The British Are Coming ... to Lull You to Sleep

Of all the tricks I’ve tried—total silence, music, reruns of Law & Order—nothing makes me drowsier than the dulcet tones of a British accent. Watching a British TV mystery never fails to send me straight to sleep. Maybe it’s because I married an Englishman, and his voice has been a steady, everyday presence in my life for 16 years, but I’m definitely not alone. There are plenty of surveys and studies that show many of us non-Brits love British voices. Even my 7-year-old prefers her dad to read her bedtime stories—and I used to be a children’s librarian who read aloud for a living. If you’re a fellow Anglophile looking for new strategies to help you fall asleep, what worked for me might work for you.

When my husband was away, I used to struggle to sleep in our too-quiet bedroom. Then I discovered British murder mysteries on TV, and these made me nod off faster than you can say “constable.” First I tried Midsomer Murders on Netflix, about country detectives and the outrageous number of homicides happening around them at cricket matches, community-theater productions, and flower shows.

After I’d made it through 19 seasons (I often fell asleep minutes into each episode), I started looking for more shows like it, which led me to BritBox—a streaming service with loads of British television that’s hard to find elsewhere (even on Netflix). I discovered gardeners solving murders (Rosemary & Thyme), priests solving murders (Father Brown), even magicians solving murders (Jonathan Creek). Give me hushed crime-scene conversations in the rose bushes or talk of motives over tea, and I’m a happy, sleepy woman! These shows have become my cozy, bedtime stand-ins when I’m sleeping solo or need extra comfort. BritBox is $7 a month, or $70 a year, which is worthwhile to me for everything we get—not just my mysteries, but also shows my husband misses from England.

If you don’t have a TV in your bedroom, there are other ways to get your British bedtime fix. Listening to audiobooks works: I love both my Audible subscription and the Libby app, which lets you borrow ebooks and audiobooks with your library card. (Look for familiar or simple stories so you don’t have to concentrate too hard.) If you’d prefer a podcast, The British Museum’s is wonderful—each episode focuses on the history of an artifact in the museum’s collection; it’s more relaxing than a cup of tea with a splash of milk. Or take Wirecutter senior editor Christine Ryan’s advice and listen to a five-hour YouTube loop of the BBC Shipping Forecast, a long-running British radio announcement of the nautical weather. It’s been putting Brits to sleep for decades. All of these options will give you plenty of British voices, in a rainbow of regional accents, and one of them might be just the thing to help you get some shut-eye. Keep calm and listen on.

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Sources

1. Ellie Harrison, ‘Vast majority’ of British shows will be removed from Netflix within next year, The Independent, November 7, 2019
2. Allison M. Hermann, PhD, The accents we trust, Cornell University’s HD Today, July 31, 2018
3. Erin Carrie, ‘British is professional, American is urban’: Attitudes towards English reference accounts in Spain, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, April 15, 2016
4. Will Dahlgreen, It’s true! Americans love British accents, YouGov, January 18, 2014