Sleep with Your Window Open: The Benefits Unveiled
We don’t need to tell anyone how important sleep is. A good night’s sleep is one of the basic ingredients of a healthy and happy life.
But even if you go to bed on time every day, there are more factors that determine whether you sleep well or not.
When you breathe in a closed room, the concentration of carbon dioxide slowly increases. If there are two of you, it happens twice as fast.
Air quality drops dramatically
Sleeping for eight hours with multiple people in a bedroom with closed windows and doors has a significant effect on oxygen concentration. It decreases significantly during that time.
NRC mentions in an article the Bulgarian amateur scientist Vladimir Savchenko, who conducts research with self-built carbon dioxide meters.
When Vladimir’s baby goes to sleep in the room, the carbon dioxide concentration gradually increases. When he and his wife go to bed, the graph shoots up to 3500ppm, while the recommended exposure amount is 1200ppm.
When he opens the bedroom door in the morning, the number drops to 1500ppm. And after opening the window, it drops to 500ppm!
Opening the window provides much more oxygen
Ventilation is clearly extremely important. Expert Atze Boerstra from consulting firm BBA Binnenmilieu tells NRC: “People spend one-third of their lives in the bedroom. It is actually very strange that the influence of air quality there has not been researched so poorly yet.”
Vladimir’s “hobby research” based on his self-built measuring equipment seems very convincing. Experts agree but also emphasize that ventilation can also be achieved in other ways, especially in new construction.
Another benefit: you lose weight!
According to Oxford professor Ashley Grossman, sleeping with the window open has another unexpected benefit: you can lose weight!
By being exposed to cooler temperatures for a few hours each day, your metabolism may improve, resulting in weight loss.
I’m sleeping with the window open tonight! How about you?
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