A Powerful Sleep Tip

When it comes to health and performance, good sleep is an essential element. If your health progress has stalled, dialing in on your sleep could be a game-changer.

There’s no shortage of advice about sleep hygiene but I want to share something that’s not as widely discussed that has made a massive difference for my family: Air quality. Specifically, CO₂ levels in the bedroom.

We recently got curious and started testing the air in our home. When we monitored the level of  CO2 in the bedrooms, what we found was shocking.

Spoiler: once we got serious about ventilating rooms at night, we started waking up more refreshed, with fewer headaches. 

The shift was immediate.

Let Me Back Up...

My teenage daughter had been struggling with regular headaches. We were trying different strategies but nothing seemed to be helping. I was starting to wonder whether it was just hormonal and circadian shifts that happen in adolescence. Then we decided to test the air in her bedroom.

What We Discovered

The CO₂ levels were extraordinarily high when her door was closed.

Her bedroom is small, and our home doesn’t have ideal ventilation—so CO₂ was building up fast and reaching concentrations that correlate with fatigue and headaches. 

We considered upgrading the HVAC system, but that was a major project that was not necessarily going to net the benefits we wanted.

The Good News?

The solution was simple and very accessible.

Here’s what we did—and what you can try too:

1. Test your air.

In functional medicine, there’s a saying: “Test, don’t guess.”

CO₂ monitors are easy to find—you can borrow one from a local library or buy one online for $50–$100.

One important tip: don’t put the CO₂  monitor on your bedside at night as you exhale CO₂ so this will make your levels artificially high. 

2. Ventilate as needed.

If your CO₂ monitor shows a spike, ventilate the room.

Open a window (if outdoor air is good) or leave the bedroom door ajar. You’ll often see levels drop in real-time on the monitor.

We now keep a CO₂ monitor in our daughter's bedroom, and the data helps guide when to take action.

3. Monitor patterns across the house.

Move the monitor around—workspaces, kids’ rooms, bedrooms. This allows you to know which areas can be an issue. 

We even placed one where my daughter does her homework. Now she knows when to ventilate for better focus and energy.

4. Build in ventilation habits.

Furnace fans can help circulate air, but they weren’t enough for us. Nothing beat simply opening a door or window. We also found that using a fan (pointing away from the people in the room) can help dissipate the CO₂  a little too. 

A quick myth-buster:Yes, indoor plants absorb CO₂—but not nearly enough to reduce high concentrations.

Where's the Biggest Risk?

Smaller, enclosed spaces are particularly vulnerable. Also, watch for homes with gas appliances or poorly ventilated areas. The CO₂  triples in our kitchen when our gas stove is  turned on so now we open a window when we turn on the oven. 

The best way to know? Test.

This post isn’t a deep dive into indoor air quality—it’s just one important slice of the pie. But for us, it dramatically improved my daughter’s sleep and headaches—overnight. Unlike other sleep strategies that take time, reducing high CO₂ levels can have an immediate effect.

Symptoms That Might Point to High CO₂:

• Headaches

• Fatigue or drowsiness

• Difficulty concentrating

• Poor sleep quality

So What Are Healthy CO₂ Levels?

That was our next question!

While there are limited data on the effects of CO₂ on sleep, the traditional recommendation is to keep CO₂ under 1000 ppm. But a 2024 study found this may be far too high for optimal sleep. The study suggests:

• 750 ppm should be your target

• 1000 ppm is the upper threshold for taking action

For reference, outdoor air is generally around 400–550 ppm.

If you give this a try, I’d love to hear your experience. This simple step had a profound impact on our family’s health—and it might just do the same for yours.

Study: Ventilation causing an average CO2 concentration of 1,000 ppm negatively affects sleep: A field-lab study on healthy young people.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132323011459