Hack your sleep
Sleep Better
No beautiful person unpacking the mattress or wine glass on the mattress. In this post, I review what matters most when purchasing a mattress—the COMFORT. For a succinct conclusion, proceed to watch the video below.
Both Koala and Sommuto are excellent companies, with certain edges over one another. For example, in how fast the delivery is, or how seamless company processes are. Discussion on these is for another time. What’s most important for a mattress, is how well one sleeps in it, and not how it was delivered, or other goodies that come with it. These are crucial service components, but secondary to a mattress purchase.
I first slept on the Koala mattress. The foam smell at unpacking was quite pungent but didn’t bother me during sleep time several hours after. It certainly felt different from sleeping on my good Sealy spring mattress. I slept throughout the nights, but still missed my Sealy which I gave away when I moved overseas. The main issue was that I had to adjust to the Koala mattress. I can’t have my arms underneath the pillow, and I have to sleep properly. I need to be in certain positions to feel comfortable.
Then came the Sommuto mattress. At unpacking, the foam smell was significantly less present compared to the Koala. Sommuto claims that manufacturing processes in a vacuum chamber reduce the smell, and that foam blocks are aired in the warehouse before being compressed for delivery. Sommuto’s mattress cover also seems to be of a better quality.
Comes night time, the Sommuto was clearly more comfortable than the Koala. I can sleep in any position, and place my arm underneath the pillow. The lower back is certainly more supported. My persistent back pain reduced after a couple of nights. Due to the generous return policy of both companies, I took the time to swap to and fro between the two, and my opinion remains the same—The Sommuto is the more superior mattress.
For visual and workmanship comparisons, please watch the short video clip.
These are my opinions. I have purchased both mattresses at full price with publicly available discount codes.
You may be familiar with acupuncture. Accupressure mats work similarly. Each circular disk comes with multiple pointed ends that pricks. Lying on an accupressure mat for 15mins to half an hour stimulates blood circulation, relaxes muscles, and promotes faster and deeper sleep.
It takes a few uses to get used to the pricking, but soon you will be loving the stimulation. There's a host of other benefits as well. I love how using the mat gets me to deep sleep faster.
Caution with removing the mat in the dark, as I've accidentally pricked my skin a couple of times.
Available from eBay, Amazon, and under various brands.
Night exposure to our electronic devices, whether for work or play reduces melatonin production which is crucial for sleep. The same reason we are awake and active during daylight is reducing our sleep quality at night--Blue light.
If you must use your devices at night, like what I'm doing right now, you can reduce the blue light emitted through the following software and settings:
f.lux on your computers.
The "Night Shift" function on iOS under Settings -> Display and Brightness.
These settings increase the warmness of your screen, thereby reducing the blue light emitted by the devices and perceived by the brain.
Android OS has a number of Apps that perform similarly, and Android's "Night Mode" should be native soon.
