10 Pieces That Ruin the Energy in Your Bedroom

Your bedroom is one of your most important rooms. Trulia says the kitchen and bathroom are the two most important selling points for a home, which reflects the importance that people put upon them. After them comes the bedroom. As a result, it is a good idea for you to familiarize yourself with some of the pieces that can ruin the energy in your bedroom. Some of these pieces are obvious. In contrast, others are much more unexpected.

What Are 10 Pieces That Ruin the Energy in Your Bedroom?

According to Organized Interiors and other sources, you should avoid these 10 pieces that ruin the energy in your bedroom:

1. Angular Furniture

Since your bedroom is where you rest, you need to create a space that feels relaxing for the best results. Generally speaking, angular furniture gives an unwelcoming impression, which is not what you should be going for. Instead, consider more rounded furniture. You want something that you can see yourself relaxing around.

Furthermore, there is a practical element to this. Anyone who has ever bumped into angular furniture will understand the value of moving carefully about them. That is the exact opposite of what you want for your bedroom.

2. Bright Colors

Choosing the right colors is one of the most basic steps. Despite this, it has outsized consequences, meaning you need to do so with care and consideration. Reader’s Digest makes it clear that you should never use bright colors for your bedroom. The exact reasons can see some variation from bright color to bright color.

Still, the gist of it is that bright colors stimulate people, which is not a good thing if you are trying to get enough sleep. Similarly, you don’t want to use dark colors for your bedroom. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, dark colors make a bedroom seem smaller.

Being stuck in a small space makes most people uncomfortable, so that is out. Second, dark colors make it harder for people to wake up in the morning. Some people can sleep as late as they like. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to wake up because we have things to do.

If you aren’t sure how you want to paint your bedroom, you should remember that it is hard to go wrong with neutral colors. That means colors such as grays, beiges, and whites. Neutral colors strike a good balance between the extremes represented by bright colors and dark colors. On a related note, if you still want a different color, you should at least choose a more moderate tone for it.

Paint Colors

Southern Living points out that there is yet another upside to neutral colors for the bedroom. Yes, they don’t excite people. Even so, most people don’t hate them either. That is important because that means neutral colors possess a reasonable amount of appeal for a wide range of people with a wide range of preferences, which is critical if you are even the slightest bit concerned about your home’s resale value.

Going for a more memorable design can make your home more appealing to a specific segment of home buyers. The issue is whether you can find enough people who are able and willing to buy for that to make up for potentially alienating everyone else.

3. Cell Phone

A cell phone is one of the worst things you can have in your bedroom. Unsurprisingly, you aren’t going to be very relaxed if you are always on call. Theoretically, you could prevent this issue by just putting your cell phone on silent. In practice, that doesn’t always work out very well because it is very easy for us to come up with excuses for finding out what is going on whenever we see someone trying to reach us.

Besides this, Very Well Health and other sources agree that cell phones make it harder for people to fall asleep even when they are ignoring any callers. Primarily, that is an issue of stimulation. If you are using your cell phone, you are keeping your brain active and engaged. That makes it harder for you to enter the state of mind most conducive to a good night’s sleep.

Unfortunately, there are also other issues, with an excellent example being how exposure to light reduces the generation of melatonin. We didn’t exactly evolve with artificial lighting around, so it makes sense that it can mess up our sleeping patterns if we aren’t responsible when using it.

4. Cold Lighting

Lighting is subtle when it is working well. In contrast, it is glaring when it isn’t, which is more literal in some cases than in others. Generally speaking, you can think of lighting as being divided into cold lighting and warm lighting. Cold lighting has a bluish tone, whereas warm lighting has red, orange, and yellow tones.

Luckily, you have a very easy way to tell whether you should choose cold lighting or warm lighting for different rooms in your home. If you are planning to work in a room, you should install cold lighting because it is a cleaner, crisper kind of illumination. That is particularly useful if you are planning to do anything details-oriented such as, say, cutting up meat and vegetables in your kitchen.

In contrast, if you are planning to relax in a room, you should install warm lighting because it is so much softer. You might not be able to see as well under warm lighting. In exchange, you can expect a more welcoming atmosphere. There are some rooms where you should consider two-tone lighting for the best of both worlds. The bedroom is not one of them because you don’t want to give yourself any excuse to work while you are in it.

5. Clutter

It tends to be a bad idea to have clutter anywhere in your home for several reasons. For example, it makes it harder to find things. Simultaneously, it can be a hazard, particularly if it is everywhere on the ground. With that said, clutter is particularly bad in your bedroom because of its effects on people’s moods.

After all, it can make you feel shut in by everything around you. Furthermore, WebMD says it stresses people out while hurting their ability to focus and memorize. On top of this, clutter can collect dust, which is never a good thing but can be particularly bad if you have some kind of respiratory issue.

Of course, living in a smaller space isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some people find such arrangements cozy rather than confining. Still, there is a considerable difference between cozy and cluttered, meaning you should do your best to keep your bedroom relatively clear of such things.

As a rough rule of thumb, you should seriously consider whether you need anything you haven’t touched in a year or more. You don’t need to get rid of everything lying around in your bedroom. Still, a bit of ruthlessness in this regard can do wonders for the general feel of the space.

6. Desk

Surprisingly, a desk is one of the pieces that can ruin the energy of a bedroom. On its own, it isn’t much of an issue. Indeed, a desk might even be a good place to store things, which is always useful. Alas, you don’t want a desk in your bedroom for the same reason you don’t want a cell phone in your bedroom.

It encourages people to work, which is a bad thing when the bedroom should be the one place that is exempt from such considerations. Instead, if you want a place to work at home, you should set up your desk somewhere else. The bedroom is meant for rest, so keep it that way by removing anything that can distract from that.

7. Dirty Laundry

The accumulation of dirty laundry is just one of the facts of life. Still, you should avoid making its presence in your bedroom too obvious. For instance, you shouldn’t fill your laundry hamper until your dirty laundry starts spilling out into the rest of your bedroom. Similarly, you shouldn’t just let your dirty laundry lie around in random places. There are several reasons why you should minimize your dirty laundry.

First, it is a reminder that you have chores waiting for you, meaning it could stress you out. Second, people tend not to like dirty things in their living spaces, meaning it can inspire negative moods. Third, dirty laundry is bad for the air quality of its surroundings, which is an important concern when you are going to be spending time there.

8. Old Mattress

If your bedroom is meant for rest, it makes sense for you to make sure that your bed is up for the job. You can find plenty of sources saying you should change your mattress every eight years or so. Bob Vila says coming up with the real number is more complicated, not least because it differs depending on the construction of the mattress, the usage pattern of the mattress, and the maintenance of the mattress. Still, the important part is that you shouldn’t sleep on the same mattress forever because that can ruin your sleep.

Usually, you should think about replacing your mattress if you notice problems with it or your sleep on top of it. If you notice sagging, exposed springs, and even squeaking springs, chances are good that your mattress is no longer in perfect condition. Likewise, if you keep on waking up while feeling sore, it seems reasonable to speculate that your mattress isn’t providing your body with proper support.

Besides this, you might find it helpful to look into ways to extend the useful lifespan of your mattress. One example would be using a good mattress protector that can shield it from oils, sweat, and other unwanted substances. Another example would be pairing the right mattress with the right foundation. On top of this, people should never jump on mattresses. It might be fun, but it causes real damage because mattresses just aren’t meant to support this kind of thing.

9. TV

A lot of people like having TVs in their bedrooms. If you are feeling the same temptation, you should resist rather than give in. Having a TV in the bedroom causes some of the same issues as having either a cell phone or other electronics in the bedroom.

For starters, it gives you the urge to watch TV. Most of the time, if you want to go to sleep, you should try going to sleep for the best results. Watching TV can keep you up longer than otherwise possible, which is particularly likely if you choose to watch something that interests you. Furthermore, exposure to light disrupts your sleeping patterns, meaning it is best minimized when you are about to go to sleep. If anything, TVs are worse than cell phones in this regard because they emit so much more light than their smaller counterparts.

10. Windows Without Window Treatments

Window treatments are surprisingly important. Once again, this is connected to how light can affect our sleeping patterns. Out in nature, exposure to light would have meant that it was time for people to get up. As a result, just as how light can prevent you from falling asleep, light can also wake you up even though you haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep. You want windows because they are a great way to make a room feel more livable.

At the same time, you also want window treatments because they are a great way to control the amount of light entering your home at any time. The only time unwanted light isn’t an issue is when you are waking up at first light. Otherwise, you are going to want window treatments so that you can control when you wake up.

You can also read:

• How to Choose Which Bedroom Color Scheme is Right For You
• 10 Ideas to Maximize Storage in the Bedroom
• 10 Tricks Designers Use to Make Bedrooms Look Expensive
• 10 Ways to Make Your Bedroom Aesthetic