Your five senses guide you throughout the day; they can also be utilized to help you get to sleep at night. Sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch are all critical ways you experience your surroundings before bed as you prepare to sleep. By focusing on them, you may be able to improve your sleep.

Each Sense Can Affect Your Sleep for Better or Worse

When you bring your senses to bear on falling and staying asleep in the right sleep environment, you maximize the chances of obtaining sufficient, quality sleep. Following are suggestions for ways in which you can involve each of your senses in your bedtime routine in the 60-90 minutes before you lie down to sleep. It’s important to note that these suggestions work best when accompanied by an atmosphere conducive to sleep including a cool, dark, and quiet bedroom.

1. Sight

While counting sheep is often recommended with a wink, visualization has been proven to successfully calm the mind and help you fall asleep. The senior author of a study into using imagery to fight insomnia that took place 20 years ago reported that the test group instructed to use imagery reported falling asleep much faster than the group that had no instruction or the group that were told to distract themselves from worries in any way they saw fit. More than 20 years later, the author of the study advises that “using your imagination” remains the top science-backed way “to help yourself empty your mind and fall asleep.”

To use visualization, you picture a place in which you felt relaxed and peaceful. “Notice as many sensory details as you can, such as the time of day, the colors, warmth or coldness, texture, sounds, and any people or animals present.” You may combine visualization with sound by, for example, listening to waves as you visualize the shore. Visualization can also help if you wake up in the middle of the night. Focus on the experience within the visualization and soon you’ll find yourself drifting off again. Other recommendations akin to visualization include counting your blessings and savoring the memory of a wonderful moment.

2. Smell

One of the most common scents associated with sleep is lavender. “In a review of lavender, controlled studies found inhaled lavender improved sleep in people who are in intensive care or have cancer. Students with sleep problems also self-rated improvements in sleep quality and energy, and pilot studies showed a reduction in restless leg syndrome,” according to healthline.com.

Read more about the uses and benefits of lavender in our article on “The Beauty and Benefits of Lavender in Your Home,” linked below.You can find lavender-scented linen spray to be used on your bedding. Typically, it will be made with lavender essential oil diffused in witch hazel, distilled water, or alcohol. It can provide a soothingly scented place to lie down. Our aromatherapy pillowcases are constructed with a hidden pocket into which you can tuck one of our lavendar or chamomile sachets. They provide a soothing scent while you sleep.

3. Hearing

Our bodies respond to music, making it an ideal way to help you unwind before bed. Turning on a soothing playlist before bed can help your body de-stress, lower anxiety, and improve the quality of your sleep.

You may also want to consider the benefits of binaural beats, which we detailed in the article linked below. Binaural beats are created when you hear two tones at two different frequencies, each in a different ear. Your brain processes a beat at the difference of the frequencies, which is touted as inducing calm. We recommend making soothing music a part of your bedtime routine that signals your brain it’s time to sleep. If you’re having trouble discovering the right songs, online streaming services offer curated playlists that can help you find the perfect bedtime routine soundtrack.

4. Taste

While nutritionists recommend avoiding heavy meals before bed, they do recommend a light snack as long as it’s the right kind. A cup of chamomile tea with a small handful of walnuts can put you on the path to a healthy night’s sleep.

Chamomile tea, with its mild, floral flavor, can soothe and aid digestion while it relaxes you for sleep as part of your bedtime routine. Read more about how “Incorporating Tea into Your Bedtime Routine Can Help You Sleep,” in the article linked below. To support your bedtime routine, we offer several Tea Forté tea sets with a variety of herbal teas intended to help you relax, restore, and revitalize.

Whether or not the tea itself induces sleep, the ritual of having a cup of tea can relax and help prepare you for sleep. A warm glass of milk can have a similar effect. Similarly, it may be the association between warm milk and sleep as much as the sleep-promoting compounds contained in milk that makes it a relaxing ritual.

5. Touch

“Pressure, temperature, light touch, vibration, pain and other sensations are all part of the touch sense and are all attributed to different receptors in the skin,” according to an article on the human senses in livescience.com. Touch in the form of bedtime snuggling can “promote feelings of safety, security, and relaxation, which could be beneficial for sleep.” Oxytocin released through touch “is known to reduce anxiety, depression, and stress by lowering cortisol levels, which can have a negative impact on sleep quality.” You need not remain connected the whole night. There is no formula for the amount of cuddling or how it’s accomplished. Do what feels best for you.

According to UCLA Health, weighted blankets can provide the touch that helps with sleep. In studies looking into weighted blankets, “researchers noted that while using a weighted blanket, the participants in their studies were able to fall asleep more easily, woke less frequently during the night and felt an increased sense of calm during the day.” Our knitted weighted blanket is fabricated with 100% cotton jersey and a 100% hollow fiber polyester fiber that maintains superior breathability. It should be noted that weighted blankets should not be used for young children, older adults, or individuals who could not remove the blanket themselves.

Your five senses support our sleep as much as they help you live a thriving life. Experiment with the right type of sensory sleep support that works for you based on these recommendations. When you focus on your sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch in the 60-90 minutes leading up to bedtime, you’ll gain healthy sleeping habits and wake refreshed each morning.

Sense a great night’s sleep.

-Team at down etc

Read more: 

Bedtime Rituals for Better Sleep

Ode to Chamomile

The Beauty and Benefits of Lavender in Your Home5 Reasons to Make Eye Masks Part of Your Bedtime Routine

What Are Binaural Beats, and Will They Help You Sleep? 

Incorporating Tea into Your Bedtime Routine Can Help You Sleep

About down etc

For over twenty years, down etc has worked with hoteliers and professional housekeepers in hotels around the world to manufacture and provide the pillows and the bedding that will offer hotel guests memorably great sleep. Through our retail website, we seek to provide products that will result in the same quality sleep for our customers at home. We believe in the restorative power of a great night’s sleep, whether at home or away. That’s the reason down etc wrote the book on it, Roll Into a Perfectly Made Bed: All You Need to Know About the Art of Bedmaking.

 

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Originally published January 2, 2021. Republished with updated information and links June 20, 2025.