Today I want to talk to you about something that is commonly overlooked when it comes to addressing your sleep issues:
Your Sleep Environment
Is your environment conducive to sleep?
Our sleep environment should resemble a little cave. It should be dark, cool, and quiet.
Unfortunately, with our modern conveniences (such as artificial light, heating and cooling, traffic outside your window, the list goes on…), our sleep environment typically doesn't make the mark.
But, there's no need to worry! There are plenty of things that you can do to make your sleep space into a sleep sanctuary. With the right sleep environment, your body will associate sleep as soon as you walk into your bedroom so that you can be set up for sleep success.
I’ve created a list of items to check off as you develop your sleep sanctuary. By implementing these key components to your sleep environment, your body will want to sleep, crave sleep, find more ease falling asleep — and stay asleep — throughout the night.
Manipulating the body-mind connection for sleep.
The goal is for both our body and mind to enter a relaxed state as soon as we walk through our bedroom door. And the best way to do that is by creating a space that appeals to our senses: our sight, our hearing, our smell, and our touch.
Appealing to Your Senses to Create Your Space
Sight
First things first: you want your space to be uncluttered, because physical clutter leads to mental clutter — which makes it hard to put your mind to rest. You don't want to have anything distracting in your room as you want your brain to only associate this space with sleep. If you have papers lying around, laundry that needs to be folded, or another thing-to-do, then your brain is going to correlate your bedroom with work. And that’s definitely going to keep you awake.
Secondly, you want your room to be dark. And when I say dark, I mean pitch black.
When the body detects that there's light, it sends a signal to the pineal gland to produce cortisol and suppress melatonin (goodbye sleep!) And our body is smart — our eyeballs will detect light even if our eyelids are closed. So you want it to be pitch black. To achieve this, I highly recommend covering your windows.
My favorite product for window covers is the Blackout EZ Window Covers because they actually cover your entire window completely, as opposed to blackout curtains, which allow light to leak in around the sides of the curtain. The difference between a window cover like the Blackout EZ Window Cover and a blackout curtain is substantial, as it actually does achieve pitch black darkness — welcome to the cave!
I also recommend a sleep mask. Even if your windows are covered, and especially if you’re unable to cover your windows, a sleep mask will help gently keep your eyes from fluttering open. My favorite sleep mask is by Mavogel. I like it because it’s 100% cotton and it feels like a nice comfy T-shirt. It's cool, it's soft, and it features a sewn-in cartilage that goes over your nose where you can pinch it to black out light leak around the mask for a custom fit. Best of all, it's affordable! It's only $10 on Amazon.
In addition to making sure that no external light is coming into your room, I would also make sure that your eyes don't detect light from your electronics. Think about it, nearly every electronic has a little LED light that indicates it's plugged into electricity. And those little LED lights produce similar blue and green to the sun. Which means, your intelligent body is going to respond to it by producing cortisol. So, I would go around your room and cover up those little lights. You can use black electrical tape for this, or you can buy this product that I love, it's called Light Dims Blackout Edition. They're little black stickers that come in various shapes and sizes and you can just pop it on the light, and it’s covered completely.
Hearing
Let’s now talk about your sense of hearing. Don’t you hate it when you wake up in the middle of the night because somebody’s car alarm goes off? Well, you can try to avoid that by using a sound machine. Not just any old sound machine, though…
Noise comes in different colors. Who knew?
For sleep, we typically stick to white noise, pink noise, and brown noise. White noise is very stimulating -- think of a radio that's set to an unused station. Pink noise resembles a constant, bright “shh”. And brown noise is like a rushing river or a breeze.
Brown noise is going to be more relaxing than the other colors, so I would make sure that you choose a sound machine that offers brown noise. My favorite sound machine is by the folks at Sound of Sleep and it is called the Lectrofan Kinder. I love it because it offers brown noise, and additionally, it features some fan noises, which are also very relaxing. Plus, you can control it from your phone and it plugs right into the wall, so it’s super portable with no cords and very easy to travel with.
Touch
Our body temperature should be cool when we go down for sleep. From our most primitive days as a species (when we slept in literal caves), we developed an association with the outside temperature cooling and our bodies preparing for sleep. In theory, if we were sleeping outside, the external temperature would lower and send a signal to our brain indicating that it's nighttime and we should be sleeping.
In comes science!
Biologically, our body temperature has to lower by two degrees in order to fall asleep. So I’d recommend setting your thermostat to somewhere between 60-67°F to knock your temperature down a couple degrees when you go down for bed.
I'd also make sure that you're sleeping in sheets that are cool and comfortable. If you tend to run a little bit hot, linen sheets are really good for thermal regulation. In any case, make sure that you're buying sheets in the highest thread count that you can afford so that they're nice and crisp, breathable and cozy.
One more amazing way to lower your body temperature to prepare for bed is to take a bath! That’s right — pre-bedtime baths aren’t just for babies. Fill your bath with Epsom salts, drop a few dots of lavender oil in there, light a little candle, and unwind. When you get out of the bath, your body temperature will naturally lower as it comes out of the heat, and that will trick-signal the body into preparing for sleep mode.
Smell
We don't want to overlook our sense of smell. Our sense of smell can be very powerful when triggering feelings and emotions. I don't know about you, but whenever I smell fresh baked cookies, I'm instantly transported back to my grandma’s kitchen and I feel love. For me, it’s extremely relaxing and comforting.
Our sense of smell is the most powerful sense we have, so use it to your advantage.
There are certain scents that actually promote sleep and rest and relaxation. Those scents include: lavender, chamomile, vetiver, cedarwood, and you can diffuse those in your room using a diffuser with a few drops of your choice of essential oil in water. You can also create a pillow spray with a few drops of essential oils, water and a little bit of witch hazel. Or, if you don’t want to DIY, you can buy a pillow spray that is specifically formulated for sleep. My favorite is by This Works®, it’s called Deep Sleep and it smells heavenly.
When the Sleep Sanctuary just isn’t enough…
I hope that these tips help you to set up a sleep sanctuary that will immediately transport you to dreamland and keep you there. If not, there's probably something else at play, and I can help you get to the bottom of it. I offer free 15 minute discovery calls that you can book here and we can talk through your sleep situation. That way, I can help you figure out what needs to change so we can get you back to sleep.
If you need some tips, you can read more articles on improving sleep in my sleep blog. I have a ton of great resources. Or if you're interested in working with someone one on one, I would love to help. You can schedule a free 30 minute discovery call right here→
My mission is to help you get the rest you deserve to be your best.
Sweet Dreams…
Kelly Murray is a certified sleep coach and an award-winning pediatric sleep consultant based in Chicago offering sleep coaching services nationwide.