By Sharon Brock, MS, MEd

If getting consistent sleep seems elusive, you’re not alone. Roughly 60 million Americans experience insomnia each year, according to the National Sleep Foundation.  However, before making an appointment with a sleep clinic, trying sleeping pills, or undergoing sleep therapy, the first step is to ensure your bedroom environment is conducive to falling—and staying—asleep.

“The bedroom should be like a cave—dark, cool, and quiet,” says Cheri D. Mah, MD, MS, a sleep physician and co-head of the Restorative Sleep pillar for Stanford Lifestyle Medicine. “Many think it’s just about reducing stress, but research shows that the bedroom environment also plays a significant role in how well we sleep.”

5 Bedroom Changes for Better Sleep 

To improve your sleep quality, Dr. Mah recommends making these five modifications to your sleep space.

1. Dark

Darkness prompts the production of melatonin, the body’s natural sleep hormone. So, if streetlights are streaming through your windows or there are several illuminated electronics in the bedroom, melatonin onset may be delayed, preventing you from sleeping when desired. Dr. Mah recommends using a comfortable eye mask or blackout curtains to block out light sources.

“In the early morning hours, light can come through the blinds and cause awakenings that you’re not even aware of,” says Dr. Mah. “To block out light, you can use blackout curtains or an eye mask.”

2. Quiet

It goes without saying that a quiet environment is important so that you aren’t woken up during the night. If you experience frequent noise disturbances outside your bedroom, consider investing in double-paned windows, thick curtains that absorb sound, silicone earplugs, or noise-cancelling headphones.

If silence is not possible, a fan, a white noise machine, or listening to relaxing music through the night can offer calming and consistent background noise to mask sudden noises that can be interpreted as “alarming” and wake us up. There are also adaptive white noise machines that increase in volume when sudden external noises occur, such as a trash truck arriving at the house.

“You’re more susceptible to waking up due to noise at different stages of sleep,” says Dr. Mah. “In the first stage, you have the most sensitivity to be pulled out of sleep because you’re just transitioning into it. Each sleep cycle of light, deep, and REM takes roughly 90 to 120 minutes, so you could be in light sleep in the middle of the night and get woken up. So, establishing a noise-controlled environment is important not just at the beginning but throughout the night.”

3. Cool

The body’s core temperature naturally drops at night, signaling to the brain that it’s time to sleep. A cool bedroom environment can support this wind-down process. Specifically, studies have shown that a bedroom temperature of 60 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit supports more consolidated sleep (uninterrupted, continuous sleep without awakenings).

“I know that sounds cold for a lot of people, so if your thermostat is currently set to 70 degrees, try and reduce the temperature just one degree every couple of days and find the temperature that works for you,” says Dr. Mah. “But generally speaking, cooler is going to be better.”

Dr. Mah’s recommendations for keeping the bedroom cool:

• Set the thermostat to somewhere between 60 to 67°F to maintain a consistent cool temperature.
• Use breathable, moisture-wicking materials for bedsheets and sleepwear, such as cotton, bamboo, or silk.
• Be mindful that foam or overly soft mattresses toppers can retain heat.
• Use a cooling mattress cover. (If you have a bed partner, choose a cover that is split in half to offer two different temperatures.)
• Take a hot shower or bath 1 to 2 hours before bed.

“Hot baths, showers, or saunas are helpful to relax at night, but timing is important,” says Dr. Mah. “Research has shown that a hot bath 90 minutes before bedtime provides enough time for the core temperature to drop. As the body cools down after the bath, this likely augments the natural process of our core temperature dropping, which is needed to fall asleep.”

4. Comfortable

Since we spend roughly a third of our lives sleeping, we need to have comfortable pillows, bed sheets, and a supportive mattress. Even though mattress and bedding companies advertise that their products are the best, Dr. Mah says to evaluate marketing claims. Therefore, it is crucial to try out different products and assess what is most comfortable and supportive for your body, specifically.

“You want to have a mattress and pillows that keep your spine and neck aligned, and that looks different for each person,” says Dr. Mah. “If your mattress is too soft, such as with older mattresses, the weight of the shoulders and hips may not be supported, causing the spine to not be aligned and potentially causing pain in those areas. If the mattress is too firm, however, it may not be comfortable enough to fully relax and sleep.”

For individuals with back pain, Dr. Mah recommends considering a firmer mattress for added support and placing pillows under the knees to help align the low back in a neutral position. If you’ve had surgeries or injuries that cause discomfort in specific areas of the body, Dr. Mah recommends using several pillows to provide additional support. Specifically, she advises placing a pillow between the knees to maintain spine alignment for side sleepers and using an adjustable pillow to promote proper neck alignment.

5. Consistent

Since our brain creates associations with different environments, consistently keeping our bedrooms dark, quiet, cool, and comfortable trains the mind to shift into “rest mode” when we enter the bedroom.

Here are more ways to establish consistency to promote quality sleep:

• Go to bed and wake up at the same time.
• Keep the bedroom tidy and free from work, exercise, screens, or other non-relaxing items to create a visual experience of restfulness.
• Spritz your pillow with lavender spray every night. “There is some research that says the scent of lavender has a relaxing effect,” says Dr. Mah.
• Use the same sleep tools at home and while traveling such as wearing a comfortable eye mask every night (even if it’s dark in your bedroom). “Establishing the association between an eye mask and going to sleep may help you fall asleep when you’re traveling,” says Dr. Mah.
• Have a consistent bedtime routine.

“Making these bedroom changes and staying consistent with a bedtime routine can be effective ways to enhance your sleep environment to get the best sleep possible,” says Dr. Mah.

Sample Bedtime Routine

Dr. Mah recommends creating a simple 5- to 15-minute wind-down routine to serve as a cue for your brain that it’s time to go to sleep. Here is an example of a 15-minute wind-down routine:

• Place your cell phone outside of the bedroom or on a surface that is out of reach from the bed (so you can’t look at it during the night or when you first wake up).
• Make a cup of herbal tea.
• Put on relaxing music.
• Read a chapter in a book that you enjoy.
• Journal or write down five things you’re grateful for.
• Lie down on your bed, put on an eye mask, and take five deep breaths.

“The content of social media or videos is oftentimes activating to the nervous system,” says Dr. Mah. “My suggestion is to use your devices earlier in the evening [and not while lying in bed]. Allow enough time to prioritize your bedtime routine to relax the body and mind and prepare for sleep.”

Practice of the Month:

Take a look at your bedroom, remove any non-sleep-related distractions, and make the above five changes to turn your bedroom into a peaceful sanctuary that you look forward to relaxing into every night.

And, if you have a bedroom partner who has different ideas regarding the ideal bedroom environment (such as other lighting, temperature, noise, mattress, or bedding preferences), Dr. Mah encourages couples to consider sleeping in different rooms. In fact, more than a third of Americans choose to occasionally or consistently sleep in different rooms.

“It’s not something to be embarrassed about if you sleep separately on some days of the week, or the night before an important presentation. Even if it’s every night, it’s important to normalize the idea of sleeping in different rooms so that you both get better sleep and feel your best the next day,” says Dr. Mah. “The take-home message is to make your bedroom a relaxing and not stimulating place for you, and that could look different for different people. Use these five guidelines as a starting point, but ultimately you need to figure out what works for you and your partner.”