Jane Kitchen, editor in chief
We are in the business of selling sleep. We all know that, of course, but I think it’s easy to forget—it’s easy, as contributor Gary James suggests in his cover story this month, to get caught up in good, better, best stories, or price comparisons, or technical details. But in the end, we are all in the business of selling products that help people sleep better, and that’s something to take pride in.
Each month, the amount of sleep news that comes across my desk is astonishing. What recent research has shown us about the way in which sleep affects our health—both mental and physical—continues to amaze me. To be a part of something that helps people to sleep better—well, we might just be saving lives.
That may sound drastic, but when you look at the details of how lack of sleep can put you at risk for heart disease, diabetes, depression, stroke, obesity and more, the bigger picture starts to look a bit different.
As more and more people start to look at sleep as the third pillar in health, along with diet and exercise, perhaps the cultural norms around sleep will start to change as well.
So many of us—perhaps even some in this industry—still view sleep almost as a weakness, and doing without sleep as something to be proud of. The employee who stays up half the night to work on a presentation, or the mom who’s baking cupcakes at 2 a.m., or the executive who takes the redeye home and catches up on emails the whole way—these people are looked on favorably in today’s society. As we start putting more and more of a priority on sleep and its importance for health and safety, perhaps that will change. And as that changes, the conversation about sleep—and about investing in a quality mattress as part of a healthy sleep routine—changes as well.
Are you getting a good night’s sleep every night? Are you walking the walk?
In Gary’s cover story, one suggestion from clinical psychologist Dr. Michael Breus is that RSAs need to be getting enough quality sleep in order to enhance their credibility with customers.
It’s simple but sound advice, and I think it translates well to the rest of us as well.
I’ve always been a big proponent of sleep, and someone who was willing to shell over as much as I could for a quality mattress, long before I ever worked in this industry. Lately, I’m even more focused on it, as age and children have taken their toll on my ability to sleep the sound sleep of my youth.
But I try to exercise each day, get to bed at a decent time, sleep with a light-blocking eye mask, and even recently repainted our bedroom in a soothing shade of the faintest blue, aptly called Sweet Slumber. Most days, I walk the walk of a woman who works for the International Sleep Products Association, and I am an ambassador of the importance of a good night’s sleep.
Some days I’m not—the dog barking wakes me up in the night, a good book keeps me turning pages, or everyday stresses seem like insurmountable problems at 2 a.m. We all have our moments.
And it’s not always easy—sometimes it really does just seem like there are not enough hours in the day. But in the same way that we shouldn’t skip exercise just because our lives gets busy, or sacrifice healthy food just because we get home late from work, we need to make sleep a priority, even when—or especially when—it’s easy not to. We as an industry can help be models of healthy sleep; we can help get that message.
