Scientists say that people spend a third of their life sleeping. The value of sleep can’t be underestimated — our body restores during the night, ensuring we have enough energy for the day ahead. Bad sleep affects not only our mood and productivity, but also health and immunity, which makes us sensitive to different infections. Among the factors affecting sleep are noise, light, temperature, and humidity. While we already know how to manage bothering sounds and light with earplugs and sleeping masks, and adjust the room’s temperature with air conditioning, it can be a bit more challenging to cope with indoor humidity. We’ll cover how humidity affects sleep, what the ideal room humidity is, and give you tips to optimize humidity in your bedroom in this article!
How does Humidity Affect Sleep?
Both extra high and extra low humidity can be harmful, according to studies. High humidity interrupts the sleep cycle, shortening REM sleep — an important restorative sleep stage when our body renovates organs and muscles. Also, excessive air humidity can provoke the development of different allergens, such as mold and dust mites, that induce respiratory problems disturbing normal sleep. All this inhibits our immune system, which experiences additional load resisting the negative impact.
What’s more, high dampness together with high temperature can provoke nighttime sweating, making it uncomfortable to lie on damp sheets.
Dry skin, itchy eyes, and sore throat are the effects of sleeping in a dry room with a low humidity level. Dry air also may cause breathing problems due to inadequate moisturizing of respiratory airways.
You can refer to the following signs to find the ideal humidity for your bedroom.
You need to increase humidity when:
- You have dry eyes and skin or irritated throat;
- Things in a bedroom accumulate static electricity;
- Wooden furniture develops cracks.
Try to decrease humidity level if:
- You’ve got an allergy or your asthma has worsened;
- Mold has appeared on the walls, and wooden furniture has warped;
- You are sweating at night, and the bed sheets are feeling damp.
With this said, it’s critical to maintain a comfortable humidity level in your bedroom that will contribute to your healthy sleep!
What is a Good Indoor Humidity Level?
While the most optimal humidity level is still under discussion, the Environmental Protection Agency states the recommended indoor humidity should fall between 30% and 50%, with 60% as a maximum. Other studies suggest the range to be 40% to 60% but never higher than 60%. Also, it’s advised to keep around 65 degrees Fahrenheit (or 18.3 Celsius) temperature in the bedroom to ensure you won’t be overheated, as it can affect the quality and duration of your sleep.
How to Create the Ideal Humidity for Your Bedroom?
You can maintain an appropriate humidity level even without a thermostat, which is a helpful thing, of course. Guided by your own feelings and the signs listed above, you will find the ideal humidity for your bedroom by experimenting a little bit! Here are some tips to optimize the inside humidity.
To Decrease Humidity in Your Bedroom
- Ventilate the Room
- Set a Dehumidifier
- Use Air Conditioning
- Change Your Bedding
- Think about Replacing Your Mattress
- Keep Plants in the Bedroom
- Put bowls with water
- Buy a Humidifier
- Lower the Heat
Moisture coming from everyday activities such as cooking, bathing, or taking a shower tends to accumulate inside of a house. The room’s ventilation will work great if the outside humidity is low, allowing the damp air to go out of your space.
As the name suggests, this device is designed to reduce indoor humidity. It removes dampness from the air by storing it in the special inner tank and sends drier air back into a bedroom.
Air conditioning can not only cool or warm the air but also extract moisture from it. While it dries the air too much in the condition of normal indoor humidity, air conditioning comes in useful when the humidity level is extra high.
Synthetic materials absorb moisture worse than natural ones, like cotton and rayon. Try switching to breathable fabrics that will allow you to stay drier and cooler during hot and humid nights.
Memory foam mattresses are very soft, flexible, and perfectly fit adjustable beds. However, a traps and retains the body’s heat, making you feel too warm in hot, humid weather. Latex mattresses, which are more cooling due to latex structure, and hybrid mattresses with open coil systems may help you stay comfortable even when the indoor humidity is higher than its recommended level.
To Increase Humidity in Your Bedroom
Houseplants evaporate about 97% of the water they consume from the leaves through the transpiration process. If you feel the air in your bedroom is too dry, consider placing several pot plants there, and you’ll see the difference soon.
It’s a simple but effective trick. Fill several bowls with water and put them in your bedroom. Evaporating water will saturate the air and increase the moisture level.
A humidifier is an irreplaceable thing for homes and offices, in which central heating and air conditioning dry up the air, drastically decreasing the humidity level. It’s good to place the humidifier close to your bed, ensuring it moistures the air while you’re sleeping to avoid dryness in the nose and throat.
As already mentioned a few lines above, heating also contributes to air dryness due to quick moisture evaporation. By reducing the indoor temperature a bit, you can maintain the humidity in your bedroom at a comfortable level.
Wrapping Up
Since too low and too high moisture can be harmful, it’s essential to keep the optimal indoor humidity in your bedroom to ensure healthy sleep. Scientists advise sticking to 30%-50% inside humidity that can be measured with thermostats, or you can simply rely on your feelings.
If you’ve got dry skin and sore throat, and your furniture has developed cracks, the humidity level is likely low. Unexplained allergies, asthma attacks, damp bedsheets, and mold in the room’s corners tell you that the humidity level is probably higher than the 50% norm and needs to be decreased. We hope that the tips from this article will help you cope with changing humidity and create an ideal sleep atmosphere in your bedroom! To get more knowledge, read next about natural home remedies to fall asleep faster.
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