Apple and Universal Music Announce 'Sound Therapy'

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.

Apple Music Sound Therapy
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.

Popular Stories

Apple Logo Zoomed

Tim Cook Teases Plans for Apple's Upcoming 50th Anniversary

Thursday February 5, 2026 12:54 pm PST by
Apple turns 50 this year, and its CEO Tim Cook has promised to celebrate the milestone. The big day falls on April 1, 2026. "I've been unusually reflective lately about Apple because we have been working on what do we do to mark this moment," Cook told employees today, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. "When you really stop and pause and think about the last 50 years, it makes your heart ...
iOS 26

iOS 26.3 and iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Tuesday February 3, 2026 7:47 am PST by
While the iOS 26.3 Release Candidate is now available ahead of a public release, the first iOS 26.4 beta is likely still at least a week away. Following beta testing, iOS 26.4 will likely be released to the general public in March or April. Below, we have recapped known or rumored iOS 26.3 and iOS 26.4 features so far. iOS 26.3 iPhone to Android Transfer Tool iOS 26.3 makes it easier...
imac video apple feature

Apple Makes Its Second-Biggest Acquisition Ever

Tuesday February 3, 2026 12:45 pm PST by
Apple recently acquired Israeli startup Q.ai for close to $2 billion, according to Financial Times sources. That would make this Apple's second-biggest acquisition ever, after it paid $3 billion for the popular headphone maker Beats in 2014. This is also the largest known Apple acquisition since the company purchased Intel's smartphone modem business and patents for $1 billion in 2019....
wwdc sans text feature

Apple Rumored to Announce New Product on February 19

Thursday February 5, 2026 12:22 pm PST by
Apple plans to announce the iPhone 17e on Thursday, February 19, according to Macwelt, the German equivalent of Macworld. The report, citing industry sources, is available in English on Macworld. Apple announced the iPhone 16e on Wednesday, February 19 last year, so the iPhone 17e would be unveiled exactly one year later if this rumor is accurate. It is quite uncommon for Apple to unveil...
Finder Siri Feature

Why Apple's iOS 26.4 Siri Upgrade Will Be Bigger Than Originally Promised

Friday February 6, 2026 3:06 pm PST by
In the iOS 26.4 update that's coming this spring, Apple will introduce a new version of Siri that's going to overhaul how we interact with the personal assistant and what it's able to do. The iOS 26.4 version of Siri won't work like ChatGPT or Claude, but it will rely on large language models (LLMs) and has been updated from the ground up. Upgraded Architecture The next-generation...

Top Rated Comments

caliguy Avatar
10 months ago
Technology ruining your sleep? Try this technology.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
antiprotest Avatar
10 months ago
New New Age.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
poorcody Avatar
10 months ago
I'm surprised they didn't credit Artificial Intelligence being involved.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ChittagongBoy Avatar
10 months ago
While we keep waiting for the manual EQ function on the iPhone/iPad.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tennisproha Avatar
10 months ago
This is useless without a sleep timer in Apple Music. The system-wide timer is not a workaround, it needs to be a built-in timer like the Podcasts app.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
neuropsychguy Avatar
10 months ago

Wellness is a scam, a parody of health. Music is music. Medicine is medicine. May the two never meet.
Music in medicine: Monsalve-Duarte, Sofia, et al. "Music therapy and music medicine interventions with adult burn patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis." Burns 48.3 (2022): 510-521.

Music and sleep: Wang, Chun-Fang, Ying-Li Sun, and Hong-Xin Zang. "Music therapy improves sleep quality in acute and chronic sleep disorders: A meta-analysis of 10 randomized studies." International journal of nursing studies 51.1 (2014): 51-62.

Chen, Chia‐Te, et al. "Effect of music therapy on improving sleep quality in older adults: A systematic review and meta‐analysis." Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 69.7 (2021): 1925-1932.

Music therapy and pain: Hauck, Michael, et al. "The influence of music and music therapy on pain-induced neuronal oscillations measured by magnetencephalography." Pain 154.4 (2013): 539-547.

The science behind music therapy decent. It's been looked at for decades, with the general consensus that it can be beneficial for at least some conditions. Music can be healing, at least emotionally.

I'm not sure if there are randomized clinical trials specifically supporting the general claims behind these playlists of music, but this isn't completely out there.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)