interesting things they have learned from scrolling Wikipedia pages.

There is no denying that the Sleep Whispers podcast is one of the best available and one of the most innovative in terms of content. And that is why it has won a heap of awards and has a place on our sleep podcast list.

Sleep with Me

Don’t get confused with the love triangle comedy film from 90s America… this is a sleep podcast by Drew Ackerman dating from 2013.

Drew created the podcast as a way to help other struggling sleepers and insomniacs after battling with sleep insomnia himself for a long time.

However, unlike some other sleep podcast creators, Drew does not claim to have any scientific knowledge when it comes to helping people fall asleep. Instead, he chooses to listen to feedback to work out what helps and what doesn’t.

Drew hosts the podcast by playing the character “Dearest Scooter” and tells weird stories that you aren’t going to hear on other podcasts.

But these stories are not going to creep you out. They are for grown-ups, but they are more unbelievable than scary.

And it does work because the podcast has over three million downloads and has ranked in the top 50 podcasts ever made.

Some people have named the Sleep with Me podcast the most boring podcast in the world. And that might just be the genius of it as so many have had their eight hours thanks to Drew.

Sleep Meditation Podcast

The Sleep Meditation Podcast may not have a better website than some of the other sleep podcasts do, but it does exactly what it says on the tin – and it does it well.

The creators have made a podcast that focuses on natural sounds to help you drift away. But one cool aspect about their sounds compared to other podcasts is that they come from real landmarks.

For example, you can listen to episodes of the waterfall in the Yosemite National Park or the sounds of the Scottish Highlands.

It is a pretty unique sleep podcast with a lot of flagbearers. If you want to be transported somewhere exotic or fascinating just before you travel to the land of nod, this podcast may be for you.

Snoozecast

The brains behind Snoozecast tried to make their content boring enough to fall asleep to, but not so boring that you couldn’t bear listening to it.

The end result is a mixture of sleep-inducing episodes in six different categories:

Fiction
Non-fiction
Children’s tales
Original stories
Folktales
Poetry

The inclusion of poetry is surprisingly novel for a sleep podcast, and it was that inclusion as well as the wide audience that Snoozecast can cater to which gives it our nod of approval.

It is easily one of the best sleep podcasts going right now.

Guided Sleep Meditations

Guided Sleep Meditation is not unearthing any new niches of sleep podcasting or making revolutionary strides, but what they do, they do well.

They compose a variation of sleep meditation sounds and organise them into themes. For example, some of their popular episodes are named Beachside Sleep Meditation, Skipping Stones Sleep Meditation and even Alice and Wonderland Sleep Meditation.

Along with their meditation techniques, the Guided Sleep Meditations podcast dedicates episodes to helping people with anxiety and stress.

This will benefit a lot of people as these types of mental health issues contribute significantly to temporary sleep problems.

But it works the other way too. In fact, the Mental Health Foundation suggests that 30% of people with short-term sleep issues experience declining mental health.

Sleep and Relax ASMR

The Sleep and Relax ASMR podcast won’t work for everyone because it might be too much fun. However, lots of night owls still find it the perfect way to unwind after a busy day.

When you’re tucked up in bed listening to Sleep and Relax ASMR, you get a vast choice of content. From typical relaxing noises to episodes about bad translations and even trivia episodes, there is so much on offer here.

The funny stories are all supplied in a relaxing whispered voiceover that keeps it in the sleep podcast category.

Another reason that this sleep podcast makes our list is that it is widely available on ten different podcasting platforms.