I love listening to college lectures for topics I’m interested in but don’t fully grok. I fell asleep in them back when I was paying for it and getting tested on the material. Now I can listen to the same lecture 50 times if I want. And no test.

An all time favorite: Lenny Susskind’s Stanford open lecture series on Quantum Mechanics

Down side: sometimes I dream that I am trying to ask a question and the lecturer never notices. I have literally in the dream started running around terrorizing the room going insane screaming why does this professor not acknowledge my existence?!

Doubly hurtful when it’s Lenny; he’s such a comforting father-figure

Regrettably my tinnitus requires me to have some kind of sound going. I also like having flickering light, so I tend to just put on TV shows I have seen many times. Like Supernatural or Star Trek.

I’ve always needed some sort of noise to help sleep. I can do it in complete silence, but it takes a lot longer and I can never get comfortable so if I have to be up early the next day, silence is a recipe for disaster.

I tend to sleep to one of Vinny Vinesauce’s vods he uploads to the Fullsauce channel. Dude has just a nice relaxing voice and personality so I can kind of half pay attention and imagine what’s going on as I lie down with my eyes closed.

I’ve been rewatching DS9 at night and falling asleep to that.

History of the universe, or fall of civilizations podcast.

I took a nap while falling asleep to a short video and in my dream I kept trying to turn off the video wondering why I the audio kept looping. Took me a while to realize I’m in dream land

There’s a dude on YouTube that repairs old cameras, hour long videos that I try to pay attention to but always puts me in that state where I can feel myself falling asleep, and my eyes won’t stay open.

Sleep With Me and Sleep Magic podcasts are great. Both have interesting enough content to listen to, but designed to make you sleepy. Also they talk like normal people. I can’t stand the ones where people are using their “sleepy ASMR voice.”

All the This Week in Tech (TWIT) podcasts are also really good, and long so good to fall asleep to. Also good if you can’t fall asleep since they’re pretty interesting.

Darknet Diaries is a good one - great stories.

Casefile. Would recommend an earphone if you have a partner hahaha

Yep, lately it’s been Max Richter 's album Sleep.

Supplemented with eye mask, melatonin, and an attempt to keep bedtime and wake up hours very consistent. When I can’t sleep, sometimes the last resort is to go sleep somewhere else, like the living room couch or the guest bedroom. For some reason, that can break me out of the rut and fall asleep.

Paper books with nightlights, or ebooks on low light level.

Reduced sensory input works like a charm.

I typically need something familiar to listen to in order to fall asleep. I doubt it would work for you, but for me personally, Alpharad among us vods work great. I envy you, as a single person it’s very difficult early in a relationship to navigate these things

Sleeping with celebrities is celebs trying to calmly talk you to sleep. Empire and Revolutions are great podcasts. You can learn and then re-listen the next day if you want to learn more.

Would I lie to you is amazing, and the stories start to become a safety blanket. The unbelievable truth is great too.

I do, it also greatly helps with my work based anxieties related to next day woes. I find it also helps me relax and sleep when dealing with my chronic migraines to be able to listen, and in a way see, with my ears only since I get severe occular issues with them.

I pretty exclusively listen to video game lps, especially on migraine days, as I find comfort in knowing the game that is being played so well I dont feel the urge to look.

If that sounds up your alley there are a few creators I can recommend, all of which do not raise their voices, shout in surprise, or have sharp jumps in audio levels. They all balance their audio very very well.

Rhadamant: Narrative driven stories in a variety of games with a large focus on Rimworld. He does a very good job of explaining everything so you really can “watch” without seeing and fall asleep comfortably listening to a story. My favorite was the OG wendigo series personally but if you don’t know Rimworld that may be heavy. Life on the Rim is tough.

Halfman: Very different here but his rags to riches series on Tarkov feels like listening to a survival novel set in a warzone.

Aavak: Calm and collected every time with a very soothing tone. Unlike the others has a wider back catalogue of games so may be more options to grab your interest.

The Black Pants Legion - TexTalksBattletech: Lore videos on Battletech (big tabletop mech war set in an alternate timeline) super cool stuff. Lots to dig into.

TheAshHeritor: I started with the narrative lets plays of Age of Wonders because I was playing it in a similar way. The creator is an author for Warhammer and it really shows in the way they commentate. There is a current series running on Rogue Trader as well that is quite good.

Here’s hoping you find some joy and, most importantly, some sleep.

I started doing this when I went away to college. I think it was some mix of not having parents to tell me to go to sleep, feeling like I needed to reclaim some time for myself when the rest of my day was so busy, and maybe being a bit lonely far away from home.

I almost exclusively watch HS BG. It’s the right level of enough stuff happening that it occupies my mind while I’m conscious but it’s not something I care about missing any of it and they’re generally chill enough to not overexcite me or shock me awake. Plus they usually have on some generic chill music in the background.

I set a timer to shut off my tablet after an hour and with only a few exceptions I don’t ever stay awake long enough to see it shut off.