Health & Wellness House & Home

5 Tips for Creating a Restful Bedroom

If your kitchen is the heart of the home, than your bedroom might be the liver. It sounds weird, I know, but your liver performs many essential functions in the body including detoxifying your blood, supporting a healthy immune system, and storing energy in the form of glycogen. Similarly, your bedroom is where you go to rest, recover, and detox from your busy day. A good night’s sleep helps restore and rejuvenate you, and leaves you energized for the next day!

Think about a quality mattress, soft fabrics, and aromatherapy!

As busy parents, it can be really hard to keep our bedrooms a restful haven. Ha! Between an old sagging mattress, tripping over the dog in the dark, noisy neighbours, and kids crawling into the bed in the middle of the night, our bedroom was far from restful. Kay finally moved into her own room last fall, so for the first time in six years, we finally have our bedroom back. Time to update!

Clear the Clutter

Bedrooms are notorious for collecting clutter. In my bedroom that’s stacks of read and waiting-to-be-read books, dirty clothes, clean clothes waiting to be put away, knick knacks, piles of papers, and all the things we don’t want our youngest getting into. My side table has this convenient little shelf for books and to charge my phone, but it’s also a magnet for clutter.

In my house at least, the bedroom is the last room in the house to be tidied because I know I can just close the door when visitors come over. But not only is all that clutter stressful to be around, it also collects dust and dirt that can cause allergies and congestion. So taking a couple of minutes every night to tidy up helps keep my bedroom a welcoming haven.

Choose a Quality Mattress

Unless you’re some kind of crazy acrobat, there are 4 main sleep positions: back, side, tummy, and mixed. You can find various sources online recommending a firmer mattress for tummy sleepers or a softer mattress for side sleepers, but those suggestions are not that helpful when most of us sleep in more than one position throughout the night. Many of us share a bed with our spouse and sometimes one or more kids too, so how do you pick the right mattress then?

We considered one of those mattresses where you can independently adjust either side of the bed, but they’re just too expensive at this point. What we needed was a good quality, affordable, and all-around versatile mattress that would meet both my and my husband’s needs. I’m mostly a side sleeper with frequent low back pain, and hubby is 50/50 on his side and back. I often go to bed later than hubby, so it was important to us to have a mattress that doesn’t transmit movement to the other partner.

We’d visited a couple of mattress stores in town and tested out some beds there, but we hadn’t found the right one for us. Then Leesa got in touch and asked if we’d try out one of their new premium foam mattresses. Sure! Within two weeks, my new Leesa mattress arrived, compressed in a box and delivered right to my door.

Having dragged a full-sized mattress through my front door and up my stairs on more than one occasion, I was surprised by how easy it was to maneuver the Leesa. It’s like a vacuum-sealed sushi roll! Open it up and watch it expand into a queen-sized mattress!

Leesa mattresses are made from 3 layers of premium foam: 2 inches of cooling Avena foam, 2 inches of memory foam, and a 6″ dense core support foam base. All 3 materials are CertiPUR-US certified and independently tested to be made without ozone depleters, PDBE flame retardants, heavy metals, formaldehyde, or phthalates, as well as low VOC (less than 0.5 ppm).

Memory foam is ideal for posture support and pressure relief, but the best test of a mattress is how it feels when you sleep on it. We’ve been sleeping on our Leesa mattress for a month now and both hubby and I are really happy with it. It’s firm enough to provide lots of support, but the foam has enough give to comfortably accommodate my hip and shoulder when I’m sleeping on my side and keep my spine in alignment. No problems with back pain, and no movement transfer.

If you’re in the market for a new mattress too, you may want to check out this new way of buying a bed! Shipping is free, and right now you can get $100 off any Leesa mattress with my code WCM100. Leesa mattresses are only sold online, but you can rest easy a 100 night risk-free trial. And if it turns out you don’t like it? Check out their no-hassle, full refund policy.

Dress Your Bed in Soft Fabrics

Next up, what to put on your bed? Soft, silky sheets are my weakness. Cotton sateen and bamboo sheets feel cool against your skin and help create a luxurious bedtime experience. Silk sheets are another option, but they do require a little more care in the wash than typical sheet sets. Speaking of washing, clean sheets feel better than dirty sheets. Wash them ideally once a week, but certainly no less often than every two weeks.

I love snuggling in for the night under a big, fluffy duvet. Goose down is the traditional duvet filling, but some people may experience feather allergies or even asthma symptoms with down. Down alternative duvets are hypoallergenic and budget-friendly, and you have endless choices in duvet covers to complete the look.

Don’t forget to protect your investment and reduce allergies with a good quality mattress encasement that goes over the entire mattress and zips shut. Not only will it shield your mattress from breastfeeding and toddler accidents, but it will also protect you from dust mite allergens or, heaven forbid, bed bugs.

Turn Off the Electronics

This is a hard one for many people, me included! Blue light, like that emitted by TVs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones, suppresses the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that influences circadian rhythms and our sleep-wake cycle, making it more difficult to fall asleep and more difficult to wake up the next morning. For better sleep quality, avoid blue light-emitting devices for two hours before bedtime.

Scent Your Space

Consider using the power of aromatherapy in your restful haven! Lavender essential oil is commonly used to help relax and sleep, but it’s just one of many essential oils that can help you sleep. Other oils that may help promote calm and a restful sleep include cedarwood, vetiver, Roman chamomile, ylang ylang, bergamot, patchouli, frankincense, sandalwood, and sweet marjoram.

Essential oils can be used in several different ways:

  • Added to an ultrasonic diffuser.
  • Diluted in water (10-15 drops to 1 cup of water) in a small spray bottle and sprayed in the air or directly on your sheets before bed.
  • Diluted in a carrier oil (10-15 drops per ounce of oil) and applied to the temples or back of the neck.

Are you planning to update your bedroom? Get $100 off the purchase of any Leesa mattress with promo code WCM100.

Disclosure: Leesa sent me a sample mattress to facilitate this post. Nevertheless, all opinions expressed are completely honest and my own, based on my personal experience. Your experience may differ. This post contains affiliate links. This West Coast Mommy is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. I will receive a small commission if you purchase through my link, at no additional cost to you. This income helps pay for the operating costs of my website – thank you for your support!

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11 Comments

  • Ooh that mattress looks fabulous!! I love that it doesn’t have springs or anything!! And a cooling layer!! Sounds like perfection!! I love the weight and comfort of our down duvet!! I couldn’t sleep without it!!

  • I shut down all my electronics just before bed. I also had a defuser on during the day to spread some essential oils.

  • I love my bedroom – it’s my place to relax and just unwind from the crazy days. But it can be so easily cluttered and my mattress has seen better days. We are in the process of redoing our bedroom, removing the junk and purchasing a new mattress. Thanks for this great info!

  • great tips, thank you. planning a move means new bedrooms. and nothing i want more than a restful night’s sleep.

  • Honestly a mattress makes all the difference. It is one thing I always tell my readers they can’t “cheap” out on. Find an amazing mattress and get the best deal on that mattress. Buying a cheap mattress is just going to cost you in the long run.

  • I need this here for either us or either of the girls bedrooms. I assume they make singles? Good tips. We always have quiet in the room and the diffuser goes down the hall in my daughter’s room. It’s still all I can smell at night so that works for us.

  • Some great tips here, I’m totally guilty of having devices in the bedroom (portable office! 😉 ). Having a good mattress to sleep on and a calm room definitely make a BIG difference with sleep quality.

  • Oh i definitely need to scent our space! we never do that but to think about it, it is something that really does calm and relax me. i will have to start doing that 🙂

  • Thanks for sharing a link to the ultrasonic diffuser. I didn’t know about those handy things and I can totally imagine how getting a better scent into the bedroom would help.