Creating Environment for Better Sleep

 

Let’s face it, it’s pretty easy to take your bedroom for granted. Especially with everything going on right now, I bet a lot of people are falling into bed at the end of some very long days, worrying about life and the future, hoping that sleep will come quickly and last long enough to keep from feeling exhausted the next day.

Even in much easier times than these, it’s easy enough to lose sight of the importance of maintaining an optimal sleep environment. But it matters. A lot. Plenty of sleep problems arise directly out of our sleeping spaces, whether that’s from noise, or light, or temperature issues.

You’ve probably heard the advice to keep your bedroom like a cave: cool, dark, quiet. All good advice. But there’s more to it than that.

I wrote a while back about the fundamentals of creating an optimal bedroom environment. But we haven’t touched on the topic for a while. And there’s some recent research that gives new and actionable insights into just what works best for most people in a sleep space, when it come to light, sound, texture, noise and temperature.

Since we’re all spending so much time at home right now, it seems like a good time to take a fresh look at our sleeping spaces, and put into action what the latest science reveals about what makes the most sleep-friendly bedroom.

What is the best bedroom temperature?   

Without a doubt, this is the most common question I get from people about their sleeping spaces. The ideal temperature varies by individual, and a lot of this does depend on individual preference and tolerance for heat and humidity, as well as individual health factors, including body weight, hormone imbalances, the stages of menopause, and conditions such as obstructive sleep apnea and GERD. Here’s a thorough rundown of how the body manages temperature during sleep, and the many factors to consider in maintaining ideal temperature for your night’s sleep.

That said, there is a range that likely captures nearly everyone’s optimal temperature—and there’s some new research that shows that range, as well as potentially ideal single temperatures within it.

I find people often tend to think about air temperature as a stand-alone factor in our bedroom environments. But temperature interacts with other factors in critical ways that affect how we experience the heat or coolness of our sleeping spaces.

Scientists at San Jose State Research Foundation and NASA Ames Research foundation did a review of scientific research about what creates the optimal sleep environment. They found the ideal temperature range to be very broad—between 17-28 degrees Celsius, which is 62-82 degrees Fahrenheit.

But they also found that other temperature-related factors heavily influenced the optimal temperature within that range. One of those factors is humidity. I know we all complain a lot about the humidity in general—but I’m not sure people pay enough attention to humidity in their sleep environments. In their analysis, scientists found that the optimal range for sleep is 40-60% relative humidity. Depending on where you live, what time of year it is, that can mean you need to add or subtract humidity from your bedroom to sleep at your best.

The other factor was the “bedding microclimate.” That’s right, your bed has its own climate! It’s affected by what you wear to bed, by your mattress and pillows, by your bedding itself—sheets and covers and all. These days, you’re not only able to influence your bed climate by the types of materials you use in your bedding (more scientific information on that in just a minute). You also can tightly control your bed climate with mattress pads that will keep your bed’s microclimate at an optimal temperature.