Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight (45 page)

Reasonable people can disagree on whether kids should use their parents' bedroom as a hangout area. I strongly vote “no.” I grew up with six siblings in a home where space was tight. We certainly would have enjoyed adding our parents' bedroom to our roaming-around territory, but we knew that it was off-limits to us.

No matter the size of your home, I urge you to set aside your bedroom as a special place for the one or two adults who are in charge of your household. This sends a strong and unmistakable message to your children: The master bedroom is a special place for parents. It's a space that needs to be respected, since it is not like the other rooms in the house. It's a room with a purpose and mystique like no other. This is a positive message to send to your children. Your relationship is special, and everyone in the family can honor it by establishing a place for it!

Create other bedrooms, playrooms, and family areas that meet your kids' needs for connection, learning, and entertainment. Let them know they're welcome to have the run of the rest of the house. Be firm when you say that their toys, books, gadgets, and other clutter must stay in these areas—and not in your room. Sorting through your thoughts, maintaining a relationship with your partner, and recuperating from the challenges of a grown-up life all require a room that's calm and free of distractions. Demand nothing less.

You must also demand of yourself that you're going to keep your room free of
grown-up
toys and distractions. These disturb the other vital use of your bedroom.

Permissible Use for Your Bedroom #2: Rest and Sleep

In 2013, the National Association of Home Builders reported a survey finding that seems both obvious and surprising: “The only type of room . . . present in the typical new home 100 percent of the time is a master bedroom.” This is a room important enough to put in
every single new home
and the vast majority of older homes, as well. So why are people spending so little time actually sleeping in them?

A 2013 Gallup poll found that American adults sleep an average of 6.8 hours per night, which is less than the 7 to 9 hours that health experts recommend. The number of those who sleep 6 hours or less nightly—40 percent—hasn't changed much in the past 25 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls our national sleep deprivation a “public health epidemic.” It has found that many adults have trouble concentrating or remembering things because they're sleepy.

Maintaining a healthy weight and a clean household requires that you remain awake and aware during the day. Your mind needs to be focused on what you're eating, what you're buying, and how you're hanging on to stuff. If you can't think straight due to fatigue, you're not going to make your best choices.

Poor sleep has also been linked to the following:

Obesity.
Lack of sleep may increase your appetite and thus the likelihood that you'll eat. Research has found that when you're sleep-deprived, levels of a hormone called ghrelin tend to go up. This hormone increases your appetite.

In a small German study, nine men spent three nights in a sleep lab, with at least 2 weeks between each overnight visit. One night they slept for 7 hours, one night they slept for 4½ hours, and one night they didn't sleep at all. (On their sleepless nights, they stayed up reading and watching movies in a well-lit room.) Just one night of shorter sleep led to more feelings of hunger and higher ghrelin levels. Both were especially pronounced after the completely sleepless night. In the long run, the researchers noted, these changes “may result in weight gain and obesity.”

Depression and anxiety.
Insufficient sleep can also make you more likely to become depressed or anxious (the inverse is true, too—if you're depressed or anxious, you may have more trouble falling asleep). A study that followed more than 9,600 young Australian women found that those who often had sleeping problems at the beginning of the study were more than four times
more likely to have depression 9 years later. They were also nearly three times more likely to have anxiety!

Chronic health problems.
Poor sleep can raise your risk of a variety of health issues that would definitely act as a type of burdensome clutter in your life. These include diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer. Obesity related to the sleep loss doesn't always explain the appearance of these diseases, by the way.

In addition, getting too little sleep may raise your risk of Alzheimer's disease. A study that put 70 adults into a high-tech scanner found that those who slept less had higher levels of a substance called beta-amyloid in their brains. This stuff is composed of bits of sticky protein that collect into clumps called “plaques.” These plaques—which you could call a kind of clutter that doesn't belong in the brain—are more common in people with Alzheimer's.

Getting good sleep isn't one of those general niceties that's good for you, that you can take or leave without harm. Sleep maintains a lot of important chemical processes in your brain and your body. You need it to sustain a strong, fit figure and a smoothly operating mind, which are two of the main goals of the
Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight
program.

So
please
use this week to fix any problems in your bedroom that are keeping you from getting the sleep you require.

Sleeping with the Enemy?

If you're reading this book, then you're likely struggling with your weight, your sense of serenity, and the state of your home. I'd wager that poor sleep is playing some role in all of these issues—and that better sleep would help relieve you of these burdens.

That's why in the coming week, I want you to remove any of the obstacles in your bedroom that are preventing you from creating a restful, relaxing, and nurturing space. (While you're at it, remove anything that hinders your romantic relationship with your partner.) A good place to start is with electronics.

In its 2014 survey, the National Sleep Foundation found that parents' and kids' bedrooms are brimming with light- and noise-making electronic devices (see “Electronics in Adults' Bedrooms”). In many of these bedrooms, these devices sometimes stay “awake” after the humans go to sleep, ranging from 10 percent of parents' computers to 34 percent of televisions. Even more alarm
ing—more than one-quarter of adults in the survey said that in the previous week they'd gotten up to read or send a text or e-mail after they'd already gone to sleep!

Electronics can blatantly distract you from going to sleep or staying asleep. But the specific type of light they produce can have an even sneakier effect on your sleep.

Your eyes don't just allow you to read, look at your kids, and keep your car on the road. They also serve as sensors that affect your cycle of sleepiness and alertness, without you even knowing it. During the evening and night, when artificial light hits the retinas that line the inside of your eyes, it prevents nerve cells in your brain that encourage sleep from doing their job. At the same time, it stimulates cells in your brain that keep you awake. This light also puts the brakes on your natural flow of melatonin. Normally, your melatonin levels rise in the evening. This hormone, made by a structure in your brain, helps you feel sleepier as bedtime approaches. The sum effect of all those brain changes is that you feel more awake later into the night.

Many of today's entertainment devices, from TVs to tablets to smartphones, use LEDs to create light. Cells in your retinas that send wakefulness-related messages to your brain are especially sensitive to the light from LEDs. So when you're playing games on your smartphone or e-mailing co-workers at 11 p.m., you're also staring directly into a stoplight telling your brain DON'T GO TO SLEEP.

The National Sleep Foundation suggests that you darken your surroundings in the hours before you go to bed. Use low-wattage bulbs in your bedroom, and even turn your alarm clock away from your bed or block any light it makes. It also recommends that if you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, keep electronics out of your bedroom and stop using them at least an hour before bed.

I agree with these recommendations wholeheartedly. TVs, tablets, smart-phones, and computers have no place in your bedroom. I understand if you feel some resistance to this idea, as it's quite possible that you've had a television in your bedroom for most of your life.

However, ask yourself this question: “Do these electronics help me obtain what I want
from
my bedroom, which is to focus on myself, connect with my partner, or sleep?”

You could argue that watching movies with your significant other is a pleasant way to spend time, but you can shift this to the living room. And if you're a doctor on call or your child is at a sleepover, I understand the need for a phone in your room. But otherwise it most likely can wait until morning—outside of the bedroom.

Along with your electronics, I strongly recommend that you find new homes for your:

Food.
Remember: Whenever you eat, you should be aware of what you're eating. You're tasting your food, smelling it, and appreciating it. You're not driving your car, talking on the phone, or working.

If you're in bed, I don't think you're likely to be doing mindful eating. Odds are you're sleepy. You're also probably watching TV or goofing around on the Internet if you haven't yet barred your devices from the bedroom.

There's reason to believe that late-night calories aren't good for your waistline. After tracking 52 volunteers' sleep and diets for a week, researchers found that taking in calories after 8 p.m. is associated with a higher body mass index. They concluded that calorie consumption after this time may raise your risk of obesity.

Pets.
I suspect that you may be horrified at the thought of turning your pet away from your bedroom. But this is
your
room, not your pet's. Does having your dog or cat in the bedroom help you sleep better? Does it bring you and your partner closer together? Perhaps you can make a case for it. But please give this some attention before you make your decision.

If your pet is keeping you awake by scratching, yipping, or staring in your face—or its presence is leading to arguments with your spouse—then consider finding a new sleeping arrangement for it.

Work.
Almost 15 million Americans are self-employed, and many others with an outside job sometimes work at home. I understand the reasons why you'd have work materials in your bedroom, whether you run your own business or merely bring some work home from the office occasionally. Maybe your bedroom offers the only free space for a desk. Maybe you
feel most creative at night, and it's easier to keep your notebooks near your bed.

But you're simply not going to sleep as well if the last thing you see before you turn out the light is your pile of work papers. Thoughts of deadlines may keep you awake, and work-related problems may invade your dreams. Your occupational equipment is also bound to decrease your bedmate's contentment with the bedroom.

Your work supplies must go somewhere else in your home. If you don't have a corner in another room to set up a desk, perhaps you could work at your local coffee shop that offers free Wi-Fi. Or you may be able to find a small, inexpensive office space to set up shop near your home. (You may find these advertised online as “co-working spaces.”
Sharedesk.net
is a site that may list workspaces in your area).

As you begin to tame your overstuffed bedroom, your first few steps will be similar to how you began with your kitchen and dining areas last week. The ultimate goal will be to create a quiet, protective oasis in the home for yourself or for connecting with your spouse or partner, and to start enjoying better sleep.

Please note that you don't need to tackle your clothes closet this week. The closet and your bathroom play a large role in how you see yourself. As a result, you'll un-stuff those areas together later in the program.