If you have ever had trouble falling asleep, you know how frustrating it can be. You wake up early for work each morning. The baby will wake you in a mere six hours (or less). You have been stressed, or feeling unwell. All of these are pressing reasons to get to sleep already, yet your brain just won’t shut down. Getting irritated about that fact agitates you even more, making it harder to calm down, and so begins a downward spiral of sleeplessness. By the time you are truly exhausted enough to sleep, it’s almost time to wake up. While many factors can cause difficulty sleeping, there are actions you can take to create a relaxing bedroom environment that makes it easier to relax and fall into a peaceful sleep. If you have ruled out underlying medical issues, falling asleep is often a matter of setting the right stage.
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Setting the Stage to Sleep
Most of us know that it’s important to keep the bed off-limits to any activities other than sleeping and sex. We need to make our bedroom a calm and relaxing place that our brain doesn’t associate with any other types of stimulation. This is important to achieve a calm state of mind that more easily leads to sleep. But we shouldn’t stop there. We need to also make sure our entire bedroom looks, feels and sounds relaxing. We may even incorporate calming scents that queue our sense of smell to relax. All of these components and more help us to set the stage for sleep. A relaxing bedroom is especially important for people who struggle with relaxing or getting to sleep, but it is also helpful for anyone to get to sleep. There are a number of things we can do to create an ideal sleep environment.
1. Find the Best Mattress for Your Comfort and Health
It doesn’t matter if your room is a sleepy sanctuary fit for a goddess if your mattress is crap. And while mattresses are not inexpensive, a quality mattress is well worth the investment considering how many hours you spend snuggled on it and how many years it should last. The cost of a mattress varies depending on the size, and that depends on how many people sleep on it. The decision to choose a mattress should be taken very seriously because it is a large and important investment. Even if you love your current mattress, you will eventually need to replace it after enough years of accumulated mites, skin cells and wear. There are varying lengths of time that people believe mattresses should be used, but we can all agree that ‘forever’ is too long. So do your research to find the best one to purchase next!
After several years of sleeping on a quality mattress from Ikea, it began to sag and cause back pain. My husband and I finally bought a new mattress that we love even more. We chose the Pure Green Organic Latex mattress after reviewing its specs in Consumer Reports against other good options. The materials that a mattress is made of are an important spec you will want to know. After learning more about off-gassing and the time it takes for a mattress to completely off-gas (years), we made sure to choose one made of organic materials that do not emit toxic fumes.
A mattress isn’t a piece of furniture that you sit on for an hour at a time. You spend hours every night breathing while atop your mattress, and the air quality impacts your health. Most people factor this out because there usually aren’t immediate symptoms. But, like every other toxin we absorb – whether through pesticides, air pollution or skin products, it can take decades of exposure before things really add up and manifest as cancer or a respiratory issue. Of course, everybody responds differently and breathing fumes isn’t an immediate death sentence. But know that children and babies are at an especially higher risk to adverse health effects from mattress off-gassing. Even adults should avoid the lifetime accumulation of toxins by intentionally choosing products that help us live healthier lives. Breathing mattress fumes over one third of our lives doesn’t seem worth the health risk.
The Pure Green Organic Latex mattress is hand-sewn and made of organic latex foam, organic cotton, and organic New Zealand wool. And of course, it is extremely comfortable. We ordered the firm option for optimal back support (the other option is medium) and also bought the three-inch Pure Green Natural Latex Mattress topper. The mattress itself is already very comfortable but we read such great things about the soft topper that we opted to use that as well. As a result, we never want to get up once we lay down on the bed! It is that comfortable. The mattress itself is well worth the investment and is the best mattress I can recommend for quality sleep. The topper is also an excellent addition for comfort even if a new mattress isn’t in the budget.
2. Ban Any Furniture or Items That Serve No Purpose, Especially Clutter
Your bedroom furniture should either aid your sleep (i.e. bed and nightstand for items like tissues and clock), aid your ability to wear clothes (i.e. dressers and wardrobes), or aid your ability to groom yourself (i.e. vanity or table with jewelry, hairbrush, deodorant, etc.). Small tables for plants are also acceptable because plants are calming and clean the air you breathe at night. But other than that, strongly consider removing additional furniture and belongings. If you lack the space in the rest of your house for something important that you actively use such as a musical instrument, try to sequester it in a nook or area that does not demand visual attention. You could even purchase a dressing screen to gracefully hide things from sight. Otherwise, relegate work and hobby equipment to another part of the house. A relaxing bedroom is solely for sleeping, sex, napping, and dressing ourselves.
Clutter is an eyesore no matter where it is. But clutter in the bedroom is even worse because it can affect your sleep. If you try to fall asleep amidst a mess around you, unless you are absolutely exhausted, your mind may protest – even subconsciously. Clutter is just not relaxing; it is stressful in ways we aren’t even aware. Clean up your bedroom and remove extra things you really don’t need for sleeping or dressing. You will be pleasantly relieved at how much lighter it is that way!
3. Consider the Colors Around You
Once your bedroom is free from extra furniture and belongings, you can focus on what remains and what visual effect it has on you. While cool colors like blues and greens are calming and warm colors like reds and oranges are stimulating, variations in shade and hue lessen this generality. Plus, each of us responds to different colors differently. If there is a color you love and it makes you feel relaxed, incorporate this color into your bedroom decor.
If you have the opportunity to paint your walls and wish to change your wall color to something more relaxing, this will be the most impactful way to surround yourself with a pleasant color. When you can’t paint the walls because you rent or due to time or money constraints, you can create other color focal points to distract from the walls. Curtains and bedding are the next most impactful ways to surround yourself with pleasant colors. If you can dress your windows, choose beautiful curtains with colors you love and which create a calm feeling. Blankets and pillows in calming colors provide a beautiful focal point for the bedroom, since the bed is the most commanding piece of furniture. The largest visual space occupied by any surface (wall, windows, bed, etc.) is naturally where color has the most impact.
4. Employ Mood Lighting
If your bedroom has a bright overhead light, keep it off except when needed for cleaning or grooming. Overhead lights may help you work, but working has no place in a relaxing bedroom. Table lamps are attractive and inexpensive and you only need a couple to light up some corners. If you truly are using your bedroom only for sleep, sex, and relaxing, then you shouldn’t need anything more than ambient lighting. If relaxing involves reading a good, non-stimulating book, then you may want to include a lamp nearby the bed or wherever it is that you read in order to avoid eye strain. I have purchased several decent lamps from Target and use three in the bedroom. Each of the two back corners, on either side of the bed, has a stick lamp, and there is one more on the opposite wall in between the bathroom and bedroom doors.
Salt lamps cast a beautiful light for winding down at night. They aren’t bright enough to read, but they provide a lovely glow that allows you to see. You can find salt lamps cleverly carved into all shapes and sizes, including this tear drop-shaped Himalayan salt lamp.
5. Minimize Decor
You may have gorgeous decor in your bedroom, but you can still have too much of a good thing. Reduce the amount of decor in your bedroom to only a few statement pieces and smaller subtle ones. I had nothing on the bedroom walls until recently because it was relaxing to see only vast walls of light blue. Now, there are two shell collages – and those are only there because shells are pretty and relaxing and the root of my beach house decor scheme. The less visual activity there is to pull your attention, the more restful your mind will be. However, it is still important for your bedroom to be visually appealing. There is a difference between pleasantly calm and dreadfully dull. With proper colors and a few subtle touches in the room, you should avoid the latter situation.
Using functional items as decor is ideal for a relaxing bedroom because you don’t need decorative embellishments when functional items are already attractive. An attractive laundry hamper is more fun than a boring or ugly one. You won’t need to relegate this collapsible blue and white striped laundry hamper to the closet. It’s tall enough to hide a mountain of dirty laundry and comes in varying colored stripes for different color schemes.
The less attractive but necessary cardboard tissue box and alarm clock are hidden inside a couple of peach fabric storage bins atop a dresser.
The peach color complements the surrounding blue walls and the soft boxes act as functional decor. The toddler stool that I found in a light pink colour allows our son to climb onto our bed while likewise complementing the sea green-striped bedding.
6. Shades and Sounds: Consider Light-Blocking Curtains and Sound Machine
If you are sensitive to light while trying to sleep, it is well worth investing in light-blocking blinds or curtains. Curtains are more affordable and easier to install. If you don’t like the look of dark-colored curtains, you can also hang regular curtains in whatever color you choose overtop of them. Blinds or curtains that block streetlights and any other exterior lights from outside are very helpful if you have trouble falling asleep without total darkness.
If you are sensitive to noises while trying to sleep, there are many types of sound machines that promote sleep. Some play specific sounds like the ocean, rain, or crickets. Others are simply white noise machines with adjustable volume. I use a pink noise machine because I prefer that over white noise. Pink noise is also a less harsh sound for babies. I bought one for my son to block noises that might wake him up. My husband and I like it so much that we bought another one for our own bedroom once our white noise machine started to rattle. Our pink noise machine also functions as a fan yet with the option to block airflow on cooler nights. All sound machines are extremely helpful if you are woken by loud roommates, family members, neighbours, or traffic.
7. Sleeping Well is a Practice
The more you cultivate restful sleep in your relaxing bedroom, the more easily you will fall asleep each night. As your mind continues to associate your bedroom with rest and relaxation, this space will cue your nervous system to calm down when you are in it. This is also why it is so important to not engage in any physically or mentally exerting activities in the bedroom (sex being the one exception). If you do one thing in one place enough times, your mind will pick up on that pattern and begin to expect it. Your mind should expect your bedroom to be a relaxing sanctuary where you rest and easily fall asleep. This includes eliminating screen time. We all know better than to look at bright screens within a couple of hours of going to sleep, and that includes keeping screens out of the bedroom.
The Takeaway: Combine Function (Sleep) with Aesthetic Appeal
Like any room in your house, your bedroom should make you feel good. You should look around and be happy about the way it looks. Unlike other rooms in your house, however, your bedroom serves a very important purpose: to lull you to sleep. Make sure yours is a relaxing bedroom that both looks pleasant and promotes relaxation. Even more importantly, make sure you sleep on a safe and comfortable mattress that properly supports your body and allows you to easily relax. If we can’t sleep or feel good about bedtime, we won’t function as well in life. Sleep should be sweet and as plentiful as possible!