Several weeks ago, I woke up and said to Nik, “I just had the most bizarre series of dreams!” He replied “Me too! It’s because I turned off the WiFi!”

What does that have to do with dreams??????

It turned out that he had recently read an article about another family who had turned off their WiFi and instantly had better, deeper sleep with more dreaming.  So that night, he made a point of turning off our WiFi before we went to sleep but didn’t tell me what he’d done.  It was that night that I had all those crazy dreams.  I used to have insane, crazy dreams all the time but don’t really remember having them for the past couple years.  Perhaps this is coincidentally timed with us getting WiFi after getting smart phones? Or perhaps it’s not coincidence? I don’t know.

Some research seems to support a tenuous [and controversial] link at best between sleep quality and WiFi exposure.  (This is based just what I read in that above linked article – I haven’t done any searching on my own.) So I’m not here today to tell you “scientists have proven that WiFi in your house causes you to sleep poorly.”

But I am here to tell you that it might make a difference so why not turn it off? You don’t need it at night anyway. We now make a point of turning off our WiFi around 7:00 each evening (i.e. when both our kids are asleep) because we want to be sure they get their best sleep all night.  You too can have better sleep! Just turn off that WiFi (which might also help you stop using your smartphone too late into the night, right?)!

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Speaking of sleeping, you’ll see in the picture below that we now have a room of mattresses.  We bought Ellie a new mattress this summer (latex, from this company, after much angst and research and help from a dear friend who is also really concerned about the INSANE fire retardant load in conventional mattresses.)  Now, Nik and I are planning to transition to a minimal bed, slowly of course.  Once our current mattress gives out (it’s 8 years old at this point so getting elderly in mattress years), we’ll probably switch to a futon or harder wool mattress and eventually maybe even just to sleeping pads (if we can convince ourselves to be that hardcore).  We’re also going to try to wean ourselves off of using pillows (or at least fat ones). And, we’re going to pull a couple layers out of Ellie’s mattress (one at a time to transition her too) so hers isn’t so soft either – we’ll give one to Mark for his bed, when he’s ready for a big bed. To be clear, we got the firm latex so her bed really isn’t all that soft to begin with.  But it will feel harder once there’s less foam in it.

didn’t even make the beds before taking the picture – real-life right? 🙂

Want to join us in creating a no-WiFi-no-mattress-no-pillow life? It’s better for your body!

(More tips for avoiding flame retardants.)