Creating a Peaceful Sleeping Environment

By Anthony Atkins −

Getting proper rest and sleep is one of the most important things we can do for our overall health. A good night’s sleep not only leaves you feeling more rested, but also greatly benefits your physical and mental health in both the short and long term. It’s vital, then, to ensure you maintain good habits such as avoiding caffeine, alcohol, and strenuous exercise too close to bedtime. However, your environment is equally crucial for achieving healthier sleep patterns; the combination of a conducive setting and good habits will work wonders.

Here’s a few pointers for creating the perfect haven for your slumber.

Dark and Cool

The ideal environment for sleep is darkness. The reason for this is that excessive light can trick your body into thinking its daytime and play havoc with your body’s circadian rhythms, leading to irregular sleep-wake patterns. While some people like to have a bit of light, it’s best to keep these to a minimum; invest in thick curtains or blinds, and perhaps even an eye mask if eliminating the natural light in your room is a little tricky. Also well worth noting is artificial light from phones and computers – the blue light emitting from these screens is particularly disruptive, so turn them off!

Regulating the temperature of your room is also key to a good night’s sleep. While it’s comforting to be cozy, your body temperature naturally drops as you fall to sleep, so it makes perfect sense not to disrupt this process too much. Keeping the room temperature at between 60-67 degrees achieves this without sacrificing coziness. After all, it’s much easier to add layers to your bedding if you’re cold than to cool down a room that’s already too warm. Opening a window often leads to too much noise, for example.

Bedding

Your bed is the foundation upon which your sleeping experience is built, and therefore requires special attention. The mattress in particular should not only be comfortable, but encourage good sleeping posture as well. A great option to achieve this combination is a memory foam mattress, which molds to your body and has a good balance between firm and softness. This one from Eve is a good example, because as this review points out, it has multiple layers to provide the necessary comfort and support.

You can also get memory foam pillows, but this is more of a personal taste; some tend to prefer something a little more soft to rest their head on. There’s nothing wrong with this, so long as you have enough support underneath in order to avoid straining your neck during the night. Furthermore, related to the point about temperature, you’re likely to be much better off with multiple layers of duvets rather than just one thick one. It’s far easier to maintain the optimal temperature this way.

Wall Color

Surprisingly, there are indications that the color you paint your bedroom walls plays an important role in maintaining a healthy rhythm of sleep. Blue has been identified as the “magic” color due to special receptors in the human retina being most sensitive to it. These receptors – ganglion cells – relay information to the part of your brain that affect your body’s 24-hour rhythm. Because blue is “associated with feelings of calm,” when it is relayed to your brain by the ganglion cells it “helps to reduce blood pressure and heart rate, all of which help you receive a solid night’s sleep.” While of course it’s not a sufficient solution on its own, it may well be time to give your bedroom a new paint job!