Page cannot be found Sorry the page you are looking for is not at this address. It's possible the page has been moved or you may have typed in an incorrect address. You might find what your looking for by visiting our A-Z of Services or by using the search box in the top right corner. A-Z of Services University of Utah Healthcare Additionally if you came here due to a broken link let us know and we will work to get it fixed. Sleep used to be for wimps - now, it’s become the ultimate status symbol. As evidence grows that a good night’s rest is essential for health, happiness and success, we’ve become a nation obsessed with the quantity and quality of our slumber. Sales of mattresses and beds rose by 4.5 per cent last year, according to the International Sleep Products Association. We’re investing more time - and money - than ever on luxurious bedding and calming bedroom furniture and lighting, in a bid for optimal comfort. Soak & Sleep has reported a doubling in sales of its 1000-thread-count bed linen in the last year;
The White Company has also just launched its first 1,000-thread-count collection. The tech industry has woken up to the sleep boom, too, with hundreds of apps and wearable monitors to monitor our sleep cycles now available. The latest incarnations are smart pillows, such as the Zeeq, launched on Kickstarter this summer, which tracks your movements during the night, vibrates to nudge you if you’re snoring, and has speakers inside so you can fall asleep to your favourite, relaxing music. Increasing numbers of companies are installing 'nap pods’ to allow employees to grab a snooze when their creativity is ebbing. The trend has no doubt been helped by leading business figures such as Arianna Huffington championing the need for more, better sleep - in her recent book, The Sleep Revolution, she described how transforming her habits to ensure she got eight hours a night made her “a better leader”. In today’s wellness-obsessed culture, cavalier, macho attitudes to sleep seem out-of-date: Donald Trump’s erratic behaviour has been linked by some to the fact he reportedly gets by on four hours a night.
One company capitalising on our renewed fascination with shut-eye is Eve Sleep, which launched 18 months ago promising to 'revolutionise’ the mattress industry. With an eye-catching yellow branding, it is so confident that its 'next generation' memory foam mattress will give a good night’s sleep that customers are invited to order it online, without seeing or testing it for comfort, with a no-strings 100 day trial period. The mattress can be customised to fit any bed and is delivered free, vacuum packed in a box; prices start at £349 for a single and £549 for a double. Over 34,000 people in the UK have already taken up the offer, and the business is growing by an impressive 25 per cent a month; Eve has also launched in Germany, France and the US. READ: The best food subscription boxes “People recognise that sleep is a big part of being healthy,” says Kuba Wieczorek, co-founder and head of brand at Eve. “The proven benefits make customers want to invest in better products.”
Wieczorek, who was formerly head of creative at Channel 4, says his mission was to simplify shopping for mattresses, historically a complex experience: “Being faced with hundreds of options and impenetrable jargon is bamboozling. Taking choice away from people isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” Eve Sleep also sells protectors, pillows and sheets, and later this month is launching a duvet with toggles to make changing the sheets simple and swift. Wieczorek is only too happy to zealously rattle through the supposed benefits of Eve Sleep’s wares (‘We religiously believe in our product because we spent four years developing it before launch’) and the high rates of customer satisfaction (‘less than 6% of people send products back and we recycle all the returns.’). Rapturous reviews on the company’s site back up his assertions that the eve mattress helped his wife, who suffers from a chronic back problem, to sleep better. A sample review reads: “I have had the mattress for two weeks now and it’s not going anywhere!
Best mattress I have ever had, not to mention the best night’s sleep since I was a child. A Telegraph tester who trialled the Eve memory foam pillow was similarly impressed. After initial reservations (‘It is very dense and had a chemical whiff which went after airing for a few hours’) they are now so enraptured it will be packed for a forthcoming holiday. Not everything is rosy in the Eve Sleep world, however. The mattress wars are set to intensify with the arrival of Casper, a bigger, brasher American company which has just landed in the UK, offering an almost identical product and level of service to Eve. Casper, which launched in the US in 2014, has become one of the fastest growing consumer brands of all time, racking up $100 million in sales in 12 months. The company has had significant investment and boasts the star power of celebrity backers including Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. READ: The best mattress toppers , which also specialises in selling mattresses in a box.
Is Wieczorek losing sleep over the increased competition? “I have always slept like a log,” he says jovially. “I think competition is good. We’ve got a head start and are the clear market leaders here.” That bullish self-belief, and the bold claims of superiority on both the Eve Sleep and Casper websites, have ruffled a few feathers among more traditional operators in the industry. Do spring mattresses really cause aches and pains and lose 16 per cent of their support in the first year? The idea that it’s possible to create one 'perfect’ mattress using memory foam has also raised eyebrows. “We sell thousands of sprung mattresses every year and we certainly don’t have problems with customers returning them,” says Caitlin Price, head of furniture buying at John Lewis. “I can understand why they make such bold claims. When you only have one core product that’s sold online you need to make it stand head and shoulders above the rest. “The fact is, there’s nothing better than coming into a shop and talking to one of our very experienced partners who offer impartial advice advice across all the ranges.
Every customer likes to shop slightly differently and no one likes to be dictated to.” Wieczorek acknowledges that Eve Sleep’s mattress is not right for ‘100% of people’ but insists it suits the majority of people who are buying in a risk and stress-free way. “We have removed choice to make life easier, but there are people who will always want to sleep on a sprung or horsehair mattress.” Ever the innovator, John Lewis isn’t just catering for the stuffed mattress brigade and has announced an exclusive deal with Simba, selling its mattresses (hailed as 'the most advanced mattress in the world’) through the John Lewis website. It has also introducing them into a number of stores so customers can try before they buy. “The ‘one’ mattress concept is a good idea for someone who’s time poor and has its place among a number of options,” says Price, “Our staff are specially trained to help people choose what’s best for them. Being able to get everything for a bedroom under one roof is our strength.