Apple and Universal Music Group today jointly introduced a new "Sound Therapy" collection of wellness playlists, consisting of popular songs with added sound waves or white noise to help listeners focus, relax, and sleep better.
Sound Therapy features three categories: Focus, Relax, and Sleep. The playlists include extended, instrumental, and reimagined versions of popular tracks from artists such as Imagine Dragons, Katy Perry, Kacey Musgraves, and others.
The playlists were crafted by a team of producers, scientists, and audio engineers at Sollos, a music-wellness venture within Universal Music Group.
Apple's announcement explains further:
Songs have been enhanced with auditory beats or colored noise to help encourage specific brain responses. Gamma waves and white noise — a whoosh-like combination of every sound frequency — may help with focusing; theta waves could aid in relaxation; and delta waves and pink noise — a deeper, gentler variation akin to rain or wind — might assist in achieving better sleep. A dreamy version of Katy Perry's "Double Rainbow," for example, could help listeners drift off to sleep, while an Imagine Dragons track might help them tackle a to-do list.
The playlists are powered by Universal's proprietary audio technologies, and they are backed by scientific research, according to Apple.
"Sound Therapy harnesses the power of sound waves, psychoacoustics, and cognitive science to help listeners relax or focus the mind," says Apple's announcement.
Sound Therapy is available exclusively on Apple Music.
