The bedroom should be a relaxing sanctuary. Here’s how to create a space that offers up the sweetest dreams
In the recipe of wellness, sleep is an important ingredient. Getting in forty winks gives your body and mind the time it needs to recharge. But, this isn’t the only benefit, a good night’s sleep can also help reduce stress and improve your mood, help you to maintain a healthy weight, improve your memory and decrease your chances of getting sick or developing serious health problems.
Luckily, creating a bedroom that promotes healthy sleeping habits is easy. Here’s how:
1. Decorate with calming colours
To set yourself up for the ultimate slumber, you need a calming, restful environment. For this reason, your bedroom should be designed with relaxation in mind.
Stick to muted hues that have a link to nature, such as blue, green and beige. Brighter colours such as red and purple are too visually stimulating and can disrupt sleep instead of encouraging it.
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2. Choose a comfortable mattress
A restful environment is crucial to helping your mind and body wind down for sleep, but these efforts are futile if you don’t have a comfortable mattress to settle into.
In the search for a new mattress it pays to do your research. Look for one that can offer maximum pressure relief, minimal partner disturbance, appropriate firmness, is breathable and offers modality.
King’s Sleep+ mattress ticks all these boxes. The award-winning Sleep+ range supports, reacts and adapts to your body to help improve your sleep, and therefore your wellbeing. The mattress regulates airflow, which helps to maintain your body’s natural temperature, and it can be personalised to your needs. There’s scope to adjust the firmness, softness, warmth and coolness of the mattress, plus options to re-configure the level of support.
The Sleep+ mattress is a fully modular system designed in customisable layers. The flex base layer features zoned Kingcell® Pocket Coil Springs divided into soft and firm zones across the mattresses to intuitively respond to your body weight and shape for maximum support and pressure relief.
Above this is the comfort layer, of which there are four different options to choose from including; hybrid, latex, memory and premium firm.
Surrounding this is the fit cover with options including; Coolfit, designed for hot sleepers, WarmFit, with an internal electric blanket, and AirFit, with air-circulating properties.
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3. Select a supportive pillow
Second to a comfortable mattress is a quality, supportive pillow – no one likes to wake up to a strained neck.
Choose your pillow according to your sleep position to ensure your neck and head are in a supportive, neutral alignment throughout the night. Back sleepers, for example, may require a flatter pillow than those who sleep on their sides.
4. Maintain an optimal temperature
Temperature is another factor to consider in sleep success. Your body naturally cools down when it’s ready to go to sleep, but if the room temperature is too hot or too cold, your body has to work overtime to self-regulate and in doing so expends more energy. To allow your body to rest, try to keep your bedroom temperature between 18 – 20 degrees.
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5. Invest in quality bed linen
Your bedding can have a direct effect on your sleep. Look for a quality, breathable material and try for a thread count between 200 and 400.
If you tend to get warm or sweaty at night, a natural, more breathable material like linen will help to regulate your body temperature better.
On the other hand, on a cold winter night there’s nothing cosier than a soft flannelette sheet set to take you into dream land.
6. Make it tech-free
Or, if we’re being realistic, as tech-free as you can.
Exposure to blue light once the sun has gone down has a noticeable effect on your circadian rhythm, making it harder for your body to regulate and recognise the need to sleep.
Blue and white light act as a signal to your brain that it’s time to wake up – not what you need when you’re trying to wind down. For this reason, keep your TV out of the bedroom and limit laptop and phone use while in bed.
7. Install soft lighting
Just as blue light can disrupt the body’s natural rhythm, an overly bright bedroom can impede melatonin production – the hormone that tells the body it’s time to sleep.
Consider a combination of ambient and task lighting to create a restful atmosphere. For ambient lighting, a couple of recessed downlights should do the trick – two is enough for most bedrooms as you don’t want to flood the space with light. Task lighting comes in the form of table lamps, wall sconces or low-hanging pendants.
Look to invest in blackout curtains for total darkness and consider dimmers for your overhead lights to encourage a natural wind down.
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