28 March 2024, 13:14
By Furniture News Sept 26, 2019

The Sleep Council develops relaxing audiobooks with Penguin

The Sleep Council has joined forces with Penguin Random House to develop a range of 10 Sleep Tales designed to help people relax before bedtime.

The stories are part soundscape, part descriptive narrative, with relaxing sounds and soothing, slow voices to get people into the right frame of mind for sleep. There are 10 titles in the collection, each 15 minutes long, and a sleep timer can be set for any duration with no need to return to the screen. Themes include Wakarango Mai, set in New Zealand’s hot springs at Lake Taupo, and the tropical paradise of Hammock on a Distant Shore.

Lisa Artis, head of The Sleep Council, says: “We were approached by Penguin to collaborate on this project and we were delighted to get involved and offer advice around what sort of tone and feel the tales should have, the narrative voice as well as overall feedback on the overall story content.

“It was important to get the message across that these weren’t traditional stories – with a beginning, middle and end – but a tool to be used as part of the wind-down bedtime routine to get people to switch off and relax. The stories drew on our own research from 2014 into sounds that helped people wind down, such as waves lapping on a shore, soft rainfall and birdsong.”

Coverage has seen the Sleep Council mentioned in The Guardian and featured on the BBC World Service’s Newsday.

The audiobooks are available on Audible, Google Play and Apple. Children’s versions are available under the Ladybird and Puffin umbrellas as part of the wider project.

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