Sweet Schemes

Age-old design principles andbiophilicdesign can help you create a sleep-promoting bedroom that supports the rest of your life.

- Linda moon

Mahatma Gandhi once said: “When I wake up, I am reborn.” If you sleep poorly, you’re more likely to feel strain and fatigue. Inadequate sleep and its consequences plague 33–45 per cent of adult Australians, according to a 2016 health report by the University of Adelaide and the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health. Importantly, they note, it’s a problem on the increase.

Stress, health issues such as sleep apnea and a growing tendency to use screens at night certainly play their part. However, poor bedroom design also has a powerful role.

Anthony Ashworth, a holistic interior and building design expert, says it’s well worth putting in the effort to create a bedroom that supports sleep. “Deep rest and good sleep are the foundation for a good life,” he says. Without it you’re more susceptible to mental, psychological and physical disease. You’re less efficient, less productive and less able to engage socially. And, he adds, when you’re tired, you have less energy for that other function of the bedroom: the primary relationship between couples, including sexuality.

Fundamentals of good bedroom design

Rather than the latest interior design fads, focus on design concepts that support the overarching function of the bedroom. “More than anywhere else in the home, the bedroom is really about rest and revitalising oneself,” Ashworth says. From a feng shui perspective, your bedroom should ideally be quite nurturing and yin — the feminine principle of the universe.

“The quality of yin is lack of movement,” Ashworth explains. “It’s quiet, it’s soft, it’s round, it’s darker, whereas yang is masculine, colourful, expansive and louder. Yin is the inward quality that sends you into yourself, so it’s ideal for good sleep.”

Position, position, position