Design Your Bedroom for Healthy Sleep

With the recent shift in time’s clocks for daylight savings and the onset of a new spring season, sleep schedules may become a little erratic. Sleep is foundational to decent health. Not only does a proper night’s sleep effect our daily well-being and ability to function, lack of proper sleep over portions of one’s life can impact the overall life expectancy. I’ve certainly had my own challenges with maintaining consistent adequate sleep - whether due to late nights working towards deadlines, super early mornings for figure-skating practice and coaching, or some off-and-on sleep disorders.

Overt time, I came to learn about the concept of sleep hygiene, which advocates for specific evening and daily rituals to prepare your body and mind for a good night’s rest. While your daily obligations and activities can generally determine your bedtime and wake times, both the body and mind also play a role in your sleep patterns. Certain activities that you do during the day, such as physical exercise or napping, can affect your ability to fall asleep at night. In addition, the activities you do right when you wake up (i.e. getting outside with exposure to natural light) and shortly before you go to bed (i.e. screen time with digital devices) can also affect your ability to fall asleep that night. So, indeed while there are habits and rituals that you need to personally be aware of and control in order for your proper rest at night, there are also ways to design your spaces to encourage sleeping well.

Your sleeping spaces need to be designed for a good night’s sleep first and foremost. The main function of this space is to rest. To create a proper resting space, we need to ensure the acoustics allow for maintaining a quiet nighttime environment. Having solid core doors to the bedroom will provide a much higher sound transmission coefficient (STC) rating (meaning better sound isolation) compared to hollow core interior doors. Replacing out single and double-pane windows for triple-pane glazing systems will also reduce noise transmission from outdoors, which can be important if your home is located in a noisy urban location. Incorporating throw rugs and fabric curtains will also reduce acoustic reflections and reverberations within the room.

Some of the greatest noise challenges can occur between floors in multistory structures. If you live in a single-family multistory house, be sure that bedrooms are on the upper floors to avoid scenarios of activity from above transferring into the room. In multistory townhomes, condos, and apartment buildings, there may be less of a choice with the location of the bedroom in the case when your unit is below a different unit. In these situations, if the building is not designed with adequate acoustic separation between floors, your night’s sleep can be easily disturbed from an upstairs night-owl neighbor. If there is a condo board or an option for requesting some building updates from property management, then certainly suggest that floor isolation barriers (i.e. acoustic insulation) be installed. If this does not seem to be an option, then look into some DIY non-permanent installs that you can do in your bedroom, such as lightweight adhesive acoustic tiles that can be applied to your ceiling.

The next major consideration in the bedroom design is the control of light and darkness. The body and mind will do best with sleep in an extreme dark environment, any electromagnetic waves from lighting will interfere with the brain activity for rest and increases your body’s insulin resistance. To maintain a dark nighttime environment, turn off all room lights at night, including night lights. You can keep a small flashlight by your bedside in case you wake in the night and need to walk around. To avoid any light trespass from outdoor sources, incorporate blackout curtains or blinds that are made from heavyweight materials. These have the added benefit of also providing some sound insulation as well. Creating a dark bedroom environment can also be accomplished with choosing a darker paint color for the room’s walls to reduce light reflections, setting a quieting mood during wind-down routines.  

The other aspect of a proper night’s sleep is a healthy waking routine. Ideally, sleeping spaces will have a window that faces east to align with the sunrise. Incorporating natural daylight in the waking hours of the morning is extremely beneficial to the body’s circadian rhythm. Incorporating curtains, blinds, or drapery that allow for subtle light filtration in the morning, while maintaining darkness at night, can be helpful to synchronize the space with the natural daylight cycles. Automated window blinds can be synchronized with your climate location sun cycles, which facilitates both nighttime darkness for rest and morning sunlight for waking. If your sleeping space does not have a window (though it should because all habitable spaces are required to have at least one window by International Building Code standards), you can include a sunset and sunrise alarm clock in your bedroom. These types of clocks emulate the wavelengths of light we experience from the sunset and sunrise to stimulate the sleep and wake cycles in our body.

Finally, the temperature for sleeping spaces should be maintained closer to 68^oF for a cooler room condition. The temperature of the room should be controlled on the slightly cooler side because your core body temperature will drop very slightly during sleep. The cooler temperature helps maintain body thermoregulation for sleep without creating warmer conditions that will disrupt and awaken your system. Sometimes it is popular to have sleeping lofts, which means that the bed(s) are located closer to the ceiling within a larger room. In these cases, the sleeping zone will be one of the warmest spots in the room because heat naturally rises. These are not the ideal locations for sleep spaces in relation to the temperature control (or noise and light control if the larger space is still being used by other household members).

Of course your choice of mattress, pillows, and bed frame types can also make a difference in your quality of sleep and the comfort of your body. Choosing the correct bed furnishing is dependent on your typical sleep position (back, side, stomach), your body size and weight, and your body’s sleep-time metabolic rate, which effects the thermoregulation stasis temperature. Having knowledge of these personal variables for your sleep time physiology will equip you with the right information to make the best decisions on your bed furnishings and linens. Consider the relationship of the height of your bed-frame for getting in and out of bed as well, especially if you experience mobility challenges. Some folks prefer bed frames that are very low and close to the ground as this will be the coolest spot in the room.

Ultimately, be sure to design your bedroom in a way that you will enjoy resting there, feel relaxed, at ease, and ready for a good night’s sleep each night. It is advisable, but not often adhered to, that you minimize all other activities in the bedroom, especially ones that involve electronics. Keep your cell phone outside of the bedroom at night and avoid using electronic screens at any time in the bedroom if possible. Reading lights, fans, and audio devices can be helpful for the bedroom. Focus on only allowing for activities that promote rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. The addition of houseplants will help promote oxygen production to improve nighttime air quality.

If you are considering some design modifications for your bedroom and would like some personalized guidance, reach out to AIDA, LLC today for a consultation. You can always find more information and healthy home resources at Aletheia Ida Design and Architecture, LLC (AIDA, LLC) at www.aletheiaida.com.