Where to Put Your Bed in the Bedroom: What the Research Says About Door, Window and Wall
Key Takeaways The rules about where a bed should sit (solid wall behind the head, a clear view of the door) usually don’t come with a study that tests them. I didn’t find one. A German study found most people, given a paper floor plan, place the bed to…
Separate Duvets for Couples: What the Research Says About Sharing the Covers
Key Takeaways None of the articles I read on separate duvets cites a study, and I found no study that compares one duvet against two in the same bed. The “30% less sleep” figure circulating online has no data behind it. A 2020 lab study (12 couples)…
Does a New Mattress Improve Sleep? What the Studies Show, and What They Don’t
At 2:15 a.m. you press a palm into the mattress like you’re checking a loaf of bread. Firm? Soft? Is that a dip, or have you just spent nine years lying in the same spot? You roll over, which is worse, and start building a case against the thing. By 2:30…
Bedroom Noise at Night
At 3:40 a.m. the refrigerator downstairs clicks off, and the quiet that follows is so complete it sounds like something. You never heard the compressor running. You’d have told anyone the house was silent. Then it stopped, and you found out it had been…
Bedroom Temperature for Couples: Why You’re Both Right, and What to Do About It
Key Takeaways Most bedroom-temperature advice gives one range for one sleeper. The popular guide I checked cites no source for its range and says nothing about two people sharing a bed. In the research I could read, too much heat costs more sleep than a…
How to Black Out a Bedroom: Blackout Isn’t a Curtain, It’s an Audit
KEY TAKEAWAYS A blackout comes from finding every light source, not from buying a curtain. Lie where your head goes, give your eyes at least five minutes, and look once at night and once at first light. Phone light-meter apps aren’t reliable enough…
The Bedroom Audit: Eleven Minutes, Lights Off, From the Pillow
KEY TAKEAWAYS Most bedroom checklists are done standing up with the lights on. A bedroom audit works better lying in your usual position with the lights off, because the pillow sees a different room than the doorway does. In a laboratory study, room…
Motion Lights at Floor Level
Key Takeaways At night, where a light sits matters as much as how bright it is. A light at floor level lands on the path, not in your eyes. Red isn’t a free pass. In two small lab studies, red light raised measures of alertness in people awake at…
Bedside Setup: Six Things Within Arm’s Reach
Key Takeaways The test for anything on a nightstand is whether your hand finds it in the dark without a decision. If it takes a decision, it’s in the wrong place. Only two of the six items here have research behind them, and in both cases the…
What Holds Up as Reading at 4 A.M.
Key Takeaways Reading at 4 a.m. is a different job from reading at 10 p.m.: you are not winding down, you are trying not to wake up any further. Most of the advice on reading and sleep was written for the first job. The one lab study that compared a…