After a long day, it’s finally time for bed.
Sweeping piles of unfolded laundry off the covers, you search out the most comfortable position left on a mattress that's half sagging dips, half lumps. Maybe you run a lint roller over the pillow in case one of the pets left behind a share of fur and fuzz during the day. Tucked in, you fiddle with your phone a bit, just to check on a few last-minute things. Updates in your work email. Updates in your social media. Updates in your favorite YouTube channels. Just for a few minutes! Oh, you can sneak in some time for a quick game or two. Oh, it’s been an hour. Oh, it’s been two hours.
Eventually your eyes get too tired to linger on the screen another minute and you’re finally ready for sleep. Ready, but you have another while to wait. Why? Well, it’s a bit too warm in the room and the covers need kicking off. Also there’s a pair of socks and a shirt still bunched on the bed, kick those off too. The air smells like forgotten laundry and pet hair and the stuffiness of a space that hasn’t seen a vacuum in weeks. Your pillow seems lumpy. The sheets chafe. After much tossing, turning, and a bleary return to the phone on and off through the hours, sleep grudgingly makes its appearance. A shame it only turned up four hours before the alarm is due to go off.
If any of this sounds familiar, then odds are you’re trying to fall asleep in a setting where every factor is there to make sleeping as difficult as possible. The good news is that sprucing up the environment to improve your odds of conking out is an easy fix.
Leave Work at Work
On paper, this one sounds like the simplest thing to do. Even those of us who love our jobs are always relieved to cap a workday and depressurize as we see to the rest of our lives. The trouble comes in when we just can’t stop mentally chewing on the particulars of said workday or projects to come. So much so that it takes over the background noise of our thoughts and lures our attention even as we head to bed. Emails, documents, and assorted business paraphernalia can be big distractions on our computer or phone. The fix? Set a hard rule for yourself that starts the moment your workday ends. It could be when you clock out. It could be when you leave the parking lot. It could be the moment you set foot in any building other than your workplace. But that moment has to become the barrier between you and any thoughts about the job. Including any last-minute peeks before bed.
Clear Mess Away
The short version is that a messy space leads to a messy mind. The fuller reality is that trying to go to bed in a room where mess and clutter rule the space can make us feel uneasy. It risks prickling the mind with ‘to-do’ thoughts. I have to do the laundry. I have to take those plates and cups to the dishwasher. I have to organize the shelves. I have to vacuum. Et cetera. If all these to-dos are done earlier in the day, it’s less likely for the mess to distract our thoughts as we try to doze off. Bonus points for dusting, vacuuming, and giving the bedding a good wash erasing irritants that would otherwise trouble our comfort in bed.
Addressing the Air
Did you know there’s actually an ideal temperature at which people fall asleep? While it may vary by a few degrees depending on the person, the optimal temperature range for heading to bed is 60° to 67° Fahrenheit. It works well with the body’s natural dip in core temperature when it’s getting ready to sleep. Another helpful way to tailor the air is introducing a pleasant scent. A good soothing aroma helps ease the mind and lowers your blood pressure. Plug-ins, essential oil diffusers, potpourri, incense and so on are all easy options to set up before you climb in bed.
Better Bedding
It’s been said before, it deserves saying again. If you’re having trouble sleeping, remember that what you’re sleeping on could be the problem. Changing your choice of mattress…
(Tempur-Pedic Pro Adapt Firm Queen Mattress and Ergo Extend Smart Base)
…your bedframe…
(Porter Queen Storage Bed)
…your pillow…
(Bedgear Level 1.0 Stomach Sleeper Pillow)
…or even just your covers…
(Danielle 10-Pc Queen Comforter Set)
(Luxury Ruched Ivory Fur Throw)
…can make a world of difference. The proper support from head-to-toe works against poor sleeping positions and future pains while the right covers will give you that extra enveloping luxury that won’t leave you sweating or itching when you get tucked in. Just remember that even higher-grade bedding still need to be cleaned. The rule of thumb is to swap out and/or clean your sheets once a week to get rid of allergens, dander, sweat, and anything else that may have built up over the week.
Put Away the Screens
The computer. The TV. The tablet. The phone. Every one of them not only contains infinite media made specifically to hold your attention as long as possible, but the light they give off is against you too. Any light is enough to spoil the dreamy dark of the room as you’re trying to sleep, but blue light from screens is especially troublesome as it tricks the brain into thinking it’s seeing daylight. This reaction causes the hormone melatonin, the stuff that puts us to sleep, to stop being released, keeping us awake longer even when we’re tired. Whatever playing around on your devices you want to do, have it done with before it’s time to get under the covers.
Winding Down for 30 Minutes
Alright, you’ve made it to the bed. But you’re still too awake to nod off yet. Which is normal! Even folks so tired they’re ready to crash on the floor will have a small period in which their mind is running around, switching off the lights and steering them toward sleep. While actually falling asleep can take roughly a quarter of an hour, the time prior to that can be put to use by prepping ourselves to slip easily into that process. Give yourself half an hour of mental ‘padding’ to do something quiet and not related to playing with any devices. Reading a book or a magazine you’ve been putting off, maybe dabbling with a sketchpad or a brain puzzle. Or you could take one last moment with your music player of choice and put on a calming—ideally wordless—playlist to play in the dark as a sort of white noise lullaby--this is also good for muffling louder, more aggravating noise from neighbors or others in the home. The more chilled out you are prior to your brain gearing down to sleep, the easier that sleep will come.
Conclusion
From small tweaks to big changes, arranging your environment to accommodate a good night’s sleep is an investment worth making. Here’s to tidying up, tucking yourself in, and taking yourself to dreamland in comfort.