Cinderella’s Hearth: In a Dark, Dark Room, by Kate Wolford

It would have been sensible and coherent if I had done a sleep series during the many months FTM’s focus was on “Sleeping Beauty,” this year. Sadly, I’m occasionally neither sensible nor coherent, so I’m doing it now. Note: It’s not too late to enjoy our fantastic “Sleeping Beauty” issue, “Briar and Thorn.”

To be fair, the fact that I’m focusing on sleep in June is relevant to me personally: My sleep is much worse during the summer, and I’m not alone. Research supports the theory that the extensive light we receive on these long, sunny days really does make us more wakeful in bed.

In my case, the light I receive in my extremely sunny house during these months means that I have a lot of trouble sleeping when it finally does grow dark. That may be happening to you as well, so this week I’m focusing on how to control sunniness during your waking hours to help you sleep when it’s dark. More importantly, I’m giving you one of my best sleep tips, period.

Here it is: You have to purchase room darkening shades if you are having trouble sleeping. I’ve tried many different types over the years, so I know that the shades have to completely cover the window, all over, to prevent light leaking in. Alas, most shades and curtains, at every price point, are ineffective at controlling light leaks, and believe it or not, the light leaks can be more destructive to sleep than full-on sunny windows because those leaks are so piercing and concentrated.

My life-saving answer has been these blackout curtains that I wrote about in March during a righteous rant about the evils of Daylight Savings Time. They are really a shade rather than a curtain have a metal frame that you insert inside your window’s frame. The actual UBlockout roller shades go inside the frame you’ve inserted. Absolutely no sunlight leaks through. Your bedroom will be totally midnight-dark all day and night.

I’m revisiting these shades to help you maximize your experience with them, should you decide to buy them. Here’s what you need to know:

First, UBlockout shades are not cheap, although the price varies according to your number of windows as well as their size. To be transparent, we have three large windows in our master bedroom, and they cost us about $1,500 all together. Fortunately, UBlockout frequently has sales—plus most people with chronic insomnia are not foolish enough to build a house with three massive windows in their master bedroom, like I did. If you have smaller and fewer windows, you’ll pay much less. Nonetheless, I would have paid triple to have shades that work this well.

Second, careful measuring with all blackout shades is essential to success. UBlockout shades will not do their job if the measurements are off, and they need to be within a 1/16th of an inch to work well. Fortunately, UBlockout has excellent instructions and videos to help you measure properly, but it’s likely to take two people to do the job. I promise it wasn’t hard for Todd and me to do the measuring, so you can do it too.

Third, installation is not difficult, but it is time consuming as there are many screws to put in. Once again, if you read the instructions and watch the videos, you’ll be in good shape. Being very, very careful in measuring and installing will change your sleepless life!

I am not being paid in any way by UBlockout, but I’m telling you that if you buy these shades, you’ll sleep better and longer. They’ve added an average of 45 minutes additional sleep time for me in the last six months, bringing my nightly average up to 7.25 hours per night. I haven’t slept this well in 35 years. They make the room totally dark at night, and prevent waking too early due to morning sunlight, a real problem when the sun wants to creep in at 5:30 AM.

Before I leave you, let me cycle back to how to reduce your overall sun intake during the summer. I’ve found that if I go into my bedroom in the afternoon and read or meditate (or even work) for an hour, with the blinds completely closed, my body clock resets well for the evening, so when I go to bed later, it’s easier to fall asleep. The “dose of darkness” in the afternoon really helps.

If an hour is too much time for you, even 15 minutes or so in a thoroughly darkened room will help you reset and decrease the sleep-deficit effects of all this sunlight. Any darkness will help. I promise.

Next time, I’m going to discuss sheets and why they are so very important to successful sleep. People take them for granted, but sheets absolutely affect sleep quality.

As for Cinderella, I suspect that if you work as hard physically as she did before moving to the castle, sleep is probably easy. In 2025, most of us aren’t doing that much physical labor, so we need some help.

Until next time, hope you have long, sweet dreams!

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Kate Wolford was the publisher and editor of The Fairy Tale Magazine for many years. She’s now enjoying being Resident Fairy Godmother.

Unsplash image by Jp Valery.