In a universe where your boss’s emails arrive at 11pm, your phone hasn’t stopped buzzing since 2019, and somehow your to-do list keeps adding items instead of losing them, you’ve finally decided to take the radical, almost rebellious act of… relaxing. Revolutionary stuff. But since actually doing nothing feels suspiciously productive, you’ll need something to fill the silence, because God forbid you just sit there and breathe like some kind of zen monk. Enter: the podcast. Specifically, the kind that doesn’t make you want to stress-eat an entire bag of chips. I’ve done the grueling, incredibly taxing work of compiling the best relaxing podcasts out there, so you can unwind efficiently, because even your downtime has a deadline.
Nothing Much Happens
For anyone who can’t seem to switch their brain off at night, Nothing Much Happens might be the answer. Hosted by yoga and meditation teacher Kathryn Nicolai, the podcast features slow, uneventful bedtime stories designed to quiet the mind and drift listeners off to sleep, each one read twice, with the second round even gentler than the first.
On a Dark, Cold Night
For horror enthusiasts who struggle to fall asleep, On a Dark, Cold Night offers the perfect solution, a creepy companion delivering ghostly bedtime tales week after week. The podcast follows Your Narrator as he guides listeners through spine-tingling yet oddly soothing ghost stories, making it a uniquely eerie way to drift off to sleep.
Everything is Alive
Everything is Alive is an improvised interview series with a twist, every guest is an inanimate object. Each episode features a different ordinary thing sharing the story of its existence, with every word of it presented as fact.
Stories from the Borders of Sleep
A semi-regular podcast hosted by Seymour Jacklin, featuring original stories, whimsical fables, and offbeat tales, all written and narrated by Jacklin himself. Each episode carries listeners away on a imaginative, thought-provoking adventure, crafted with adults in mind but perfectly enjoyable for younger audiences as well.
Sleep and Sorcery | Folklore & Fantasy-Inspired Sleep Stories
Sleep and Sorcery is a folklore and fantasy-inspired sleep series blending bedtime storytelling, guided meditation, and dreamy adventure. Listeners are whisked away to enchanted destinations, from mythical villages to Arthurian courts to the depths of outer space, all designed to lull them into a deep, restful sleep.
Meditation House Call
A podcast blending personal, relatable storytelling with guided meditations, crafted by an award-winning filmmaker and certified mindfulness teacher. Think “The Moth” meets meditation. Each episode runs around fifteen minutes, with Lisa’s narratives resonating with a wide audience and the meditations welcoming both beginners and seasoned practitioners alike. The series is designed for those looking to manage anxiety and live more presently, without being put to sleep by boredom in the process.
Night Falls: Bedtime Story, Sleep Story, Sleep Podcast
Night Falls is a sleep podcast offering gentle bedtime stories crafted to help restless adults quiet their minds and drift off peacefully.
Trail Weight
A podcast that follows Andrew Steven into the great outdoors, using the trail as a backdrop for deeper reflection. Each episode sees him exploring nature while examining the lessons, complexities, and quiet revelations that come with navigating life outside.
Random Shipping Forecast
The Shipping Forecast is a BBC Radio broadcast delivering weather reports and sea condition updates for the waters surrounding the British Isles. The podcast compiles a collection of these forecasts, aired at random.
The Quiet Journeys of Professor Atwood
A hybrid podcast blending relaxation, storytelling, comedy, science, and adventure. Scientist and explorer Jonathan Peter Atwood takes listeners along on his travels across the globe and beyond, weaving together narration, music, ambient sounds, and sound effects into an immersive experience designed to melt away stress and guide listeners toward a peaceful night’s sleep.
Get Sleepy: Sleep meditation and stories
This podcast holds the title of the #1 Sleep Podcast, offering one-of-a-kind stories crafted to soothe the mind and unwind the body.
The Empty Bowl
A meditative podcast dedicated to the world of cereal, hosted by cereal enthusiast Justin McElroy and Cerealously founder Dan Goubert.
The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio
A daily detective audio drama podcast drawing from the Golden Age of Radio, featuring beloved classics like The Adventures of the Falcon, Charlie Chan, Broadway’s My Beat, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, and Dragnet, six episodes a week for mystery lovers, commuters, and nostalgia seekers alike.
Nocturne
A storytelling podcast that delves into the world of night, charting the invisible terrain of darkness and the ways in which thoughts, emotions, and behaviors shift once the lights go out.
Tracks To Relax Sleep Meditations
Sleep with Me has one simple mission: to help listeners fall asleep quickly and wake up feeling genuinely rested.
One Third of Life
One Third of Life is the podcast for those who find themselves wide awake, trapped in a spiral of restless thoughts. It serves as a gentle, talking companion designed to guide listeners out of their own heads and into a peaceful sleep.
Sleep Whispers
Sleep Whispers is an ASMR podcast for both children and adults, offering softly whispered meditations, bedtime stories, poems, trivia, and curious Wikipedia articles to ease listeners into a restful night’s sleep.
Phoebe Reads a Mystery
Phoebe reads a mystery novel. Relaxing at times, soothing at times, intriguing at times.
Boring Books for Bedtime Readings to Help You Sleep
Boring Books for Bedtime is a weekly, ad-free, AI-free sleep podcast dedicated to reading deliberately dull material, think Aristotle, Thoreau, and the 1897 Sears Catalog, in a calm, quiet manner designed to silence the mental chatter keeping listeners awake. Mostly nonfiction, mostly old, and perfectly calibrated to be just interesting enough without being too stimulating, it’s a gentle remedy for the chronically sleepless.
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs invites guests to imagine being stranded alone on a deserted island and reveal the eight songs, one book, and one luxury item they’d bring along, together painting a musical portrait of their lives.
Sleep With Me
Sleep Tight Stories is the perfect antidote for restless minds and sleepless nights, offering bedtime stories that gently distract listeners from their worries before gradually winding down into blissful tedium, easing them off to sleep without them ever seeing it coming.
Imagined Life
Imagined Life is an immersive podcast hosted by Oscar-nominated Virginia Madsen and celebrated voice actor Robbie Daymond, placing listeners inside the life of a world-famous person, with their true identity only revealed in the final moments of each episode.
Northwoods Baseball Sleep Radio
Baseball for Bedtime delivers a full, fictional baseball game broadcast in the style of a drowsy small-town AM radio station, no shouting, no jarring commercials, just a slow, sleepy game designed to lull listeners into relaxation.
Slow Radio
Slow Radio is an antidote to the chaos of modern life, inviting listeners to step back and lose themselves in pure, unhurried sound. From birdsong and mountain ambience to the quiet murmur of monks, it’s a lo-fi celebration of the world’s quieter moments.
Bedtime Stories for Nobody
A cadre of various stories to give you a relaxing and soothing soundscape.
Do you know of another relaxing podcast that you think should be on this list? Let me know
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