Sleep Tips – Lights and Temperature

Transcript

So bright lights, whether they’re in the bedroom already or interrupting our sleep because the phone rings and the digital display wakes you up, or you’re turning on the bathroom light, not a good idea. Some people are very sensitive to blue light, which tends to be more common among electronic gadgetry. So it may make sense to turn down the screen on the iPad or the TV or the computer. It does make sense to kind of mimic nature. One common thing I see is that people are active all day and then it’s time for bed and they turn off the lights and expect to fall asleep. We didn’t have a transition in nature. We go from daytime to sunset, to dusk, to Twilight tonight fall. It’s a gradual process and the same should be true about the light in your own home. So if you go to bed at 10 o’clock, it might make sense around eight 30 or nine to go around the house and turn off extraneous lights. You want to mimic nature and come down gradually. We also want the bedroom temperature to be nice and cool, too hot and too cold either way would not be comfortable, but typically we relax better in a cooler environment. If that means a fan, if that means air conditioning, if that means the window open, or even just lighter sheets or blankets, we may need to do that. Sometimes it’s hard with bed partners, not everybody’s internal thermostat is the same, but it does make sense to try to make yourself comfortable. Cool tends to promote sleep.