Great question. There’s not much firm research on this, but sleep experts tend to agree that if soothing sounds help you sleep at night, then that’s a good thing. My wife does ear buds with podcasts, and I do ear plugs, and a lot of people find better sleep with the help of elevator music, gentle ocean waves or even white noise. One caution: Keep the volume as low as what it takes to get the job done. You definitely don’t want high-decibel sounds. And if whatever you listen to actually wakes you up during the night, that would be a concern.