Who doesn’t love to sleep after a long and hectic day? On an average, we spend 8 hours per day sleeping, which is 1/3 of the whole day, and it means we spend 1/3 of our whole life sleeping. Sleep heals our body and mind. So, it’s important that we sleep right and in a proper environment.
When we sleep, our body uses the opportunity to recharge itself, rejuvenating the senses and restoring energy to tackle another day. Having frequent interruptions, sounds, or other things disrupting our sleep can cause us to wake up tired and cranky. What many people don’t realise is that the air we breathe while sleeping is tremendously important and can have a major effect on the quality of sleep. The six to eight hours of rest you get is critical, and you must get every ounce of rejuvenation out of them as possible.
In Bangladesh, most of us work hard from morning till night. It’s compulsory for us to have a sound sleep. But, many matters can disrupt a sound sleep, which can even lead to a physical disorder.
Even if you don’t have allergies, asthma or other respiratory illnesses, breathing in the impure air while you sleep can have a very negative effect on your overall health and well being. You may notice that you often awake with a 'stuffed up' feeling, or feeling as if you didn’t get a full night’s sleep, even though you had no trouble drifting off, and slept soundly all night. These can be the signs of breathing unclean air. Our country is one of the most populated as well as polluted countries in the world, so it’s normal that the air we breathe is not pure. By inhaling this polluted air, we are getting sicker day by day. But this polluted air harms our body most when we are sleeping. Many people think their coughing, stuffiness, and other symptoms as par for the course and accept them as being normal. After years of sleeping in bedrooms with impure air, they become accustomed to feeling this way, and have no frame of reference for what a truly healthy night’s sleep feels like. Since they haven’t been diagnosed with allergies or other conditions, they figure that these symptoms are just the natural consequences of getting older or write them off due to other reasons, when the culprit all along has been the air they are breathing.
Breathing in clean, pure air while you sleep can provide you with a bevy of excellent benefits. You will feel more rested and rejuvenated upon waking, and you will find that you experience amazing sinus relief and a lessening of other chronic symptoms. That constant feeling of being ‘stuffed up’ will be gone, and you will see the world with a clear head and eyes that aren’t bleary and teary.
But how can you ensure that you breathe clean air while sleeping? We cannot make our country’s air pure so easily, but we can do it for our home. There are many air purifiers available in the market, which really helps to purify the house’s air. Air purifiers will cost BDT 15,000-1, 00,000 in Bangladesh and they actually will help you get a proper night’s sleep.
A few other factors can play havoc with the air you breathe while sleeping but easily taken care of.
The Pillow helps you to sleep comfortably and provide support to your head and neck while you sleep. However, sleeping on a dust-covered or dirty pillow will cause you to inhale a lot of pollutants which will lead to physical discomfort rather than a good night’s sleep. So make sure you sleep on a clean pillow and don’t use a pillow which is too high or too low for your body.
Clean mattress is as important as well. Studies show if we don’t dust the mattress properly, while you move during sleeping a lot of pollutant escape from the mattress. They often emit gaseous pollutants and this happens mostly with newly bought mattresses.
Heavy blankets too can contain a lot of dust, which will eventually end up being mixed with air. And we will end up inhaling them while sleeping.
So, better ventilation, clean bed sheets, and dusting mattresses weekly will improve the quality of the room’s air a lot.
Sleep tight!