Sharing a bed with someone can be a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, you have the loving presence, comfort, and warmth from your partner which can help you relax and drift off to sleep. But, on the other hand, you might be dealing with a restless partner that steals the covers, overheats or makes noises throughout the night.
The sad news for women is, research has shown that women lose 45 days of sleep every year thanks to their partner – that’s over one month’s worth of sweet dreams lost to restless nights. Getting good sleep is important for both your physical and mental health, so losing out on the recommended 7-9 hours can have its negative consequences.
While sleep allows you to recover from tiredness, it also reduces feelings of stress and the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. That’s why it’s essential to do as much as you can to ensure that you get the sleep you deserve. Fortunately, there are simple solutions to ensuring you sleep well whilst sharing a bed. Here, we look at the ways you can learn to love your bed, sleep, and partner again.
Getting sound asleep
It’s estimated that 41.5% of the adult UK population snore. Unbelievably, a survey found that 24% of men have broken up with an ex-partner due to snoring. For the sake of your relationship, it’s safe to say that you need to tackle this before things go sour.
There are solutions out there, including snoring machines, nose strips, and specially designed pillows. While these can often be expensive, if snoring is causing lack of sleep and tensions in your relationship, they’re worth a shot – you can’t put a price on good sleep.
Though there are some cheaper options that can yield just as good results. White noise, for example, does not cure snoring, but it can help you to sleep better. Your brain will focus on the quiet tone of the noise while drowning out other distracting noises such as snoring, noises from your neighbours or traffic.
Like other snoring cures, white noise machines can be expensive. However, many mobile applications can achieve the same job for free. It may take a little while to get used to, but it’s an easier sound to love than the noises of your partner.
Bedtime vs sleepy time
Sleep time is sacred and for some, interrupting this time is close to sacrilege. Whilst adjusting your bedroom environment via a new mattress, pillows and other sleep equipment can help you sleep better, there is something that you can do without breaking the bank. This is simply via the power to say to your partner: “Let me sleep!”.
We’re not naive here, your bedroom is often used for activities other than sleep and after a pleasurable period of bedroom activity, it’s common to embrace your partner for a short while before sleep. While this provides you with comfort, it may be detrimental to your sleep if you attempt to stay in this loving position all night as you’ll most likely lose support for your head and neck and start to overheat.
Understanding when you need your own space is essential – there’s nothing cold-hearted about wanting to part pillows with your partner. Being separate in bed and getting more sleep may be more beneficial for your relationship as getting more sleep has proven to increase sexual desire. One study found that an extra one hour of sleep reflected a 14% increase in odds of engaging in sexual activity in the morning.
Sleeping in the same bed as our partner is one of the most intimate and loving activities we can do. It represents unity and a willingness to be around each other – but it shouldn’t become a chore. There are various solutions to combat the nuisance of movement, heat, and snoring through the night. It just takes a little acceptance to understand that it’s a problem. Hopefully, you’ll be back to perfect sleep in no time.
Find your perfect match – in a mattress
Finding your mattress match is like finding your love match. Since sleep is an absolute necessity for all humans, ensuring you are both comfortable and supported throughout your night of sleep can’t be forgotten. Believe it or not, while a mattress can cater to your needs, choosing the right one can also decrease the chances of being disturbed by your partner.
First of all, let’s tackle the restlessness of your partner also known as motion transfer. For example, hybrid mattresses offer the best of both worlds by utilising both spring and memory-foam, where springs provide the support and the foam the comfort. If the springs are described to be ‘encapsulated’, then essentially, they are springs that work independently from one another, unlike a traditional coiled spring mattress where the springs are meshed together. Lucky for those of you that want to reduce movement felt by a partner, these types of springs have motion transfer technology, as movement is unable to travel through individual springs, a stark contrast to its meshed spring counterpart.
Now onto overheating. Some mattresses actually have the ability to prevent overheating via temperature regulation properties. Often, too much foam can cause overheating as it doesn’t allow heat to escape. That’s why choosing a hybrid model is a good alternative as heat will be able to escape the mattress much easier, especially if the memory foam has perforations in it.
Sources:
https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/women-lose-sleep-night-because-partners-319075
