The Voice Helping America Sleep

2025

For many Americans, sleep has become a scarce resource. Long work hours, economic pressures, and constant digital noise have created a population that struggles to wind down. Into this landscape stepped Kathryn Nicolai, a former yoga teacher from Michigan who turned her natural ease with rest into a growing enterprise. Her stories now guide millions of listeners into sleep each night. What began as a quiet experiment in 2018 has become one of the most successful sleep-focused storytelling platforms in the country.

Nicolai calls herself an architect of coziness. Her workplace reflects that identity. She works in a room with a large lounge chair, hanging mobiles, and strands of soft lights. Though the space may sound whimsical, her purpose is practical: help people rest. She speaks with a steady voice, one that listeners have come to rely on as part of their nighttime routine.

Her path to this role was not direct. For years, Nicolai taught yoga and ran her own studio. She had a stable career, a home in Michigan, a wife, and a circle of friends. But she also carried a private wish to write. That wish remained quiet until a close friend, Renee, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. In Nicolai’s early 30s, the two had a final conversation in which Renee urged her to pursue whatever dream she had held back. Nicolai still remembers the firmness in her friend’s voice, a seriousness that cut through her daily busyness. That moment, she says, changed her direction.

The task then was not simply to write, but to understand what she wanted to write. After some reflection, she realized that bedtime stories—simple narratives told at a slow pace—were the thing she wanted to create. She had always loved stories, from the audiobooks her father played to the records she listened to as a child. She had also spent years helping people relax through yoga instruction. She saw a chance to combine the two skills.

At first, Nicolai imagined writing a book. But she saw the publishing world as a difficult place to enter. A podcast, on the other hand, required only a microphone and the willingness to begin. At the time, only one other podcast focused on sleep through storytelling. Nicolai believed there might be room for another.

It took her two years to record her first episode. She created a narrative built around everyday observations from a walk home in the rain—sights, smells, and small moments intended to quiet the mind. She had used these images to help herself fall asleep for years. She released the episode in April 2018.

Early downloads were modest: a few dozen listeners per day, then a few hundred. At the time, Nicolai was still teaching several classes a week, running her studio, and creating stories at night and on weekends. After a month, the podcast reached roughly 1,500 downloads. Growth was slow, but steady. A year later, the podcast had reached 10 million downloads, and Nicolai began earning revenue through advertisements and paid subscriptions. Soon after, she secured a literary agent and sold her first book in dozens of countries.

By this point, her operation was far more than a hobby. As demand for new episodes grew, the strain of managing both the studio and the podcast forced a decision. Nicolai sold her studio and committed her full attention to her storytelling project.

Listeners reached her from every corner of the world. Many reported that they fell asleep within minutes. Nicolai’s stories share several characteristics. They take place in a fictional village called Nothing Much, where events unfold at an unhurried pace. The narratives focus on sensations and routine tasks: opening windows on a cold morning, walking a familiar path after rain, or preparing a simple meal. Each detail works to ease the mind out of the day’s events.

Although Nicolai writes each story herself, she now employs two assistants. One helps with production needs, and the other handles what Nicolai calls community care, responding to messages from listeners she refers to as villagers. The podcast has surpassed 200 million downloads, and on any given day roughly 200,000 people may listen to a story.

The success of Nothing Much Happens coincides with broader concerns about sleep in the United States. In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared insufficient sleep a public health problem. Research shows that a significant portion of the population regularly falls short of the recommended seven hours of sleep per night. Short sleep duration has been linked to higher risks of anxiety, depression, heart disease, and other conditions.

Economists have taken note as well. In 2017, a report from McKinsey & Company suggested that private equity firms explore investments in sleep optimization. Estimates have placed the annual economic cost of sleep-related productivity loss in the United States at hundreds of billions of dollars.

This environment has fueled growth in the sleep industry. Mattress companies have multiplied, along with wearable devices that track rest patterns. Sleep aids have expanded to include various supplements, oils, and even textiles infused with calming compounds. Hotels now promote experiences focused on rest, offering custom pillows, guided programs, and multi-day retreats. Analysts have described this trend as the rise of “sleep tourism.”

By 2024, Americans were spending tens of billions of dollars each year on sleep-related products and services. Story-based sleep tools also grew quickly. When Nicolai launched her podcast, she was aware of only one other narrative-based sleep show. Today, there are hundreds. Apps such as Calm—featuring stories read by public figures—have joined the field, introducing even more competition.

Yet listeners continue to seek Nicolai’s voice. Her stories rely less on plot and more on rhythm, repetition, and gentle movement from one image to the next. She has introduced characters who populate her village: librarians, bakers, innkeepers, and animals with steady routines. Many listeners tell her that they wish they could visit the village itself.

Beginning next year, they will have a closer way to do so. Nicolai is preparing to launch a mobile app designed to offer extended experiences in the world of Nothing Much. She is also releasing her second book and considering projects involving children’s stories and television. Two of her animals, a cat named Marmalade and a dog named Crumb, may become the focus of a future book.

Despite her growing audience, Nicolai lives a quiet life in Michigan. She continues to write from her home, surrounded by her dogs, her wife, and a small environment she has shaped for comfort and creativity. She says she is aware that many people expect artists to produce work rooted in intensity or conflict. Her focus on calm has sometimes led others to describe her perspective as overly optimistic. She does not see it that way. She points out that humans possess a natural bias toward negative information, a trait rooted in survival instincts. Choosing to notice good moments, she says, is not naive but corrective.

Her stories reflect that approach. They offer small scenes of daily life, free of tension. In a culture marked by noise and speed, the simplicity appeals to many listeners. For them, Nothing Much Happens is not an escape, but a reminder that rest is not only necessary but possible.

The growth of Nicolai’s enterprise suggests that Americans are seeking new ways to manage stress and reclaim sleep. Her work is one piece of a larger movement toward improved rest. Scientists continue to research the effects of sleep on physical and mental health. Industry leaders develop new tools to track and improve nightly routines. And as the number of sleep-focused products grows, consumers seem willing to invest in solutions that bring even small improvements.

Nicolai’s contribution stands out for its simplicity. She does not offer technology or supplements. She offers a voice, a steady pace, and a set of stories that ask nothing of the listener except the willingness to rest. For many, that has become enough.

In a society where sleep has become both scarce and valuable, one storyteller has found a way to help people pause. Her village of Nothing Much may not exist on any map, but for millions, it serves as a nightly stop on the path to much-needed rest.