The chances are, your bedroom is where you spend the majority of your time at home. While you may spend the evening cooking in the kitchen or relaxing in the lounge, and you might spend the day working from your home office, the bedroom is where you sleep, get ready, and relax.
Despite the 8+hours we spend in our bedroom every day, it’s one of the easiest places to neglect. While people spend thousands of pounds getting a new kitchen, we can easily spend years without investing in a new mattress or forget to include the bedroom in our spring cleaning routine.
Here’s why the bedroom should be at the top of your decorating list, and how to breathe new life into yours.
1. The Bedroom is Where You Sleep
One of the most important functions our bodies perform is sleep. Without adequate sleep, we can suffer from fatigue, weight gain, poor mental health, and chronic health conditions.
Despite the evidence of sleep’s importance, too many of us forget that the bedroom should be a space that optimises sleep potential. In a modern world, where we use our beds to watch Netflix and take work meetings, the importance of having a place to sleep and rest gets overlooked.
It’s vital to set up your bedroom in a way that’s conducive to sleep, whether that’s with blackout blinds to avoid being woken up by light or investing in a new bed or mattress.
2. The Bedroom is Where You Get Ready
For most of us, the bedroom is where we pick our fashion statement for a day at work or night out on the town. With that in mind, our bedroom becomes not only somewhere to sleep but also a dressing room.
Since our bedrooms are so multi-functional, it’s important to consider all the ways we use this room to make sure it’s set up in the best way. Having natural lighting in your room or setting up your mirror in front of a window, for example, can help you see exactly how your clothes, hair, or make-up look before leaving the house.
3. The Bedroom is Your Relaxation Hub
While it’s true that our bedrooms are where we sleep, it’s also true that they’re a place to relax and get into a sleepy headspace for the night ahead. Many people use their beds as a place to meditate or read as a form of relaxation.
If you regularly exercise from home, make sure your bedroom is complete with a yoga mat or other fun equipment, so you can take advantage of all this underrated room has to offer.
How to Improve Your Bedroom
1. Make it a Sleep Haven
There are tons of ways to get more sleep, and setting up your room in a way that optimises shut-eye is one of the most important. Are you still hanging on to your old hand-me-down bed with a poor-quality mattress? Do you need to breathe some new life into the limp cushions you’ve been using for years?
If you’ve got money to spend, set a budget to makeover your bedroom with items such as a new mattress, bed, and bedding. If you suffer from sleep apnea or snore, you’ll likely benefit from investing in an adjustable bed.
Adjustable beds raise your head at an angle that can reduce snoring and sleep apnea, and reduce discomfort for pregnant people or people with back pain.
2. De-clutter
A tidy room really does mean a tidy mind. De-stress your space and give yourself room to do everything you enjoy be de-cluttering. An easy way to get rid of things you no longer need, is to have an audit every six months. If you haven’t used an item in the last six months (and it’s not a season specific item, e.g a Christmas jumper you haven’t worn in spring and summer), get rid of it.
You can donate it to charity, find a recycling scheme, or sell it on a second-hand online marketplace to make some extra cash.
3. Set up a Getting Ready Station
If like most people you get ready in your bedroom, you’ll need to make sure you’ve got the perfect ‘dressing room’ set up so you feel as gorgeous as possible in your skin.
Invest in a good-quality mirror, or even two - one full-length and a smaller one for your face. Make sure you have somewhere to sit in front of a mirror where you can apply make-up or skincare and style your hair.
Use lighting to your advantage. Set up the mirror in front of a source of natural light so you can get a realistic idea of how you look. Invest in a lamp to sit by your mirror so you can look your best even on darker evenings.
The Bottom Line
Given the huge variety of tasks you undertake in your bedroom, it’s surprising that this room’s decor and layout isn’t thought about enough. To get the best out of your bedroom and maximise it for sleep, put our tips into action.
