This is a contributed blog post by Wendy Haversham
How to Design a Bedroom With Plants for Better Sleep
You don’t normally sleep outdoors, but bringing a bit of outside indoors can help you sleep better at night. Natural design, especially with plants, is helpful for creating a healthy sleep environment that can offer you a good place to rest at night.
Why Nature Can Help You Sleep
If you’ve ever gone camping, you know it’s not an ideal sleep environment. Temperature changes, noises, a less than ideal mattress and bedding can interfere with healthy sleep. But somehow, you may go home feeling renewed and refreshed, having been in nature. What’s happening there?
Being outdoors among fresh air, plants, and nature around you can help you feel more healthy and may even help you sleep better. Your body relies on cues to guide your circadian rhythm and help you sleep at appropriate times. Indoors, some of these cues are muted or completely interfered with. Sunlight is replaced with interior lights that often don’t follow the sun’s natural schedule that should guide your sleep habits. Air isn’t as clean as it is outdoors. Even sounds are different, as your home’s walls may block the sounds of nature at night.
When you introduce nature into your bedroom, you can benefit from some of the cues that guide your circadian rhythm. This can help you get a better night’s sleep.
Plants Are Key to Designing a Naturally Restful Bedroom
Although light, noise, and other factors are important, plants are an especially easy and helpful way to make your bedroom a healthier, more natural place to sleep. Plants can not only offer comfort and make your bedroom feel homier, but they can also help you clear and purify the air.
It’s certainly possible to use an air purifying device to clear indoor air pollution. Instead of investing in a gadget, you can simply bring the outdoors in.
NASA research tells us that some indoor plants are remarkably effective in filtering indoor air and removing harmful chemicals.
Air clearing houseplants include Gerbera daisies, peace lilies, English ivy, and bamboo palms. They are effective at removing harmful chemicals from the air indoors, including benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene.
Cleaner air, along with good airflow, can help you sleep better at night.
Research suggests better air flow offers better sleep, which is encouraging if you want to leave your bedroom door or windows open while you sleep. Simply using a fan can be helpful in offering good air flow.
Other Elements of a Healthy, Natural Bedroom
In addition to healthy air with indoor plants and air flow, you can take other steps to make your bedroom more naturally conducive to sleep. Choose a mattress that meets your needs. Consider using natural, muted color tones for a more relaxing environment and bring in natural elements whenever possible, including wooden furniture, images of nature, and natural bedding materials.
Wendy Haversham is a researcher for BestMattresses.com. A British-born import, she has spent years trying to find the perfect sleep environment. She currently resides in Daytona Beach, where she sleeps in a king-size bed with her cat while listening to the waves crash outside her window.
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