We know how important a good night’s sleep is to our health and mood, which makes it all the more frustrating when we can’t get to sleep or wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep.
So when a tip for what can help us get better sleep, we listen.
You probably already know that the blue light from devices can make it harder to fall asleep, but did you know the lights in your bedroom can impact sleep as well?
It turns out, color is key with those, too. Dr. Nagendra Gupta says, “Research suggests that red light may help promote sleep by stimulating melatonin production in the body.” Melatonin is a hormone that regulates sleep by signaling to the body when it’s time to snooze and that blue light that stimulates certain parts of the brain to make us feel alert also suppresses the release of melatonin.
So what color lights should we have in the bedroom? The National Sleep Foundation recommends installing color-changing light bulbs that can turn to warm red hues when it’s bedtime. Dr. Gupta advises going to bed and waking up at the same time every day is the “single most important thing” we can do to maintain good sleep hygiene. But it may also be time to change out the light bulbs in the bedroom to help us snooze.