<\/p>\n
How much time do you spend sleeping in your bed? Do you\u00a0doze off quickly and wake up rested in your bedroom?<\/p>\n
Think about your bedroom the next time you feel the itch to redecorate.\u00a0Even little design and decorating tweaks will have a significant positive impact on sleep onset and quality.\u00a0Small, affordable changes often have to do with sensory cues—what you see, what you hear, what you breathe, what you feel—that influence the way you sleep.<\/p>\n
For example: You can\u00a0reduce the noise<\/a> that seeps into your bedroom or decorate the room with plants<\/a>\u00a0to help purify the air.<\/p>\n One thing that’s\u00a0often neglected or overlooked by DIY decorators\u00a0is lighting.\u00a0The problem is that bedroom light management usually takes cues from waking hours and habits, instead of having better sleep in mind.<\/p>\n This is a mindset that needs to be changed, because the effects of light exposure on\u00a0sleep health<\/a>\u00a0are immense!\u00a0You can stick to using your trusty sleep mask night after night, but why limit yourself to that?<\/p>\n Below are a few bedroom lighting design tips for the sleep-deprived.<\/p>\n Keeping the bedroom separate from the entertainment area may\u00a0result in a lot of grumbling and mumbling, but it’s worth the trouble. You’ll find that this rule keeps noise levels down, cuts down on artificial light, and removes distracting elements from the bedroom. Less machines in the room also means less heat. If the main purpose of a bedroom is to be a sanctuary for sleep, this is the way to go.<\/p>\n Other upsides to moving the TV, gaming console and work machine:\u00a0If you share a bedroom with your partner, you won’t have to worry about disturbing their sleep if you stay up late to work, play a game, or watch something on Netflix.<\/p>\n Can’t do it just yet? The next best thing is to set time limits. Unplug and refrain from using anything with a digital screen<\/a> a few hours before sleeping. Better yet, cover the machines with a cloth or place them in cabinet furniture so it’s easier to resist the urge to use them.<\/p>\n Heavy and opaque curtains that can block out light are great for bedroom windows. At night, they can keep out artificial light from outside—neighbor’s porch lights, streetlamps, and the like.\u00a0They can also keep you from waking up too early if your bedroom window faces the sunrise.<\/p>\n While curtains like these are nice to have but ultimately nonessential for the average person, they’re especially useful for the chronically sleep-deprived; as well as night shift workers that need to sleep through the day.<\/p>\n Blackout curtains are fairly easy to find online—the average price is around $10-$30. You can also find tutorials that teach you how to choose the right fabrics and make them yourself. Here are some examples:<\/p>\n Pro tip: Natural light is important to sleep health, too. If direct sunlight is too hot or bright for your room during the day, consider having two sets of curtains: blackout curtains for sleep, and translucent ones for the daytime.<\/p>\n Big or small, a source of artificial light is still what it is: a distraction and a possible detriment to maintaining a healthy sleep cycle. When we say small, by the way, we mean it!<\/p>\n Try this in your bedroom once night falls:\u00a0Turn off all the lights, shut all the doors, draw all the curtains. Ideally, you should be looking at total darkness at this point. If not, identify where the tiny spots of light are coming from. Usually, the culprits are digital clocks, along with power buttons of miscellaneous items.<\/p>\n You can either block the light, or remove the offending item from the bedroom. Digital clocks may be replaced with the traditional kind.\u00a0Small power buttons can be covered by opaque tape. Simply turning them around so the light source faces the wall won’t really help.<\/p>\n This tip comes from personal experience, with a dose of common sense. If you have several light sources in your bedroom—lamps on your nightstands, pin lights for alcoves or closets, etc.—you won’t always have to use the main overhead fixture, especially at night.\u00a0It’s not realistic to keep the bedroom in total darkness once the sun sets, but we can control the brightness of the light that we do use.<\/p>\n These multiple light sources are also convenient. For example: Need to go to the bathroom? Turn on a dim night light to provide just enough illumination to keep you from stumbling, but not enough to jolt you awake. Need to get up and get dressed early, but don’t want to wake up your partner? Turn on a pin light far from the bed. You get the idea.<\/p>\n Bright white LED bulbs are definitely the worst choice for the bedroom. They emit more blue light<\/a>—the same kind of artificial light that makes using digital screens detrimental to sleep health—than any other alternative. The same goes for the spiral-shaped compact fluorescent bulbs (CFBs). They’re energy-efficient and long lasting, but heavy on blue light emission.<\/p>\n You’re probably already using our second-to-best recommendation: incandescent bulbs. They’re easy to find, inexpensive, and the light they give off it warm but not too bright; although they’re not energy-efficient. Unless you’re losing a lot of sleep and are at a point where you want to try anything that will help, you can probably stick to these bulbs.<\/p>\n If you want to go the extra mile, though, experiment with red light, as the idea that red light<\/a> is conducive to sleep has been studied extensively.\u00a0You can try this out first by using red Christmas lights that you may have in storage.<\/p>\n Not feeling the faintly bordello-like atmosphere of an all-red lit room? There are many kinds of red spectrum bulbs and red tinted LEDs available these days, with newer ones\u00a0marketed as sleep solutions. Here are some affordable options we’ve found:<\/p>\n Red lights have been used in photo developing rooms and indoor gardening for a long time, though. There should be quite a variety of options available to you\u00a0even in physical stores. In any case, you can simply buy a red spectrum bulb\u00a0and use it on\u00a0a directional lamp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jump to: Move the TV and Computer Somewhere Else Invest in Blackout Curtains Block or Remove Small Sources of Artificial Light Use Specific Light Sources for Specific Purposes Consider Using Red Spectrum Light Bulbs How much time do you spend sleeping in your bed? Do you\u00a0doze off quickly and wake up rested in your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1957,"parent":1836,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"article-template.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4186,"href":"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1956\/revisions\/4186"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/article-sleep-mask-800x533.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/a>1. Move the TV and computer somewhere else.<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/article-tv-controllers-800x533.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/a>2. Invest in Blackout Curtains<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/article-child-couch-curtains-800x533.png\")
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<\/a>3. Block or Remove Small Sources of Artificial Light<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/article-alarm-clock-800x533.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/a>4. Use Specific Light Sources for Specific Purposes<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/article-nightstand-lamp-800x533.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/a>5. Consider Using Red Spectrum Light Bulbs<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnights.rest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/article-red-light-bulb-800x533.png\")
<\/p>\n\n