Shea Simmons
When it comes to your health and wellness, you’ve likely heard it a million times. You need adequate sleep. Can your home décor help you achieve it?
According to some experts, like Logan Foley, certified sleep science coach and managing editor for the Sleep Foundation, your bedroom environment is integral to your sleep quality, and this includes its color.
“Your bedroom should induce sleepiness and should also play a part in keeping you asleep,” Foley said. “This can include layout, design, sound, and even smell.”
Sanam Hafeez, a neuropsychologist and faculty member at Columbia University, added that you should choose colors for your room that add a sense of calmness. She recommends decorating with simple accessories and not including any bright electronics.
So, what’s the best color to use in your bedroom?
The Sleep Foundation found that blue bedrooms improve sleep the most. This is, in part, because of how our eyes react to the shade. Our retinas’ receptors (ganglion cells) are linked to the part of the brain that controls our circadian rhythm, and they’re most sensitive to blue.
“When these cells recognize the color blue, they send a signal to your brain to lower your heart rate, calming you and making it easier to fall asleep,” said Foley.
There’s one caveat to all this blue-bedroom advice, though. Carleara Weiss, Ph.D., sleep science advisor at Aeroflow Healthcare, recommends keeping in mind that studies done on bedroom colors for sleep are survey-based. This means respondents make correlations themselves—the results aren’t science-based.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, though. And hey, if you do paint your bedroom blue and it doesn’t help you sleep any better, it might still improve your property value.
[Via EatingWell]
