World Sleep Day (17 March)

The secret of a healthy night’s rest?
A nice dark room, cool temperatures, and a whole lot of oxygen in the air!

Too warm, annoying insects buzzing around your head, light creeping in and not enough fresh air... they all chip away at your sleep and, inevitably, at your ability to recover. So, it’s high time you paid some attention to creating the ideal conditions in your bedroom. This year, on World Sleep Day (17 March), we are happy to share a few basic tips for a healthy and refreshing night's sleep.

Tip 1: Shroud yourself in darkness

Make sure your bedroom is dark so no light can sneak in and wake you up earlier than you like in the morning. Screens with blackout fabric not only keep out the sun, they also keep it pitch dark all night long. Not even the slimmest ray of light can get through, because these windproof screens zip right into the side guiding channels.

Tip 2: Keep your bedroom cool

The ideal bedroom temperature is 16°C. No problem in winter, but the sun can be a spoilsport in summer. Best to keep the screens down during the day. This is the only way to prevent the sunrays from reaching the glass and causing the bedroom temperature to spike. Still too hot at night? Then consider night cooling – burglar-proof vents with built-in insect mesh that you can leave open all night instead of a window. The cooler night air helps decrease the indoor temperature by at least a few degrees.

Tip 3: Oxygen alert! Breathe healthy air at night

You know that musty smell that greets you when you open a bedroom door in the morning? Makes sense – when a small room gets no fresh air all night long. CO₂ is in the air we exhale. And those who sweat a lot at night add a dose of moisture to the mix. Two factors that can cause the indoor air quality to far exceed the alert threshold for healthy indoor air in the span of just one, single night. Do you have a CO₂ meter? Try putting it in your bedroom one night with all the doors and windows closed. You’ll be shocked! After all, a dose of extra oxygen is just what you need at night to wake up feeling well rested. Opening a window may help, but that is like putting a plaster on the wound. If you have construction or renovation plans, consider connecting the bedroom(s) to the central ventilation system. Don't worry – the newest systems work almost completely silently to extract polluted indoor air out of the bedroom at night. Especially if they are programmed to react automatically to the indoor air quality measured by CO₂-sensors. And this also prevents ventilating more than necessary. Another nice touch, the excess moisture is also extracted from the bedroom together with the CO₂ from the exhaled air.

Tip 4: Prevent unwanted visitors

And even though it may be quite warm during the day, if you simply leave one or more windows open at night, it does cool down quite quickly inside. This is efficient, but it is not always safe to have windows open all night on the ground floor, especially on the street side. But with night cooling integrated into your new or replacement windows, it is completely safe. Their burglar-proof blades and insect mesh keep unwanted visitors – big and small – out.

Tip 5: Keep it quiet

And last but not least, silence is also an important prerequisite for an undisturbed night's sleep. Impossible to combine with sufficient fresh air? That’s what you thought... acoustically insulated window ventilation above your bedroom window lets fresh air in but keeps ambient noise out.

Healthy night’s rest? More important for elite athletes than anyone else!

There’s no doubt that those who put in heavy efforts to achieve peak performances benefit from a healthy night's sleep. Athletes experience this first-hand during training periods as well as during competitions and championships. And, according to several testimonies from the Soudal Quick-Step team, the conditions for a healthy night's sleep are just the same for them as they are for everyone else.