Falling asleep with the TV on

Why do so many people fall asleep with the TV on?

Usually for good reasons. Silence can feel loud when your mind is busy, and a voice in the room is company. A programme also gives your attention somewhere to go other than today’s conversations and tomorrow’s list — which is most of what racing thoughts at night are made of. A quiet room with nothing to hold is exactly when the day’s unfinished business gets its turn.

So the habit is not the problem to solve. The question is which parts of it help you drift off, and which parts keep working once you have.

Is it bad to sleep with the TV on?

If any of it is bad for sleep, the clearest evidence is about the light. In a 2022 laboratory study, 20 healthy young adults slept a night in dim light, under 3 lux, and then either another dim night or a night under overhead room lighting of 100 lux. After the lit night their heart rate during sleep was higher, more of the night went to stage 2 sleep and less to deep and REM sleep, and the next morning they were more resistant to insulin, though their melatonin was no different (Mason and colleagues, 2022). That was one night, in 20 people, under a ceiling light rather than a screen.

Studies of real bedrooms point the same way, though they can only show associations. Among 47,765 women in the US Sister Study, those who slept with a television on were more likely than those who slept in the dark to report short sleep, irregular sleep times and other signs of poor sleep (Sweeney and colleagues, 2024). In the same cohort, among 43,722 women followed for about six years, those who slept with a light or a television on in the room were more likely to gain 5 kg or more, and to become overweight or obese (Park and colleagues, 2019). Neither study can show that the television was the cause: people who sleep with it on may differ in other ways.

The practical point is simple: keep light off your eyes while you sleep, which means the screen off, not just turned down. What light does in the evening, before you sleep, is in light is the clock.

What does the sound do once you are asleep?

With noise, the loud moments are what tend to wake people. In studies that recorded people’s sleep outside the laboratory while road traffic, trains and aircraft went by, the chance of waking rose with how loud each passing noise peaked indoors (Basner and McGuire, 2018, in the review behind the World Health Organization’s noise guidelines). A television is not a passing train, but its sound rises and falls in the same way: a voice, a burst of music, an advert, the next scene.

Do you need noise to fall asleep?

You don’t need it, though some people find a steady sound easier than silence. If that is you, keep it low and even, and don’t expect much of it: a 2021 review of 38 studies rated the evidence that continuous noise improves sleep as very low quality, and noted that it may also disturb sleep and hearing (Riedy and colleagues, 2021).

Does it matter what you watch?

Less than you might think, at least for healthy young adults. In a 2023 sleep-laboratory study, 50 healthy young adults watched three or four episodes of a suspenseful series before bed one evening, and of a neutral one on another. The suspense left them more wound up, most of all when the last episode ended on a cliffhanger — yet they fell asleep faster, not slower, and their sleep stages and awakenings were unchanged. The traces were subtle: a higher heart rate through the first two cycles of sleep and, after a cliffhanger only, a lower score on a brainwave measure of sleep quality (Baselgia and colleagues, 2023).

Where it may matter is when your own mind is what keeps you awake. Then a plot, the news or an unanswered question is one more thread to hold, which is the argument for plotless sleep stories — and the reason Sheeps’ stories make no sense on purpose.

The other problem is that a programme does not stop when you do. YouTube, with Autoplay on, starts another related video when one ends, and on Wi-Fi keeps going for up to four hours; whatever else you watch or listen in, check it for a setting like that. A sudden new sound is least welcome just as you drift off, which is why Sheeps’ stories end in silence.

What about falling asleep to a podcast or YouTube?

Audio on its own takes away the light, which is the part with the clearest evidence against it. What is left is the sound and what it says: an episode that ends in music, an advert or the next episode, and a story you would like to hear the end of. YouTube brings the screen back, and its Autoplay with it.

As for whether bedtime audio helps, less is known than the app listings suggest. In a 2026 trial, 495 working adults with disturbed sleep were randomly given four weeks of bedtime stories, sleep sounds or sleep-skills audio in a workplace well-being app, or a control condition. The audio was safe and well tolerated, and the groups using it did slightly better than the control, by margins too small to rule out chance (Vazzaz and colleagues, 2026). On that evidence, bedtime audio is a comfort rather than a fix.

How can you fall asleep with something on, the gentler way?

• Audio only. Turn the screen off, or put the phone face down, so no light reaches you while you sleep.
• Low and steady. Set the volume just loud enough to follow, and choose something that does not lurch from quiet to loud.
• A sleep timer. Let it stop by itself, a little after you usually drift off — not at three in the morning.
• No autoplay. Turn off whatever starts the next episode or video, so one is all you get.
• Nothing to follow. Something you have heard before, or something with no plot at all, keeps you company without a thread to pull. Plotless sleep stories explains the idea, and sleep story apps, compared sets out what is on offer.
• Nothing after it. Choose audio that ends in silence, or set any background sound to stop when the story does.

When is it more than a habit?

If trouble sleeping has happened most nights for months and is affecting your days — with the television on or off — that is worth taking to a doctor. For chronic insomnia, cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is the recommended first treatment, according to the American College of Physicians (Qaseem and colleagues, 2016) and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (Edinger and colleagues, 2021). For an ordinary slow night, how to fall asleep goes through what helps.