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How To Turn Your New Home Into A Sleep Friendly Zone For Your Family
Studies on sleep all point to the same thing: the majority of people need from six to eight hours of sleep every night, and kids need even more. (See here for a WebMD list of how much sleep children need at various ages.)
THE IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP TO YOUR FAMILY’S HEALTH
Sleep does some pretty crucial stuff to your brain:
- It promotes the focus you need to learn.
- Improves decision making and reduces risky behavior.
- Makes your thinking more agile, allowing you to move from subject to subject when you talk with people.
- It’s important for your immune system too. A study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University showed that people who sleep six hours or less a night are four times likelier to get a cold.
- According to the National Institutes of Health, 20 million Americans experience periodic sleeping problems and 40 million have chronic sleep disorders. That’s a lot of tossing and turning!
- If you and your family members are not getting enough sleep, it’s time to make some adjustments. Fortunately, there is a lot you can do.
WAYS TO MAKE YOUR HOME ZZZZ-FRIENDLY
Make sleep a priority. It seems obvious, but many families don’t really treat sleep like it’s anything but just collapsing at the end of the day. Bedtime should be a happy, calming time, but you have to build toward that with a lot of small acts.
Create a pre-bedtime routine. Set a time to go to bed and stick with it as often as possible. Your body will learn the routine and know when it’s time to wind down.
Step away from the computer, tablet, mobile phone and TV at least an hour before bedtime. Electronic screens emit so much light, the brain thinks it’s time to be alert and active. This kind of light has an especially strong impact on children.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, “the increasing prevalence of electronics in children’s bedrooms creates a culture of evening engagement and light exposure that negatively impacts sleep time, sleep quality and daytime alertness.”
Connect with your family just before bedtime. Read a book to your kids, rub your spouse’s neck and pet the dog. This is not a time to discuss anything that might cause conflict.
Make each bedroom in your home a good place to snooze.
Take a look around the room at night and take inventory of what you see.
- Light: Is there a street light shining in? You might want to add some window coverings to block the light. To understand how too much light at night is bad for you check out this i09 article: “Why We Need to Sleep in Total Darkness.”
- Color: The shade on the walls affects the mood of the room’s inhabitants, studies show. Some colors are calming (hello, blue!) and some are stimulating (purple, absolutely). Before you apply any paint, check out this color chart and select a paint color with snoozing in mind.
- Sound: Listen carefully. What do you hear? If there’s thunking or flapping or whooshing, that noise is going to impact your family’s sleep. Make the adjustments needed to quiet things down, like running the washer and dryer well before bedtime. If there are noises you can’t control consider getting a white noise machine or simply run a fan.
- Smell: Even your nose can be used to induce sleep. Lavender is a perennial favorite, but any scent that is calming to you is a good one to invite into your bedroom.
- Touch: Set the stage for sleep with soft pajamas, a good mattress, comfy bedding and a pillow that is just perfect.With the right attitude and a few adjustments to your home and schedule, your family can join the ranks of the well-rested.YOUR FAMILY’S HEALTH IS IMPORTANT TO US
- At San Joaquin Valley Homes, we build homes to one standard: what we would want for our own families.
- For more information on new homes in Corcoran, Visalia, Tulare, Hanford and Bakersfield, contact us today.
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