Tips for an Eco-Friendly Bedroom - Earth Friendly Tips

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How to Create an Eco-Friendly Bedroom

Are you dreaming of an eco-friendly bedroom? Interested in turning your bedroom into a sanctuary that’s better for your health and the health of the planet? Then you’re in luck!

Thanks to these amazingly simple tips, you can quickly transform your bedroom into an eco-friendly space where you’ll feel better and enjoy better sleep.

1. Select an Eco-Friendly Mattress

One of the most important steps in creating a more sustainable bedroom is selecting an eco-friendly mattress. But why is an eco-friendly mattress so important?

The average mattress contains a slew of flame retardants and other chemicals that are terrible for your health. Now, consider that you spend around 8 hours every night on your mattress breathing in those chemicals, and you can quickly see why getting a green mattress is the way to go.

Not sure where to start when you’re looking for a non-toxic mattress? That’s not a problem. Fortunately, you don’t have to sacrifice comfort for sustainability when you choose one of these best eco-friendly mattresses.

Plus, don’t forget you’re not the only one in the household who can get a green mattress. This breathable organic cotton mattress fits cribs and toddler beds and this organic cotton children’s mattress fits a big kid bed so everyone can have a safe and healthy sleep.

2. Top it With Eco-Friendly Bedding

Once you pick out your eco-friendly mattress, it’s time to select some sustainable bedding to put on top of it. Having an organic cotton waterproof mattress protector to safeguard against accidental spills is always a good idea.

Since the materials in your sheets and covers come into direct contact with your skin for hours on end, it’s important to choose something that’s safe. Organic bamboo lyocell is one good option because it’s breathable, unbelievably soft, and requires less water and energy to grow and manufacture than cotton.

If you prefer cotton, these organic cotton sheets are the best choice. They’re hypoallergenic, free of harmful chemicals and dyes, amazingly soft, and can help wick away moisture while you sleep.

You have several options to top off your bed. This myComforter is a hypoallergenic comforter that’s made from 100% natural and washable wool. It’s a four-season comforter that regulates your body temperature by keeping you cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Another fantastic option is the Rumpl blanket. These eco-friendly blankets are stunningly beautiful and amazingly comfortable. Plus, the company offsets its entire carbon footprint every year and donates 1% of all sales to environmental causes.

Lastly, don’t forget about your pillow! Here are some excellent sustainable options:

3. Naturally Ease Into Sleep

Once you have a non-toxic place to rest your head at night, it’s time to ease into sleep. But if restful sleep is eluding you, don’t think you have to turn to medication.

I’ve found one of the best ways to naturally fall asleep is to use this magnesium lotion. Magnesium is a natural mineral that plays an important role in our health. The only way to get it is through our diet, which means many people are actually deficient.

Magnesium deficiency can cause sleeplessness, headaches, anxiety, and more. Interested in learning more about my experience using magnesium lotion for sleep? You can read more about it here!

4. Select Sustainably Made Furniture

Of course, your bedroom isn’t just for sleeping. You also keep your clothes and other personal items in there. Unfortunately, just like mattresses, certain types of furniture can also emit toxic fumes known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Breathing in low levels of VOCs over long periods of time can lead to a host of health problems, such as headaches, difficulty breathing, worsening of asthma symptoms, nausea, kidney and liver damage, central nervous system damage, and even cancer.

When it’s time to get new bedroom furniture, look for pieces that aren’t made from composite wood products, which tend to have high concentrations of VOCs. Instead, choose pieces made from real wood.

To make your choices even more sustainable, shop at flea markets, secondhand shops, and thrift stores to see if you can find pieces that have already been manufactured.

5. Choose a Low-VOC Paint

Composite wood furniture isn’t the only thing in your bedroom that can leech VOCs into the air you breathe. Paint is another common source.

When you’re ready to paint the walls in your bedroom, look for low-VOC or no-VOC paints. Paints that have low or no VOCs have very little odor and are safer to breath.

Recolor Paint is another option to consider. These low-VOC paints are made from 100% recycled content, which helps reduce air and water pollution, reduce waste, and reduce landfill space.

6. Clean the Air With Houseplants

As I’m sure you’re beginning to realize, VOCs in your bedroom are a big problem. You can’t create an eco-friendly bedroom until you eliminate as many VOCs as possible.

We’ve already talked about mattresses, composite wood furniture, and paint as sources of VOCs. Unfortunately, there are other sources hiding in your bedroom, including carpet, adhesives, plastics, personal care items, and dry-cleaned clothes.

Sometimes you can eliminate these VOCs by removing the items that emit them from your home. However, some items are harder to remove, such as your carpets. In this case, you can use houseplants to naturally purify the air in your home.

One of the absolute best houseplants for the bedroom is the snake plant. Although it has a bit of an unsettling name, this plant does some incredible things.

First of all, it can remove formaldehyde, benzene, xylene, and trichloroethylene from the air. It’s also not very picky about light conditions, and it doesn’t mind if you forget to water it every once in awhile. However, the one reason you REALLY want a snake plant in your bedroom is because of the way it exchanges oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Unlike most plants, which continuously exchange the two gases during the day, the snake plant stores its oxygen during the day and releases it at night — the exact time when you’re in your bedroom the longest and need fresh air for a good sleep!

Here are a few places where you can purchase a snake plant:

7. Freshen the Air Naturally

Once you remove as many VOCs from your air as possible, you don’t want to unknowingly introduce more. Unfortunately, store-bought air fresheners are another common source of VOCs.

Most air fresheners don’t purify the air. They simply release another scent that contains VOCs and other toxic chemicals you don’t want to breathe into the air.

If you need to freshen the air in your bedroom, you can easily make a natural air freshener that’s perfectly safe to breathe.

I’m very passionate about removing chemical-based cleaning products from the home because it’s such an easy way to get rid of dangerous chemicals in our lives.

But I also know one of the hardest parts of natural cleaning is remembering how to make the different products we need for different areas of our homes. That’s why these natural cleaning product recipes cards are so handy!

Not only will this natural cleaning bundle help you make over 25 DIY cleaning products, but it also includes a cheat sheet on natural cleaning ingredients you should never combine and a guide on my favorite essential oil cleaning blends.

You’ll have everything you need to start naturally cleaning your home in one convenient bundle!

8. Make Sure Your Lighting Is Eco-Friendly

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to make an eco-friendly bedroom is to save energy by switching to LED light bulbs. LED light bulbs offer a variety benefits over incandescent, halogen, and CFL bulbs.

LEDs are more energy-efficient, which means a lower electricity bill for you. They produce virtually no heat, which makes them safer. They also have an incredibly long lifespan, which helps reduce waste.

After you change all of your light bulbs over to LEDs, take a look at some of the other energy users in your bedroom. Energy hogs are devices in your home that suck up electricity even when they’re not in use.

In the bedroom, one of the most common energy hogs is the phone charger. Even if your phone isn’t plugged in, the charger is still pulling electricity. So try to get in the habit of unplugging the charger every time you take your phone off it.

Other energy hogs that you might have in your bedroom include televisions and set-top boxes. To help save a little more money on your electricity bill, take a look around your bedroom and see which devices you can easily unplug until you need to use them.

9. Control the Temperature

Heating and air conditioning use up A LOT of energy, release emissions, and increase your carbon footprint. Instead, look for natural ways to control the temperature in your bedroom.

In the summer, I use these blackout curtains to block sunlight from entering through the windows and warming up the house. In the winter, I open the curtains so the sunlight can naturally warm the house and I don’t have to use the heater.

Do you already have some curtains you love, but they’re not blackout? That’s OK! You can purchase blackout liners that attach to your existing curtains. These liners are an easy and convenient way to make any curtain a blackout curtain.

Making an Eco-Friendly Bedroom

When you follow these simple tips, you can easily create an eco-friendly bedroom that’s better for your health, will help you sleep, and better for the environment. Plus, don’t forget the bedroom isn’t the only room in your house you can make more eco-friendly. Here are some other helpful guides to consider:

More Outstanding Eco-Friendly Tips

Now that you’ve learned more about making an eco-friendly bedroom, are you interested in even more sustainable living tips? Then please check out some of our other popular posts: