Sweet Dreams

Set yourself and your home up for more restful sleep— no sheep necessary

Even without a pandemic, nights at home can be anything but relaxing. When work, school and family life collide in the same space, carving out time to decompress at the end of the day can be impossible. Add in anxiety about all the bad news around us, and it’s a recipe for a toss-and-turn kind of night. To help ease you off to dreamland, we talked to local experts about how to optimize conditions for quality sleep.

Put your brain on a dimmer

To help wind down before bed, put away all your devices at least one hour beforehand. Studies have suggested that the bright light emitted by screens can disrupt our bodies’ production of melatonin, the hormone that regulates circadian rhythms. “It can be challenging to wean yourself off, especially at first,” Rebecca Earl, an East Toronto family sleep consultant and owner of Sugar Plum Sleep Co. “Start by putting screens away 20 minutes before sleep time and work your way up to one hour.” Use your phone’s Settings (Screen Time in iPhone and Digital Wellbeing on Android) to schedule your device’s daily bedtime, when certain apps can be disabled and notifications muted.

Above all, Earl says, keep your smartphone out of the bedroom, replacing it with a separate alarm clock for your morning wake-up (she likes the Phillips SmartSleep Wake-Up Light, which mimics sunrise by gradually increasing brightness). “If your phone is on your bedside, the temptation is too strong to constantly check it,” she says. A quick look at the headlines can lead to “doomscrolling”— the tendency to compulsively surf through endless feeds of depressing news.

Reading a book or magazine helps only if the content isn’t too rousing. “Bedtime isn’t the best time to start The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” says Earl. If you find meditation difficult, Earl suggests spending the hour before bedtime doing something calm, tactile and repetitive, like crafting, puzzles or adult colouring—the latter is said to calm your limbic system and quiet an overstimulated brain. Check out Book City for Johanna Basford’s bestselling books of intricate, fantastical nature scenes, perfect for a family colouring session at bedtime.

Keep your cool

Programming your thermostat to lower at night doesn’t just save you on heating bills—cooling your environment at bedtime helps cue your body for sleep, when your core and brain temperatures drop. For adults, the optimal room temperatures for sleep range between 15 and 19 degrees Celsius, according to the National Sleep Foundation in the U.S. (for kids and seniors, it’s a tad warmer at 19 to 21 degrees). If you have zoned heating in your home, Google’s Nest thermostats can set schedules and temperatures for each zone, all controlled by your phone.

Dressing your bed with multiple options at the ready can keep your body temperature under control, so you aren’t getting up in the night to hunt for a warmer or lighter blanket. “I recommend a layered approach that pairs a duvet and a coverlet,” says Shannon Balm, Design Manager at East Design House. “In the winter, have the duvet over you with a coverlet or blanket folded at the base of the bed, so you can pull it up if you get cold. In summer, use the coverlet with the duvet at the base.” Au Lit Fine Linens is Balm’s favourite local source for luxurious bedding in breathable natural fibers like Egyptian cotton, linen, and bamboo.

If you and your bedmate are thermally incompatible, Balm suggests using a flat sheet under the blankets. “If the warmer person overheats, they can fold back the heavier bedding and just have the sheet over them,” she says. If you both go to bed at different times, preserve partner harmony with noise-blocking aids, like a white noise machine—Earl’s clients favour the Dohm—or earplugs, and a good mattress with motion control that reduces jostling.

At the end of the day, sometimes you just need a little extra help to get those zzz's. There’s been an influx of cannabis stores popping up all over the east-end, so we asked local shop-owners for their recommended CBD sleep remedy. Here’s what they recommend:

Tokyosmoke.com

Five Founders THC Oil

WonderlandCannabis.ca

Solei Renew CBN Oil

IndigenousBloom.com

Lemon Lights Out Gummies

OCS.ca

Tweed Bakerstreet Chocolate and Ginger Beverage

Supporting roles

A bed that cradles your body properly is essential to quality sleep, reducing the pressure on your back and joints (especially if you’re over 40). Mattress review site Sleep Like the Dead recommends replacing latex mattresses every eight years, memory foam every seven years, and innerspring every six years. To maintain their fluff, pillows should be washed at least every six months and replaced every one to two years, according to the National Sleep Foundation (if you can fold your pillow in half and it stays that way, it’s time to toss it).

To save your back in the long run, Balm recommends investing in the highest quality mattresses and pillows you can. Gel-infused memory foam can cost more, but runs cooler, delivering all the comfort and spinal support of memory foam without the risk of overheating. More affordable options like the Endy, made from cooling open-cell foam, offer comfort, great value and quick shipping straight to your door. No matter what your budget, protect your investment. “You can use hypoallergenic covers on both your mattress and pillows to extend their longevity and keep them clean,” Balm says.

Scents that support sleep—Balm recommends essential oils like lavender, marjoram and myrtle—can be diffused in your bedroom an hour before bedtime, or mist a few pumps of soothing pillow spray into the air over your bed. Remember not to use candles in the bedroom or add any oils to your laundry—both are considered fire hazards.

Join the dark side

Sleeping in near-total darkness—like our ancestors did—has been shown to increase melatonin and deepen sleep. But multiple family members working and learning from home has forced many of us to set up office spaces in the bedroom, where the light from electronics can disrupt sleep. “If you can’t put your computer equipment out of the room, put a piece of tape over the light from any power buttons,” says Earl. “Even tiny lights can filter past your eyelids.”

Layering window treatments can keep out most of the light from street lamps and neighbouring houses, contributing to a darker and calmer sleep space. “Pair a simple opaque roller blind with textiles to seal off the edges,” says Balm.

In the clear

A bedroom that’s a catch-all for work papers, laundry and other household hodgepodge is the worst kind of sleep space. “Clutter can lead to anxiety, irritability and distraction,” says Earl. Even if the rest of the house is in chaos, a weekend of tidying up the bedroom can give you a much-needed sense of calm. Balm recommends rejigging your storage so that things can be tucked out of sight. “Use closet organizers for clothes and laundry, and storage in your nightstand to make sure everything has a place,” she says. If you only do one chore today, make your bed— one Sleep Foundation study found that people who made their beds every day were 19 percent more likely to say they regularly slept well.

Most importantly of all, take a few minutes to debrief yourself after a long day, jotting down to-do lists so that you’re ready for the next morning. “If we don’t give ourselves time to digest what’s happened that day, we’ll do it once our heads are down and we’re supposed to be sleeping,” says Earl.