Bedroom Interior Design for Better Sleep

1. Introduction: The quality of our sleep has the power to impact many aspects of our lives, like how much we eat, how well we drive, our athletic performance, our work performance, and even our social relationships. Anyone who has missed a night of sleep knows what a different person they're the next day. The quality of life that you lead is dependent on how well you sleep at night. But many people report insomnia and having sleep deprived. While there are many reasons why this can happen, I believe that the environments in which we sleep can also be a part of the problem. Hi, my name is Ana Marcu. I'm a licensed architect with over a decade of experience. I have a double degree in Architecture and Building Science. My classes focus on the topic of home well-being. I drew from my science background to show you how certain design decisions can impact your emotions and behavior and from architectural experience to give you concrete solutions on how you can optimize your home to help you become a happier, healthier, and more creative person. When it comes to designing the bedroom, one can easily get distracted by the core styles and pretty furniture pieces, forgetting that the room's purpose is sleep. In this class, I would like to zoom into those elements of your environment that could disrupt your sleep and offer you solutions that tackle each of them. You'll learn about the perfect lighting setup. How to combat noise, about good air quality and sleep temperature, bed features, furniture dimensions, fragrances, colors. About design principles that make the space look calm and so many more things. By the end of this class, you'll have a clear understanding of how you can optimize your bedroom, get a great sleep no matter what design style you may decide to go for. We spend about a third of our life in our bedroom, which is more time than in any other room of the house because our sleep is so essential to the quality of life that we lead, our bedroom design is important and we need to keep extra attention to those specific details that can make or break the quality of our sleep. Thank you so much for taking this class and let's get started. 2. Light: When I was a kid, I was very sensitive to motion. Every family vacation that we took whether it was by car or by bus or by airplane, I would feel nauseated and there was not a lot I could do to calm my body and my mind other than to sleep. Between sleeping and throwing up, I found that sleeping was something that everybody sharing the vehicle with me appreciated. After many years of training, I now have this superpower that allows me to sleep at any time of day and pretty much anywhere especially if it's in motion. But our most restful sleep happens at night especially because of the lack of light. Light regulates the levels of the hormone melatonin which controls our sleep-wake cycle in the body. Your brain basically secretes more melatonin when it's dark making you sleepy and less when it's light making you more alert. Therefore, we need to create an environment in which the lighting conditions can be controlled so they can support us to fall asleep or wake up at a specific moment in time when we wish to fall asleep and wake up. Not only the light intensity matters, but also the light color. Yellow and orange hues, which humans got used to by watching sunsets before going to sleep stimulates melatonin production while bright blue morning light tells the body to reduce the hormones level and get ready for a day's work. Really we need to create two types of settings. Evenings should be dim lights dominated by yellowish-red colors, mornings by crisp blue light that gets stronger and stronger. Keep that in mind when you are looking for bedroom lighting options. The two types of light that we need to look at when it comes to planning our bedroom is natural light and electrical light. Let's have a look at the natural light. In order to control natural light, we need to figure out what kind of window treatment might be good for us. Personally, I like drapes. They are used in many high-class hotels. They look very stylish and normally made of heavier fabric, lined, pleated, and hang on a traverse rod with a string or rod pool so they can be easily opened and closed. Even better, blackout drapes have a heavy lining that blocks out all light, are a great solution for not only keeping out daylight, but also blocking cold tract for heat from leaking through the windows. If the drapes are white, they can reflect the sun so the room does not overheat. Some of them even have acoustical properties keeping out some of the noise from the street. You could, of course, use other treatments like curtains, blinds, as well as blackout window shades. It really is a question of preference, style, and climate. Some great lights for the evening are candle lights or the lights of a fireplace, they equally transmit the reddish-yellow kind of sunset light that we need for sleep and they are easy on the eyes and very soothing before going to bed. If you don't have a fireplace and candles make you uneasy, there are many more other options when it comes to electrical lights. There are three types of light that you can install in your bedroom. You will see this time and time again in high-class hotels. There's the direct light, which is a chandelier or a ceiling light. Then the indirect light is a form of ambient lighting which uses one or more fixtures to aim light onto the ceiling and upper walls which in turn reflects light in the room. It could also be located behind the headboard or under the bed. Then there's the local light which is a light that focuses only on a small area of the room. It is especially useful when you share your bedroom with a partner because it allows you to do things without disturbing them like reading or working. This could be readings concepts, or perhaps table lamps on the desk or on the bedside table. They can also be standing lamps in a corner of the room. Direct light is something you can use when you get into the room and are fully awake when you are undressing and getting ready for bed. As you slowly transition to bed, you can use lights that are a bit more ambiental. If you wish to read a book you can turn on the local lights on your side of the bed. Similarly, direct lights are stronger and brighter lights while indirect and local lights are dimmer and softer lights. Choose bedroom light bulb wattage based on the purpose each particular lamps serves. Bright lighting may be necessary for a desk in your bedroom or near a mirror. Lower wattages like 45 to 50 watts offer ambient light or a gentle light for reading in bed. Now instead of different types of lights direct, indirect, and local, you can have just a couple of lights that allow you to custom control brightness as you need, particularly for overhead lights. You can have dimmer switches installed in the wall next to the door and next to your bed. Three-way switches let you control a ceiling light and other electrical fixtures from two different locations in a room. Placing one next to the bed means that you don't have to get up to turn off the lights. Keep the lights down if you get up during the night. If you need some light to move around safely, try installing a dim night light in the hole. This will make it easier for you to both find your way and fall back to sleep. The moment you turn on the normal lights your melatonin levels will sink and you will be much more difficult to fall asleep. Now initially we have different types of lights and with dimmers, we'll reduce the number of lights by having one light with different intensities. With smart bulbs, we've reached a whole new level. We not only have one light with different intensities, but also with 60 million different shades of color that respond to vocal or phone apps and can be connected to Amazon, Alexa, and google assistant. They can be set up to follow your schedules and sleep routines. You can wake up or fall asleep to costom lighting routines that gradually eliminate or darken with time, which can replace sound alarms and become your personalized sunrise and sunset. To recap, dim down the lights and choose yellow-ish tones when going to bed and slowly raise the intensity of the light and choose whiter blue-ish tones of color when trying to wake up. Look for night lights or ways to keep the lights at a very low intensity when getting up during the night so you can fall asleep again. If you want to hear more about cozy lights, check out my class A Hygge Home. 3. Wall Colour: Just like light, color can influence your mood and emotions, and your bedroom wall color can have an impact on the quality of your sleep. If you've ever entered into a high-class restaurant or perhaps a cigar lounge, you'll typically see a dark palette of wall colors. That's because dark colors absorb light and together with thin lines, they can create an intimate mood. As I mentioned in my class, color psychology, saturated colors spark a feeling of joy and delight. They make a space feel more energetic, while dark desaturated colors turn down the mode. This is why many hotels rooms who receive tired, jet-lagged guests, who need to switch moods quickly, opt for brown and natural tones or darker blues, together with dim lines, they will support a darker environment that our body needs for the melatonin to kick in. The brightness of the wall colors can really make the difference. Dark walls make it easier for people to sleep during the day, so shift workers like doctors and nurses may want to keep that in mind. However, if your bedroom is not strictly designed for sleeping and it's a place where you spend a good portion of your day as well, then lighter colors are definitely more appropriate. Choose lighter colors to make a room appear larger and darker colors to make a room appear more intimate and warm. Pastels are often a great choice making your room feel calm. If you still would like to incorporate bright colors in your bedroom, use them as accents on your pillows or within artwork. Also, if you pick darker colors for the walls, make sure to pick lighter colors for the furniture not to make the room too sad looking. You can get away with darker colors on the furniture as well, but you might have to introduce patterns and accents of color. Should you use warm tones or cold tones? Generally, warm colors are associated with heightened emotions, passion, joy, and playfulness. Think of the vibrancy of bright orange or the intensity of a deep, rich red. Warm colors can be stimulating, making them a good choice for rooms that see a lot of activity. Many studies show an increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and increased stress levels scores for people who spent time in red rooms. Cool colors, on the other hand, are associated with feelings of calm and relaxation. That's why cool hues are natural for bedrooms and bars, places where people go to unwind and relax. Because green is often associated with nature, it has many positive connotations being associated with good luck, health, and tranquility. But what we ultimately associate with the color also has to do with our cultural background and our emotional experiences with that color. As for example, the color green is associated with army in some cultures. Before picking a wall color, make sure you pick a color that is calming to you as only you will have to spend time in that room. Also, don't be afraid to paint color swatches on the wall before going all out just to be sure that that particular color makes you happy, and if you happen to be wrong, don't worry, you can always repaint. The number of colors also matters. In the bedroom, busy patterns and many different colors have the power to make a space look busy and agitated and could have an opposite effect on a peaceful evening. Try to keep the number of different colors low and stay within the tones of similar shades of color. To recap, in order to get a good night sleep, you want to give your brain as little stimulation as possible. Choose dark colors if you are very sensitive to the intensity of the light and you often have to sleep during the day. Desaturated colors like pastels and neutral colors can make a space feel calm. Keep the number of different colors and textures low. Cool colors are generally perceived to be calmer than warmer tones, but the perfect color for you specifically is a personal choice. 4. The Bed: I'm a tall person. I'm 1.77 meters, which is about 5.8 feet. It's not a crazy abnormal height for a European, but for many Latin American countries or countries from Asia, it is above average. I particularly remember one trip I made to Japan during which I felt very aware that I was tall. The ceilings in restaurants were particularly low. I wasn't able to find slippers in my size. In one single trip, I went from feeling average, to feeling like Gulliver the giant, in Lilliput country. Here's the key idea that I wish to share with you. Spending time in spaces and places that are too large or too small or don't fit your particular needs, given the subliminal message that you are unwelcome or that something is wrong with you, basically, you are not what people thought about when they designed that space. At the other end of the spectrum are perhaps luxury hotels, which often have all the bells and whistles that you need. If you are visually impaired, if you're handicapped, if you have kids, if you have a dog, if you're tall, if you're short, they often have all the amenities that you need and more. In spaces that are specifically designed with your needs in mind, give you the subliminal message that you are appreciated, accepted, and loved. It might not seem like much at first, but the attention to all these tiny details is why luxury hotels cost so much. They make or break your bedtime experience. So what design details matter for a great sleep? The first factor in the quality of your sleep is the quality of the mattress you are sleeping in. Your mattress should be well-built and comfortable, meaning that it meets your personal firmness preferences. If you wake up with backaches or not feeling rested, then that is a hint, it's time to change the mattress. The three main factors to consider when picking a mattress, are size, support level, and sleeping style. Ultimately, you have to lie down on the mattress and see how you feel on it. Some people really like a firm mattress and other people really like them a bit softer. It really comes down to your personal preferences. How great a mattress is can make a big difference in the quality of your sleep. I remember hotels very fondly based on the type of mattress that they had, and it's the first thing I check when I go into a hotel. Pick a mattress that will allow you and your partner to sleep comfortably. It's often that even if people sleep next to each other, they need their own micro-climate to have a restful night's sleep. So you'll have to pick the kind of mattress that will allow for both closeness and a bit of space, but not so much that you will not be able to find your partner during the night. People are getting taller and the most restful sleep will be on a bed where your feet aren't dangling off it. So if you can't find the standard bed to fit you, investing in a custom size bed is going to make a world of difference in the quality of your sleep. Make sure that the bed, together with the mattress, are located at about 45 to 55 centimeters away from the floor. If you are tall, it can be a little more, and if you are short, it can be a little less. Ideally, you are sitting on the side of the bed and your feet are flat on the ground. The seating area should be at the same level with your knees. You don't want your feet dangling off the side of the bed, and you don't want the bed to be so low that your knees are higher than your hips. I personally really like beds that are a bit lower. But for somebody older or with back or joint pains, getting up from a position lower than your knees can feel straining on the joints and on the back. So if you know that this is an issue that you might have, look for a bed that makes it super easy for you to get out of it. When you feel pain the first thing when you get out of bed, it's not a great way to start your day. Pillows: In addition to your mattress, your pillows, sheets, and blankets play an important role in making your bed comfortable and inviting. Pillows can prevent neck pain by keeping your head and spine properly aligned, which has a big impact on how restorative your sleep will be. So besides a mattress that feels comfortable for you, you need to find pillows that will properly support your neck in your favorite sleeping position. That means that if you sleep on your back, the pillow will have to be very soft to prevent the neck from arching forward while allowing the spine to lie flat. If you sleep on the side, choose pillows with heights that match the difference between your neck and your shoulder to keep your spine straight while asleep. The area around the bed is just as important as the bed itself. So what details might you have to look for to make sure that the time you spend in bed is absolutely perfect. Because they are small, they are often forgotten. But having side tables next to bed is very important because you need to have a place where you can put little things like a book, your medicine, a glass of water. Make sure they are at about the same height with your mattress so that you do not have to strain your hand if you want to put something on the side table lying down. If the side table is too low, you might drop things off of it, and if it's too high, you might hurt your hand in the night bumping into it. Adding a rug or a quieting Tatami mat underfoot offers soft landing pads and means cozy feet never have to meet cold floors. A rug also reduces the noise you are making when you are getting out of bed. So you will not be disturbing your partner if you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Finally, if the space allows, a bench at the end of the bed or a chair close to the bed can help ease the transition to bed time. To recap, make sure to select pillows and a mattress that keep your spine aligned. Pay attention to the area around the bed to support relaxation and an easy bedtime transition. 5. Air: If you've ever vacationed in the countryside or the mountains, you must have noticed a significant improvement in the quality of your sleep. Now, one reason for that might be switching on vacation mode and leaving your worries behind, but another really important factor is the quality of the air. It turns out that there is research demonstrating that the amount of air in a room, it's temperature, and airborne pollutants have a significant impact on how well you sleep and your performance the next day. For example, a study at the Technical University of Denmark examined the ventilation rate in a bedroom to see how it affects both the sleep and the next day performance in a group of students. The research demonstrated that both sleep and the next day performance can be improved by increasing the clean outdoor air supply rate in the bedrooms. Your bedroom temperature should be comfortable, and it is recommended to be somewhere between 60-71 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 16-22 degrees Celsius with cooler temperatures in this range being linked to deeper sleep. Excess heat can disrupt sleep. When we sleep, our body temperature drops and acclimates to the room temperature so if we lower our body temperature a little bit in a cooler room, we tend to sleep better. If you don't have a thermostat to precisely control the temperature of your bedroom, you can use of fan or depending on the season, open a window to adjust the temperature. Try different thermostat settings to see what feels most comfortable to you as preferences may vary from person to person. If you're a furnace and your partner is left shivering, try to use different comforter weights so you can both sleep optimally. What about air pollutants? Now, there are many devices that promise clean air, but what I wish to give you is a natural low-cost tip on how to remove air pollutants from your bedroom, and that is adding plants. OneWorld Health Organization recently estimated that approximately 30 percent of all new or remodeled buildings have varying degrees of indoor air pollution. Problems of this type have been reported in the United States and Canada, as well as in most other highly developed nations of the Western world. A study done by NASA in 1989 called Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement, says, "Since man's existence on Earth depends upon a life support system involving an intricate relationship with plants and their associated microorganisms, it should be obvious that when he attempts to isolate himself in tightly sealed buildings away from this ecological system, problems will arise. The answer to these problems is obvious. If man is to move into closed environments, on Earth or in space, he must take along nature's life support system." The study revealed the 10 plants that do the best job of cleaning indoor air and removing toxic chemicals which are formaldehyde, benzene, and carbon monoxide. Here they are: areca palm, lady palm, bamboo palm, rubber plant, Dracaena or "Janet Craig", I'm not sure how you pronounce this, Philodendron, dwarf date Palm, Ficus Alii, Boston fern, Peace lily. I think I may have butchered a few names there but be patient with me. If you want to know more about how to style plants beautifully in a room, check out my class Decorating With Plants. One last thing that I want to talk about in this lesson that would help you relax and get better sleep are fragrances. Having the right scents in your bedroom can be a plus for your sleep because odors can help cultivate a calming environment for getting a quality rest. Studies have found that aroma therapy with essential oils such as lavender can promote relaxation and make it easier to get a good night sleep. Chamomile, cedar, ylang-ylang, and jasmin have also been linked with enhanced relaxation and better sleep. Whether it's from a candle, an incense holder, a diffuser, scents are great to bring into the bedroom for their stress and anxiety-relieving properties. You can also switch up the scents by season, richer in winter and brighter and citrusy in the summer. If you want to learn more about fragrances and their impact on our well being, check out my class Room Fragrances. To recap, in order to get a great sleep, make sure you ventilate and have a large amount of fresh air in the room. The temperature is between 60 to 71 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 16 to 22 degrees Celsius. Have natural plants to help you remove air pollutants and use fragrances to help you relax and wind down before bed. 6. Noise: Another important factor that can make or break the quality of our sleep is noise. While you may or may not control the source of the noise, there are things you can do to your environment to control how much noise you can hear. In order to understand what you can do about your environment, you first need to understand what sound is and how it's being transmitted around the house. Essentially, sound is a vibration. The transmission of this vibration happens directly through the adjacent wall and indirectly through the floor, the ceiling, and the connecting walls at the side. Reducing noise is a complex task. For the rest of the lesson, I'd like to talk about a couple of relatively simple DIY interventions that you can do. But depending on how complex your problem is, it's possible that you might need the advice of a specialist as well. There are essentially four ways you can reduce noise. You can absorb sound, you can reduce the vibration, you can plug the sound leaks, and you can use sound systems. Let's talk about absorbing sound. Vibration is reflective, which means that if it meets a hard, dense, flat surface like a wall or a floor, it bounces around the room. But if you need software, more porous kind of materials, then the vibration gets trapped in the material and it stops bouncing around the room. So the first step in acoustically soundproofing your room is to add softer, more plush materials like faux fur, shag, wool, silk, chenille, and upholstered furniture. Rugs can help reduce noise, especially if one partner wakes up while the other is still sleeping and needs to get out of bed with hardwood floors below. Bedroom area rugs are typically placed underneath the lower 2/3 of the bed. Add an additional rug for the area where your feet meet the floor in the morning to reduce any possible noises. Additionally, you can add absorbing sound, acoustic panels, which absorb sound before they bounce off the wall. Acoustic panels are made to improve the sound inside the room such as home theater, but they're also helpful in reducing sound transmission through the walls made of porous expanded polypropylene or PEPP. Panels come in variety of sizes and thicknesses. You can even custom make your panels by choosing custom sizes and fabric colors. Fabric wall hangings and tapestries can also aid in noise reduction. These are interventions you can do in a noisy room, and it doesn't help quite that much in the room you are standing. Depending on how old or in what condition your home is, the second thing you can do is plug sound leaks. You can use acoustical caulk to plug holes and gaps around ceiling fixtures, switch boxes, receptacle boxes, and door casing. You can also add sweeps to the bottom of the door and weatherstripping to door frames. Now, this requires a couple of advanced building skills, but deadening vibrations is best done with heavy, dense materials that stops noise in its tracks. One approach to do that, especially if the wall is very thin, is to add a second layer of drywall to create a sound-deadening barrier. You don't have to add drywall everywhere. You can either isolate the noisy room or the quiet room. Because now you have two centimeters more on your wall, you will have to refinish and repaint your new drywall and probably extend electrical outlets and switch boxes to be at the surface of the new wall. But those are relatively easy and inexpensive DIY projects. Besides drywall, you can make the wall even thicker by adding other layers that offer a high acoustical installation factor. Soundproofing products often come with a sound transmission class or STC rating. STC is a measure how many decibel of sound reduction a product provides. The higher the STC rating, the better. You can also add a solid core interior door to absorb sound better than a hollow-core door. If you rent an apartment and they are relatively limited to the renovations you can do, you can override the sounds that you hear with another sound system like white noise. When a noise wakes you up in the middle of the night, it's not the noise per se that bothers you, but the inconsistency in the noise landscape, in your environment. White noise creates a masking effect blocking out those sudden changes. White noise is a consistent noise that comes out evenly across all hearable frequencies. If you have trouble sleeping, a fan, an air-purifying machine, an air conditioner can provide you with that white noise that block out distracting noises. To recap, use porous and soft materials to absorb sound, plug sound leaks, reduce vibrations by adding a second layer of drywall, and use white noise sound systems to cancel out unwanted noises. 7. Simplicity: People spend about a third of their time in the bedroom, which is more than the time spent in any other space in the home. It's therefore important to give the bedroom a bit more attention. I've talked about this idea in other classes as well. But disorderly environments raise our anxiety levels and make us feel overwhelmed. Here are a couple of design tips that you can apply to your home to make it look a bit more simple. Minimalism is an interior design practice which involves using the bare essentials to create a simple and uncluttered space. It is characterized by simplicity, clean lines, and a monochromatic palette with color used as accents. By eliminating unnecessary design elements and focusing on a few simple pieces, you can avoid distractions and set your mind at ease. This also increases the cleanliness of the room and reduces the unnecessary trappings of allergens, which can also make sleep more of a challenge. Symmetry is often used in hotel rooms because it can create a sense of balance. A symmetrical space is easy to decipher, perceive, and understand. You can support symmetry by placing identical nightstands and lamps on each side of the bed. It is enough to make the view towards the bed symmetrical. It doesn't have to be the entire room. People who have more clutter also report more sleep disturbances, which means that they are not fully rested and therefore, are not able to perform at their best capacity the following day. What can you do to make your bedroom more tidy and simple? When you are designing your bedroom, replace low-level cabinetry with ceiling higher wardrobes, or if you can, just limit the open surfaces to the minimum. The more open surfaces you have around you like shows an open cabinetry, the more things will end up on them. Similarly, make sure that the nightstands do not offer a lot of open surfaces, otherwise it gets filled with things. Use nightstands with drawers and remove any items that might be distracting. Have just enough space for a lamp, a glass of water, some pills, and a photo maybe. Keeping a decluttered bedroom also has an aspect of safety to it. Make sure there is an unobstructed path to your bed so you don't trip if you get up in the middle of the night. If you want to hear more about how clutter impacts your well-being, check out my class: home design for better habits. Finally, a few words about devices. Even though it can feel relaxing to kick back in bed and watch your favorite show, research has shown that screen watching before bed actually steals your sleep. The motion and sound keeps your mind stimulated and the light prevents your body's internal clock from regulating sleep properly, which is why most digital devices with a screen should be left out of the bedroom or at least away from the bed and should not be looked at at least one hour before bed. Don't have a TV in your bedroom if you can. But if you can't, perhaps opt for hiding televisions in an armor or cabinet. Installing low costume pop-up or dropped down television lift, is more ideal because it hides everything completely. If it's important to have a phone in your bedroom, hide away in a side table drawer. Now, more and more devices are getting better in this aspect by offering night reading mode or another trick is using the software setting to apply a blue light filter to the screen. With technology changing rapidly, I have no doubt that soon enough devices are going to support our sleep and not disturb it. The important thing is that you understand what your body needs and the consequences on the quality of your sleep when you disregard those needs. To recap: keep things simple. Eliminate unnecessary furniture and decor elements and focus on a few simple pieces. Limit open shelves to avoid objects stacking up. Keep things tidy to leave our mind feeling calm and ready for bed. Limit your screen time before bed to allow your internal clock to adjust to bedtime. 8. Class Project: In this class, I have given you many tips on how to optimize your sleeping environment. For the class project, I would like you to take just one tip and apply it to your bedroom, then record the difference that it made. Whether these are before and after photos, we're simply describing in words what difference that tip made to your sleep. Do share your results in the project section with the other students. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them for you. Make sure to check the attached PDF for supporting resources. 9. Final Thoughts: Congratulations, you have made it to the end of the class. I hope you learned some new things and already feeling inspired to apply them. I enjoy teaching this class a lot and I can't wait to see what you have taken away from it. I invite you to go to the Project and Resources section and share your class project with me and other students of the class. I will make sure to give you feedback and help you on your way. Do comment and encourage other students on their class project, it will help you make some new connections on the platform. Please use the discussion section to let me know your thoughts and questions about the class. I'd love to help you clarify any concepts you do not understand, and it also helps me improve my classes so you can learn better. If you enjoyed this class, I would appreciate a review, it tells Skillshare that you liked my class, and it encourages other people to discover my work. Hit the follow button if you want to see more classes like this one, or follow me on social media for weekly nuggets of architecture and design wisdom, or just funny thoughts.