Calm History Podcast

It is always amazing, and somewhat disturbing, how humans can mess up the most basic of processes. They eat ultra-processed foods. They drink too much alcohol. Their behavior with sex ranges from the bizarre to the toxic to the violent. Humans even mess up sleep. Ever see a dog with insomnia? According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, approximately 10% to 30% of adults worldwide suffer from insomnia at any given time, with up to 50% of people experiencing it in a given year. In the U.S., roughly 25 to 30 million people struggle with insomnia, and about 12% of adults have been diagnosed with chronic insomnia.

Thankfully, indie podcasting has a solution for that. It’s called Calm History. Its subtitle is self-revelatory — Bedtime Sleep Stories for Education & Relaxation.

The show is hosted by “Harris” who is actually Dr. Craig Richard, a university professor of biomedical sciences in Virginia who researches relaxation and Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR). You can read his published brain scan study of ASMR at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6209833/

Harris explains to listeners: “Enjoy calming sleep stories about history to help you relax at bedtime. Topics include The Titanic, Henry Ford, Gold Rush, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Pirates, True Crime, UFOs, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Marco Polo, Rum, Salt, Coal, Oil, Pearls, and much more. These calm history sleep stories will distract and relax your bedtime brain squirrels.”

Episodes average about 40 minutes and are published twice a month. When we asked Harris why he chose history as the topic for his sleep podcast, he answered: “I don’t know much about history, so I enjoy learning about it. I’m open with my listeners about how little I know about most of my topics. I’m not telling the listener what I know in a professorial way, rather, I’m sharing what I’ve learned in a casual way — along with some silly, but related, perspectives.”

At the beginning of the episode, Harris tells listeners, “This is my quirky mix of education with sedation.”

With the calming, spa-like background music, and Harris’s distinct lilting voice, sleep is just a few moments away.

When I asked Harris why he started the podcast, he replied: “The simple answer is that I used to try to fall asleep to other history podcasts, because I love learning about history. But each of these other history podcasts did something that would prevent my brain from relaxing. So I used my nerdy understanding of neurophysiology, stress, sleeplessness, affiliative behaviors, and ASMR, along with a big pinch of common sense, to create the first history podcast to help adults relax and fall asleep. I first focused on omitting all the key things that should not be in a calming history podcast because they will alert, rather than relax, a listener’s brain. This meant no chatty co-hosts, no interviews with guests, no music during the content, no dramatic inflections of my tone or volume, no ads or commercials unless they were in my voice, and no stressful imagery or descriptions.”

Harris explains his strategy: “Basically, I talk in a calm tone, at a steady volume, at a slow pace, about an interesting story from history. If my content is too boring, then the listener’s brain will get distracted and alerted by their own stressful thoughts. I also talk directly to the listener, through the use of the pronoun ‘you’. This adds the comfort of a friend talking directly to them, rather than the coldness of a stranger broadcasting to the world.”

I’ve tried Calm History, and it worked for me. I listened to the episode — Florence Nightingale: The Crimean War & The Birth of Nursing — and was asleep in a few minutes. Here’s the weird part. I set my podcast app to stop playing after the episode was done. I probably listened for about 10 minutes before falling asleep. When I woke up the next morning, I was able to recall a lot of the podcast content even though I thought I was asleep.

Harris shared his podcasting process with Ear Worthy. “I work on the podcast on weekends and publish about two episodes a month. This pace works well because my weekdays are busy with my day job. I try to pull a lot of my content from memoirs because those sources can provide the most personalized, and sometimes the most honest, stories from history.”

Harris continues: “For example, I have episodes that include the direct experiences of coal miners, rubber tree farmers, air balloon pilots, Titanic passengers, archeologists on Easter Island, a scientist who lived with Reindeer herders, producers who worked with Charlie Chaplin, and nurses who worked with Florence Nightingale. I also enjoy covering some aspects of history that may not be true, so I occasionally dig into hoaxes about UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and other strange events.”

As an independent podcaster, Harris has built a podcast network of sleep podcasts called Silk Studio Podcasts. Shows include Sleep Whispers, ASMR University Podcast, and several more shows on that same theme.

Check out Calm History. The show is ideal for people who struggle with sleep. If you enjoy history, the show is a bonus. Try it. I advise you to never listen while driving unless you enjoy ditches.