Music intervention for insomnia disorder: A randomized controlled trial

Objectives/Introduction: Music is often used as sleep aid by people with insomnia, and commercial products are widely available. Yet, research in this field has been scarce, and the existing studies suffer from substantial risk of bias and lack of objective sleep measures. To account for these shortcomings, we conducted a randomized controlled trial evaluating the effect of bedtime music listening for improving sleep in adults with insomnia disorder. Methods: Fifty‐seven participants with insomnia disorder were randomized to music intervention, audiobook control or waitlist control group in this three‐armed, assessor‐blinded RCT. Participants in the music group could choose between four slow music playlists of different genres and a similar approach was used for the audiobook group. Both groups received an audio player designed to be used in bed during the three‐week intervention period. The primary outcome was insomnia severity and secondary outcomes included quality of life as well as objective sleep measured with actigraphy and polysomnography. Results: Time by group interactions only approached significance for the primary outcome measured by the insomnia severity index (effect size = 0.71, p = 0.06), even though within group comparisons showed a significant reduction in insomnia symptoms in the music group, but not in any of the control groups. Participants in the music group had improved quality of life compared to the two control groups (effect size = 0.61, p = 0.01), but we saw no effect of the music intervention on objective sleep measures. Conclusions: In contrast to previous studies, our results did not show a clear effect of the music intervention on insomnia symptoms and sleep quality. This difference may relate to differences in participant characteristics, study design and the music intervention. Importantly, we did see improved quality of life in the music group suggesting that music as sleep aid may also improve daytime functioning. Future studies should clarify the effect of music in insomnia.