Let the Voice of Bob Ross Lull You to Sleep With Calm’s Bedtime App

If watching The Joy of Painting is more likely to put you to sleep than improve your artistic prowess, you’re not alone. For some people, the whole point of watching—or at least listening—is to nod off. So it's not surprising that the somniferous voice of the late PBS legend Bob Ross is now available as a bedtime story. You can listen to the legendary television personality using the meditation and sleep app Calm, as part of its Sleep Stories—audio tracks designed to help you drift off to sleep.

Ross’s calm, gently encouraging narration is already a huge presence in the YouTube ASMR community, and some people use his videos to help their insomnia. His naturally soothing voice was basically made to become a bedtime story.

The Painting with Bob Ross story on the Calm app repurposes the audio from an episode of The Joy of Painting as a meditation-style track designed for users to listen to as they fall asleep—because we know you weren’t actually painting along with Bob as he talked about his happy little trees and clouds. You can listen to a sample of the track below:

“We see Bob Ross as an early and perhaps unwitting pioneer of mindfulness, before the term was widely used,” the Calm team writes on its blog. The company’s Bob Ross bedtime story, according to a press release, “reflects his reputation as a sort of accidental human sleep aid, whose chill vibe and baritone voice that barely rose above a whisper has lulled many a restless soul to sleep.”

Calm is a subscription-based service that costs $60 a year, but if you want to check out the full Bob Ross track, you can sign up for a week-long free trial here. Calm plans to release two more Bob Ross stories later this summer.

If you love The Joy of Painting, check out some of the great Bob Ross-themed gifts you can buy online here.