Experts Advice: How To Decorate Your Bedroom For Better Sleep

Experts Advice: How To Decorate Your Bedroom For Better Sleep

No matter how many other uses you can find for your bedroom, ultimately, it’s a sanctuary in your home where you want to get a good night’s sleep. However, there might be some factors in your bedroom that are compromising your sleep. Insomnia is just one type of sleep disorders, but it’s a common one. Around 40 million Americans suffer from chronic insomnia, and women are twice as likely as men to develop it. While there can always be an underlying medical causes for insomnia, a mild case of insomnia or temporary insomnia has affected practically everyone. Often times, insomnia is due to things that you can easily change. This could be a change of habits before sleep time, for instance, or even a change in your bedroom decorations. From the choice of colors to the placement of furniture, the way you decorate your bedroom is going to be the key to better sleep. 

Let’s take a look at how you can decorate your bedroom in a way that helps you relax and get a good night’s sleep.

Clutter

A cluttered room leads to a cluttered mind. To put it more bluntly, clutter causes stress and anxiety. While you may think “out of sight, out of mind,” that might apply to humans, but it rarely applies to clutter, meaning even the things you can’t see, like things under the bed, can still be categorized as clutter and is distracting, let alone the things you can see. It’s a must to make enough storage space in your bedroom, so no more using a chair to “hang” your clothes or sleeping next time to fold laundry. Ideally, what goes into your bedroom should only be items that are related to sleep, such as linen, blankets, etc. Since that’s not really practical, at least get rid of items you don’t need to use in the bedroom like your laptop or other electronic devices. The light emitted from these devices is distracting, so it will help if you can put your TV in a sort of cabinet or install a pop up lift for your TV.

Colors

Your room might be neat and tidy, but if the color is too loud, it can affect sleep. Some colors are known to encourage a more dynamic atmosphere while others encourage a more relaxed, sleepy type of mood. This is why you’ll find most bedrooms using a neutral shade. Other colors to use could be lavender, light grays, greens and blues. These soft colors lower your heart rate and blood pressure, which leads to better sleep. A study done by Minnesota State University revealed that subjects who were placed in red rooms had higher stress levels than those placed in white or green rooms. The darker the wall colors, the easier it can be to sleep during the daytime, so that might not be something you want unless you work night shifts and need to sleep in the daytime. While wall colors significantly influence the mood of a room, the color of your bedroom furniture, particularly your bed, also plays a critical role in creating a calming environment. A green bed can be a soothing addition, as green is a color often associated with nature, tranquility, and renewal. This color can help to replicate the calming effects of being outdoors and is thought to help reduce stress and anxiety, contributing to better sleep quality. Integrating a green bed into your decor could complement soft wall colors and bring an overall sense of harmony and restfulness to your bedroom.

Temperature

A very cold room or a very hot one will affect sleep. The ideal temperature to sleep in is between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit. The body temperature slightly decreases to initiate sleep, and that ideal temperature aids the process. You can incorporate items into your room to help you sleep, such as a heater, ceiling fan, table fan, or stand-up fan. Even if you have an air-conditioning system, a fan can also be used to circulate the air more. Besides keeping your room cool, finding the right fan will also provide white noise which has been shown to help induce sleep because it blocks out outside noises like a barking dog. 

Furniture Placement

You might have heard about Feng Shui which is about balancing the energy within a room. The basics of this art are furniture placement. The rule of thumb is to make sure the top of your head is near a solid wall or at least facing a wall with a shut window that does not let in any draft. This position is meant to reduce the movement of Qi (material energy) above your head to have a peaceful night’s sleep. Using solid wood frames for the bed or an upholstered headboard is best when applying Feng Shui methods.
We usually take sleep for granted till we have days when we can’t go to sleep. The advice given can actually help you fall into slumber, and people who have sleep disorders can use all the help they can get. To get better sleep, start by changing what needs to be changed in your bedroom.

You might even want to update your rugs or replace your carpets for much more comfortable sleep.