A simple hack for better sleep

I made some mistakes in home décor, and along the way I stumbled into a simple hack for better sleep.

When we finished the first round of renovation on our farmhouse a year ago, we moved into our master bedroom.  It was a huge space, once a doctor’s office 200 years ago, and more recently a living room for at least a generation.  The windows are tall, beaming, and uneven, and the fireplace mantle sits almost as high as me standing next to it.  The floors are aged pine, also uneven, but refinished and smooth.  It’s a grand room. 

Our huge master bed, always too big for other rooms, can stand up to it.  A few plants I love have added a lot to the space so it doesn’t feel empty.  We have a dresser, a couch, and a large TV, none of which look oversized under the tall ceilings.  But the walls are mostly empty.  I hung one mirror I love to reflect light.  All my other frames were dwarfed by the scale of the room.  Occasionally I popped a small family photo on the dresser and it felt wrong or cluttered so I’d stick in a drawer the next day.  I didn’t put a single frame up on the walls.  Instead, I purchased a huge piece of canvas art from Minted.com, a blurry and abstracted landscape that looks a bit like an ocean horizon.  It’s restful, calming, we loved it.

Now that a year has passed (and we’re spending all of our time at home), I took another look at the décor in our bedroom.  I bought a fancy rug with a different color scheme.  I started tweaking the colors in the room to match.  My big abstract canvas sitting on the mantle?  No longer goes.  Reluctantly I took it down.  I dug around in the attic (now my office) and pulled down two large gray frames with pictures from our 2012 trip to California:  a grand view of Yosemite and a peaceful view of the marina at Sausalito.  Two of my favorite places in the world, peaceful, and pictures I took.  Perfect, right? 

I propped them up on the mantle.  Over the next few days, something crazy happened.  Every time I walked in the room I became so distracted.  I was launched into a different time (pre-kids) on the trip to these places.  I started thinking about hiking, boats, family trips, and a crab roll on the dock.  I would even forget why I came in the room.  At night, I’d look at those pictures and remember where they hung in my old law firm office and my old house.  A lot of feelings floated around. I woke up a half dozen times a night. 

These photographs were utterly distracting me from rest.   I love them, but they are cluttering up my mind with memories.  They are turning my brain on in a place where I need to be turning it off for sleep.

To test my theory, I took the pictures back down so nothing is on the mantle.  The room is still, quiet, and a little empty.  And I slept like a rock the last two nights.

I take sleep very seriously.  With small kids and a stressful job, you never know what is going to pop up.  So I commit to going to bed early every night.  When things go well, I get 9 hours of sleep.  NINE HOURS.  I am not apologizing.  It’s amazing.  When there are interruptions (hello 3 year old!), I still get a great chunk of sleep so I’m not thrown off my axis.  I know everyone needs a different amount of sleep, but I learned a long time ago that I get physically sick with only 6 hours.  To be at my best I need a whole lot more.  So I started prioritizing it.  It actually took having babies, and prioritizing rest for them and around them, to make me realize I could do this.  I could make it a priority.  My husband loves to go to bed early and so we did this together. We made space for rest.

I’m now convinced that photos have no place in the bedroom.   I’m all for textures, colors, and art that makes you feel calm and restored.  But leave the distractions of your life in another room!

If you’re still on a journey to find better sleep, here are a few other tips that have helped me over the years.

Clean sheets – I love good sheets.  My favorites are Garnet Hill sateen and Brooklinen linen sheets, which I discovered at the fabulous Guest House Raleigh.  It feels like such a luxury to climb into bed, so we change them often.

Scandinavian setup – On an anniversary trip to Iceland my husband and I discovered a Scandinavian setup for duvets.  If you share a bed with a partner, it’s worth the investment to stay cool and undisturbed.  For a king or queen bed, instead of one huge comforter, Scandinavian style is to have two twin comforters.  It almost looks like two sleeping bags on the bed.  They add a large blanket across the foot of the bed to tie it together visually.  It’s genius.  You can kick a leg out anytime you need, roll over without disrupting the other person, and still be plenty cozy.  Using this setup means no top sheet, either, so we have two sets of duvet covers that we swap and out and wash at the same time as our sheets.  We invested in the twin comforters and covers from the Company Store as soon as we got home from our vacation—and never looked back.

Fancy pajamas —Call it an Instagram upsell, but I fell hard for Lunya.  The washable silk sleep set and cool short sleep set are gamechangers for me.  I can’t stand getting sweaty or twisted up at night and these have been perfectly comfortable, perfectly elegant, and easy to care for.  Expensive, yes, but I’m totally sold.

Bedtime rituals – Your bedtime rituals can take many forms, but the science shows they can help signal to your brain that it’s time to rest.  Turning the lights down, a fan on, sipping a cup of tea, washing your face, using a favorite lotion, all of these habits can serve an important purpose to preparing your body for sleep.  Savor them and look forward to them.  You can even use words to help inspire the shift:  I’m washing my face because it’s time for bed.  I’m sipping this tea to help my body rest.  I’m turning the lights down to get ready to sleep.  Your body will thank you.

Supplements – Of course of course you must talk with your doctor before making major changes in your diet or adding vitamins and supplements.  When I was pregnant with my kids I regularly saw a functional medicine naturopath who advised me on nutritional tweaks to support my health.  By far the most effective supplement I tried was Magnesium, an essential nutrient that most Americans are lacking in their diet.  Not only did it help my sleep, digestion, muscle cramps, but it also has helped to calm my mind and manage anxiety.  I take a modest dose every night and I can absolutely tell a difference if I skip it.  Do some research and see if it could help you too!  There are many more options for women’s health in particular, such as melatonin, curcumin, calcium and D3/K2, Vitex berry, etc. 

Set a bedtime… — You know what time you need to wake up. Count backwards from there 8 hours (or more). That’s your bedtime. Set your phone for DND during the time to help you mentally protect the time.

…and phase out your phone – You know I was going to say it.  But I’ll let you start small.  Start with the DND setting from bedtime to waking. Then consider putting the phone away just 15 minutes before your ideal bedtime.  You can work up to 30 minutes, then a full hour.  As Cal Newport advises, when you are phasing out your digital consumption, it’s a good idea to have a high-quality leisure activity to replace it.  My suggestions?  A few pages of a good book, intimacy with your partner, or a meditation practice are all major upgrades from scrolling.

Gratitude – At the end of the day, try visualizing a few specific things from the day that you are thankful for.  I like to choose 3. You can write them in a journal or just picture them and note them in your mind.  Ending the day with gratitude will help you feel more at peace, more relaxed, and more attuned to look for the good in the day ahead tomorrow. 

Your mission tonight?  Remove photos from your room and try one of these strategies above for a better night’s sleep.  You have my permission to claim a good night’s sleep tonight and every night. 

I’m cheering for you!