▲If you’re trying to sleep in a loud environment, white noise is a good option because it mixes all sound frequencies at once, at the same level of intensity, so it drowns most other noises out.

▲It comes in many forms, and can sound like static, a whirring fan, or the hum of an air conditioner. However it's always an even, steady stream of sound.

▲In a study published in Sleep Medicine, researchers at Brown University Medical School reported that patients in a hospital intensive care unit woke up less frequently with white noise playing because it decreased the difference between background noise and "peak" noises that would often rouse them from sleep.

▲It’s probably the one that comes to mind first, and for many people the rhythmic and repeated crashing of water onto sand and rock can be deeply relaxing.

▲By combining a mental state of relaxation with a gentle focus through repetition, the waves tune out peak noises and relax you with their predictability.

▲It’s not just ocean waves that can soothe you to sleep. Maybe it’s the light patter of a rain shower, or the steady flow of a running stream that helps wash the day away.

▲The key to water's aural power is the relatively gentle, gradual variations in the intensity of its sound.

▲Just make sure you go to the bathroom before turning it on!

▲There are a range of binaural beats available for many specific goals, though all are designed to reduce stress and anxiety. The only downfall is that you have to sleep with headphones on, but that could also help if you're trying to sleep in louder environments.

▲Sound machines and apps for sleep are brimming with nature sounds, from birds chirping to wind rustling through leaves, and it's for good reason!

▲New research shows that when listening to natural sounds, the brain connectivity reflects an outward-directed focus of attention, whereas artificial sounds reflect an inward-directed focus of attention, the latter of which is similar to what happens in anxiety, stress, and depression.

▲Listening to nature sounds also encourages activity in your rest-and-digest nervous system, which is responsible for relaxing the body.

▲If you live in a dense urban center where you can’t open your window and let the crickets do the work, playing sounds of animals and forests could also be a good way to reconnect yourself with nature.

▲Music is capable of lowering blood pressure and heart rate, soothing anxiety, and quieting a racing mind—all changes that can benefit sleep—but that only works for sleep if you choose songs that don't excite your imagination or memory.

▲Try Claude Debussy, as he is a master of calm, melodic compositions, or Erik Satie's 'Gymnopédie No.1,' which is an hour-long composition that is relaxing and cyclical enough to distract you without piquing too much attention.

▲Unlike white noise, which gives equal intensity to all frequencies of sound, pink noise creates a balance of high- and low-frequency sounds that mimic many sounds in nature.

▲As an added plus, a new study by scientists at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine found that exposure to pink noise at night led to better memory recall the next day.

▲Remember falling asleep as a kid to the sound of adult voices floating in from another room? Or the comfort of being read to while you drifted off? Though you usually want to stay away from music with lyrics, calm voices can be just the ticket.

▲Guides usually have the most soothing, hypnotic voices, and they'll swiftly move your attention from the arguments you should’ve won that day to the amazing feeling of your body pressed into the mattress.

▲Alternatively, this podcast is similar to someone telling you a very long and boring story that puts you to sleep, except it’s actually designed to descend into absolute nonsense so that your mind is tricked into thinking you’re sleepier than you are.

▲Our response to sound is highly individual as it’s connected to our memory and emotional state, so what’s relaxing to one person can be annoying for another.

▲Perhaps it’s the sound of someone cooking, or it’s Bob Ross painting happy little clouds—pay attention to what makes you feel calm.

▲Worse comes to worst, bring your pet into bed with you, it may help you to snooze better.

▲Find out what your sleep position says about you.

▲For some people, the sounds of human voices remain a soothing sleep aid all their lives, and it isn’t the content of what’s being said, but rather the tone and cadence of the voices that is important.

▲It’s both innate knowledge and society’s perception of waves that make them so fundamentally relaxing, as the slow whooshing noises are non-threatening reminders of vacations or being far away from responsibilities.

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Some studies have shown that people exposed to pink noise during sleep spend more time in deep, slow-wave sleep, particularly since the pink noise reportedly slows your brain waves down and helps you regulate them.

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Research at Hungary’s Semmelweis University found that listening to classical music at bedtime helped improve sleep quality, particularly in young adults. They actually encourage nurses to use this safe, cheap, and easy method to treat insomnia.

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Binaural beats are an emerging form of sound-wave therapy in which the right and left ears listen to two slightly different frequency tones yet perceive the tone as one.

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Sleep is the most important part of your day—it's when you let the stresses and anxieties go, and it's how you begin fresh to power through all of your tasks again and again. That's why when you're not sleeping well, everything feels off.

Perhaps what you need is something to fill the space that your mind keeps tumbling into, something to lull you into your delta waves now that your parents have long stopped singing you to sleep. Check out this gallery to see the various sounds that will tuck you right in.