No TVs In The Bedroom

Better sleep, better sex, and a more tranquil place to relax

My husband James and I have been coupled for close to 30 years, and we’ve lived together for nearly all of that time. At no time in our history have we ever had a television in the bedroom, and we’ve never really wanted one. In the early days, it was because we only owned one TV and it was firmly positioned in the family room, but later on when we had a bigger place and could afford to put a television anywhere that we wanted one, it never even came up. For us, the bedroom is for sleeping and for sex as well as other kinds of connecting with each other.

In this house, our room is on the first floor and so our typical morning routine involves making coffee to bring back to bed, where we talk and I’ll often read James my newest Medium story. Then we check messages and the weather and get ready for the day. Since we’ve got a 21-year-old living at home, mornings when he is still asleep are also a good time to share some more intimate moments. We haven’t watched the news or morning TV chat shows for about 25 years. Tuning in to each other is a lot more pleasant way to start the day. Often we’ve only got time for a quickie, but quickie sex is still better than no sex, and it’s definitely one of the ways that we keep our relationship vibrant, even after all this time together.

Besides the fact that TVs take up room, gather dust, and emit EMFs, we know that if we had one in our bedroom, we’d watch a lot more TV. We’d stay up later, and probably sleep and talk to each other less. We’d also probably have sex less often, and being able to connect in that way is something that is important to us as a couple. Both marriage and sleep experts tend to be against televisions in the bedroom.

In our first house, we had a small portable television on a rolling stand that toggled between the kitchen and the upstairs living room, and in very rare cases it got rolled into the bedroom on sick days, but once we moved and got rid of both the small TV and the rolling stand, there were no more televisions in the bedroom. We had a better couch by then too, and if you really wanted to recuperate in front of the TV, you could do it from there.

Every once in a great while I think it would be convenient to have a TV that we could have in the bedroom on a temporary basis, but most of the time I’m really happy without it. We don’t have any mirrors in our bedroom either, because, from a practical as well as a feng shui perspective, the reflective surface can be disruptive to good sleep, and the screen of a television acts in much the same way as a mirror.

• The hard, reflective energy of a bedroom mirror catches every bit of light and magnifies every sound, interfering with your ability to get a good night’s sleep.
• A mirror disturbs and stirs up the atmosphere in the room.
• Mirrors reduce the feeling of sanctuary you need in your bedroom to care for your health (and your love life!).

“So bedtime is not just about sleep. It is about renewing and maintaining the couple relationship. It can be the one time when partners learn what has been going on with one another, plan, make decisions, deal with disagreements, solve problems, provide necessary information, and put words to their realities. Bedtime contact seemed crucial to maintaining the relationship of many couples I interviewed …” Source: Paul C. Rosenblatt. Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing. pgs. 9–10.

Some people don’t own a television at all, and some people have them in every room of the house, including the bathroom and the patio. I like our happy medium of a television in the family room and one in the work-out area/bonus room. Our son does have a TV in his bedroom and has for a good bit of his life, but he’s not trying to connect with anyone else at the beginning or the end of the day. Plus, he’s allowed to make his own choices, particularly at this point in his life. People should do what makes them happy and works for them as a couple but for us, a bedroom without a TV has been a good thing, and I highly recommend it.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.