Sleep: 1/3 of Your Life

Creating Your Sleep Oasis

Setting yourself up for successful sleep requires intentionally creating a sanctuary in your bedrooms.  Consistent and comfortable deep sleep isn’t just a luxury but a necessity for overall health and vitality.  Zen Life is here to help you achieve the rejuvenating rest you and your family deserves.

How well we sleep determines the quality of our entire lives. 

 

There are many factors that may affect our sleep like caffeine intake too late in the day, screen time at night and we’ll cover how to effectively reduce blue light exposure from electronics below but first, let’s take a look at our sleep from the ground up. 

Designing a bedroom which supports healthful restful deep sleep begins with examining each element in your bedrooms.  Quality furniture is long lasting, aesthetically pleasing, complements the space it occupies, feels spacious, luxurious and comfortable. 

Is it fair to expect that quality furniture which we pay a premium for is also non-toxic and non-harmful to the inhabitants of the home?

Would it be fair to become upset if we found out the furniture recently purchased for a newborn baby was releasing toxic chemicals into the air?

Many of the products in our homes regardless of quality have high amounts of VOC’s and go through a process of ‘off gassing’.  They release toxic fumes into our living spaces. 

Volatile organic compounds are materials that have a high vapor pressure and low water solubility. This means they don’t mix well and instead of staying where they’re supposed to they release gasses into the air.  This is commonly known as ‘Off-Gassing’. 

VOC’s can originate either from within the body (endogenous VOCs) or from external sources such as diet, prescription drugs and environmental exposure (exogenous VOCs).  Yes, you’ve read that correctly our bodies can emit harmful toxins into the air.  The cleaner your lifestyle the less toxins are released from your body.

Furniture ‘off gassing’ and many other environmental VOC’s is covered more in our Air Quality page but we’ll touch on a few vital facts here as they relate to the design of our bedrooms. 

Many VOCs are human-made chemicals and are used on common household items like:

• the paint on our walls and furniture(including baby furniture)
• chemically made pharmaceuticals and supplements, 
• wood preservatives in furniture
• flame retardant chemicals used in furniture
• aerosol sprays
• cleansers and disinfectants
• moth repellents and air fresheners
• stored fuels and automotive products
• hobby supplies
• dry-cleaned clothing
• pesticides
• building materials like drywall 
• office equipment such as copiers and printers
• art, graphics and craft materials including paint, glues, adhesives and markers