A restful night of sleep is one of the most sought-after parts of our day but is seldom achieved. What if air quality is the key to getting great sleep?
By the end of the day, getting a good night’s sleep is on all our minds. While there is plenty of advice that exists to help you get some quality shut-eye, not enough of it focuses on the quality of your indoor air. In fact, your indoor air plays a significant role in how well you sleep. We’re looking at some of the ways your air quality may be affecting your sleep routine and simple solutions to help you get back to sleep.
Allergens
The deep breathing that happens during your sleep cycles gets disrupted from allergens like ragweed, dust, and mold and can make allergy or asthma symptoms even worse. Dust mites love to hide in beds causing sneezing and coughing fits. Even letting your pets sleep with you can be making allergy symptoms worse, as they often transport outdoor allergens indoors on their fur and paws.
Solution: Look into bed and pillowcase covers that keep dust mites away. Although it’s nice to have a cool breeze at night, keep your windows closed as it is an easy way for outdoor allergens to get indoors. Run a Venta Air Purifier, you won’t regret it!
Dry Air
Whether you’re running an air conditioner in the summer or a heater in the winter, these systems greatly dry out the air in your room. Your body and skin naturally lose moisture when you sleep. Add dry air from an air conditioner or heater and you’ll wake up with excessively dry skin and dry nasal passages. This makes you more susceptible to catching a cold and feeling fatigued. A study from the University of Connecticut reported that even mild dehydration can cause an alteration in mood and concentration during the workday. Dehydration mixed with a restless night’s sleep is not the recipe for a successful day.
Solution: Don’t just humidify your room, perfectly humidify your room with a humidifier. Too much humidity can become a breeding ground for mold to grow. Humidifiers that are vaporizers force moisture into your room, and according to Consumer Reports, these units can be dangerous:
“Both the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency warn that emissions from dirty humidifiers can cause health problems, especially for folks who suffer from asthma or allergies. And in a recent safety study, Consumer Reports found that, when it comes to preventing bacteria from being released into the air, antimicrobial features are no substitute for regular cleaning.”
The Venta Humidifier is not a vaporizer and uses a cold evaporation system, so over-humidification is virtually impossible. Your air will only take the moisture that it needs. This produces an appropriate level of humidity that is both healthy and comfortable. When you sleep in an humidified room, you wake up feeling healthier, refreshed, alert, and ready to take on the day.
Indoor Air Pollution
Indoor air pollution comes from a variety of places. In fact, indoor air pollution is often considered to be more dangerous than outdoor pollution. There are tiny pollutants floating in your indoor air all day long, whether you’re at home or in an office setting.
Cleaning products, scented candles, paint, printers, and many office machines produce airborne pollutants that are harmful to breathe. Toxic compounds like ether-based glycol (found in cleaning supplies) and nitrogen dioxide (found in common air fresheners) can remain in your air long after use. Breathing in these pollutants while you sleep affects the central nervous system and creates respiratory problems including sleep apnea.
Solution: Create a pollutant-free zone wherever you sleep. Make sure your room is properly ventilated. If you can, keep your computer, printer, and other electronics in a separate room. Use non-chemical air fresheners like bi-product-free candles or diffused oils. Venta carries an aromatherapy line of all-natural essential oils with a variety of fragrances to be used in conjunction with the humidification aspects of the Venta Humidifier. What could be better than properly hydrated air that also smells good?
Treat Your Bedroom like the Sanctuary It Is
Your bedroom is your sanctuary for resting and relaxing. Sleeping is your time to rest and recharge, and your air quality needs to be at its best. Humidified indoor air can work wonders for your sleep routine and greatly affects how you recover at night and operate the next day. The tips suggested in this post are a great starting point for you to monitor your bedroom’s air quality. How do you create the best environment to sleep in?