Oh I love this post @rav3n ! Whilst I have never been a big music person, I have definitely noticed how music interacts with my mood and sleep!
This might be a long answer - people please feel free not to read if you dont care for my anecdotes! 😅
I used to use music to help me fall asleep. However, I stopped doing that when I got my car license because I found that on monotonous car drives (I had a 1hr highway drive to work back then) I would start to feel drowsy because I had music on in the car. 🤭 so then I started to read before bed to wind down to sleep, but then I did university and found that I started falling asleep reading textbooks because of that pattern too. 🤭 now I listen to podcasts which keep my brain engaged mental until I drift off.
Back to music and mood. I enjoy rock and metal music (but not thrash), and used to listen to some as a teen, but found that many of the lyrics (which is very important to me in a song) were very depressing and negatively affected my mood and encouraged my negative thinking about the world. So I decided to change to listen only to christian rock and metal - as they tend to have some form of a positive messaging or hope in their song lyrics even if it might be a bit of a sad or angry song.
I do find the slower metalcore ballards are good for when I feel sad or lonely. The more upbeat heavier ones are good when I feel angry and help me move to a calmer less angry mood through expressing energies. And then there is occasionally some funnier or more 'popish' rocks songs mixed in by the artists which are good if I need to stay awake driving or doing exercise.
I also find music helps me focus at work when working on mundane work (like document editing), or to help tune out other background noise in the office (like others talking).
I do like the sound of the rain.
But most other "relaxation music" would irk me and not be enjoyable lol. But so would a range of other types of music like Rap and Hip Hop. 😅 and a lot of Pop music.
