This Mass. podcast has put people to sleep millions of times — and that’s the point (2025)

Two Massachusetts parents aren’t just the “curators of bedtime” for their two young children; they’re also helping people all over the world fall asleep.

In 2019, Victoria (Vee) Lockard, now 43, and Nick Bernat, 39, from Weymouth, started Snoozecast, a podcast that reads stories in a way that helps listeners fall asleep.

Since they launched the podcast six years ago, the couple has moved multiple times, got married, had another child, changed full-time jobs and bought a fixer-up in Dartmouth. And the world experienced a global pandemic — affecting many people’s sleep.

Still, the podcast has stayed with them through it all — which is often recorded in their free time after reading to their two children and tucking them into bed.

“Over six years, we’ve received 1,000s of reviews and emails and messages and even a couple of handwritten notes,” said Bernat. “From all around the world.”

They’ve heard from an artist in Singapore who is a long-time listener and a police officer in the South who has trouble falling asleep. And there’s this couple in the Seattle area “who have been patiently following Anne of Green Gables.”

The couple is always impressed when they hear from people because the times the listeners are thinking about the podcast is when they’re about to fall asleep. They really have to go out of their way to remember to thank the hosts.

And during the busiest time in their lives, with two young children, a house “that needs a lot of work,” and two full-time jobs — for a global software company in project management and CloudTrucks, a freight-tech company — they feel like they’re “running around like crazy all the time.” But it’s the listeners that reach out that keep them going.

“And every time we hear from people, we think ...” Bernat starts. “This is why we do it,” his wife finishes his sentence.

How Snoozecast started

Lockard and Bernat became interested in the same book, so instead of reading it on their own, they traded off nights reading aloud to each other.

But Bernat kept falling asleep. It almost started a fight between the couple.

“Like, why can’t you just stay awake?” she recalled during a 2020 interview with MassLive.

Putting her feelings aside, she realized how important this was for Bernat.

“I knew he had trouble falling asleep,” she said. “It was working so effectively every time.”

They looked for apps or podcasts already out there that helped people fall asleep but couldn’t find the right fit. That’s when they decided to make their own.

And it made sense.

Many parents read to their child or children before bed to help them fall asleep. So, why do we stop this as adults when falling asleep often gets harder?

“It’s just assumed that as you grow up, that you’re not supposed to need that anymore,” Lockard said.

But with all the stresses from work and life, plus the added screen time we all have now, sleeping is sometimes much more difficult for adults.

“It’s really hard to transition from work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, and then all of a sudden, you’re just supposed to close your eyes and fall asleep,” she said previously. “It’s really not the natural way that I imagined that people back in the day fell asleep.”

A global issue

While sleep is necessary, insufficient sleep worldwide is a “pervasive and prominent problem in the modern [24-hour] society,” according to a 2018 study by six authors, including Deepa Burman, co-director of the Pediatric Sleep Evaluation Center at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Reduced sleep duration has been linked to seven of the 15 leading causes of death in the U.S., including cardiovascular disease, malignant neoplasm, cerebrovascular disease, accidents, diabetes, septicemia and hypertension, the study states.

Researchers saw a surge in sleep issues when the COVID pandemic started, according to the American Psychology Association, with 2 in 3 Americans reporting they were sleeping either more or less than desired.

“Once sleep is disrupted, it can impact mental and physical health, which may in turn cause further sleep disruption,” said Athena Akrami, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at University College London who is studying cognitive dysfunction in COVID-19, including sleep disturbances. “A vicious cycle may form that is very difficult to diagnose and treat properly.”

But it didn’t stop as the number of COVID cases fell.

In 2024, researchers predicted the sleep aids market will grow to $89.11 billion by 2030.

“Sleep aids are increasingly necessary due to rising cases of sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnea, driven by modern lifestyle stress, growing digitalization and a global surge in mental health issues,” the press release states. “The application extends across diverse age groups, though it’s particularly pertinent among the elderly who often face chronic sleep issues, and younger populations affected by irregular work hours and stress.”

Cozy New England

From foggy mornings to old buildings, New England has a cozy vibe.

And that, the Snoozecast couple said, is why so many of their books are set in the area, including some of Bernat’s works.

They also use their outings in New England as inspiration to find books they hadn’t heard of before.

While at the Bradford Torrey Bird Sanctuary, Lockard wondered if ornithologist Bradford Torrey was also an author. He was.

Another episode called “An Old Road” is about going for rambling walks in the woods, written by a “historical figure from the town we were living in, Weymouth.”

The couple now has a premium subscription option, which provides more podcasts.

But it’s also more work.

The podcast will continue as long as that work doesn’t begin to overshadow time with their family or their own sleep. For now, it continues to be a passion project that sometimes they listen to as they fall asleep themselves.

And it could also expand as their household is about to gain a new reader — their daughter. She’s ready to join her parents on the podcast. She just needs to learn to read first, they said.

However, they won’t have to teach her how to introduce their podcast. One night at dinner, Bernat randomly heard his daughter: “Welcome to Snoozecast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep.”

“She had listened to us say it so many times,” he said, laughing.