Working on your PC isn’t generally a great way to wind down, but if you’re stressed out after a hard day then Sound Valley might be able to help. It’s a small and simple tool which plays the sounds of nature – birdsong, wind in the trees, rain, streams and more – gently in the background, while you just relax.

The program looks like a simple but stylish media player. Click “Play” and Sound Valley plays its first scene, “Forest – Day”: you’ll hear a stream gurgling nearby, various birds singing, perhaps the rustle of the undergrowth in the background. It’s nicely done, and very restful.

This isn’t as basic as you might think, either, because Sound Valley isn’t just playing a single audio file. Instead the program is taking a number of source sounds, then blending and repeating them randomly, so you can listen for a very long time without noticing any particular pattern.

Point. Click. And gently drift off to sleep…

Clicking Next steps through other scenes: “Forest – Night”, “Forest – Rain”, “Forest – Rain and Thunder”, “Sea Day” and “Sea Night”. You can disable any of these if they don’t appeal, or have the program step through them automatically after a specified period of time.

Sound Valley can be used in several ways. At its simplest, you might play a scene or two on demand. But it’s also able to play on a repeating schedule – 15 minutes every two hours, say – as a reminder to take work breaks. And the program can even shut your PC down after it’s played for some defined period of time, perfect if you’d like it to help you sleep.

There are a few ways Sound Valley could be improved further. We would like more scenes, and perhaps an interface to customise them more directly, or perhaps create our own. That’s a major step, not something that could happen in a hurry, but it would take the program to a whole new level.

Even now, though, Sound Valley is a nice idea, implemented very well, and if you need a new way to wind down then it’s definitely worth a look.