Which Room is the Most Important for Your Health?
2 weeks ago, we posted a blog about how proper organization can be good for your health.
Different people have different rooms that are of the most concern. Many clients have particular issues with closets, garages, and kitchens. When kitchens aren’t organized, it can make cooking difficult and create more food waste. Both closets and garages have a tendency to be places where future trash collects. But for your health, perhaps the most important room to keep decluttered and organized is the bedroom.
The bedroom is the last thing we see before going to sleep at night and the first thing we see upon opening our eyes in the morning. Its effect on our subconscious is well documented. Yet for many of us, the first thing we see when we open our eyes is…clutter.
As much as your home should be a sanctuary from the world, your bedroom should be the most secure space within that sanctuary. Bedrooms are the place we go for sleep, rest, and maybe romance. So what do we do with this most intimate of spaces?
Form Should Follow Function
For many of us, the bedroom collects debris at the same rate as the rest of our homes: dirty clothes in piles, containers in various states of emptiness, work assignments we’ve spent our last waking minutes working upon. Is that the last thing you want to see when you’re trying to sleep at night? Does that make you feel restful or romantic?
Cluttered rooms do not promote restfulness. Clutter steals energy and as you learned in the first health and organization blog post, also increases the stress hormone cortisol. So remove anything that does not serve the purpose of providing you a good night’s sleep. The form should follow a function. If the bedroom is the place you go to sleep then what should we have in the bedroom? Only items that promote restfulness.
The first thing that rule eliminates is anything that creates restlessness or requires energy to interact with. So no matter what you are working on, leave it outside the bedroom door. When you close the door to your bedroom, close the door to the stresses of the world. This may seem impossible (and sometimes it is) but that doesn’t mean we need to help the outside world breach our sanctuaries by smuggling pieces of contraband in while we go to sleep at night. So no work – school or occupational! This also means that you don’t work do any work on your laptop as you’re heading to bed.
Electronics Can Become Cluttered Too
Next, eliminate electronics. Don’t look at your phone in the bedroom. I know this can be a hard one but the blue light emanated from telephones can actually directly and negatively impact our natural circadian rhythms (your body’s cycles that determine sleep and wakefulness).
This also includes the television. Many of us like to watch television at night before going to sleep. However, sleep experts say that we should stop interaction with all light-generating objects 2-3 hours before going to sleep. Now I can already hear a lot of groans at that rule. Let’s compromise. Even if you’re going to watch television before bed, don’t do it in your bedroom. Again, it will affect your sleep cycle. Even if you can sleep with it on, you are not getting the same quality sleep you would be getting without it on. And let’s not forget about your partner if you have someone sleeping beside you.
Are electronics clutter? If being cluttered is defined as any item that is not of use to you or that distracts from productivity then yes in the bedroom electronics can become cluttered. They distract from the purpose of rest in the bedroom.
Now that we’ve taken away your electronics, we’re going to let you get some rest before you hear the rest of our bedroom organization suggestions. There is so much to say about making the bedroom sleep-optimized that next week we will be following up with part 2 about better bedroom organization.
In the meantime, what helps you sleep? What do you think you’ll have a hard time giving up?
