Sleep to Live store offers new prescription for sleep
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, January 11, 2009
RALEIGH, N.C. — Ethan and Emma each got a comprehensive prescription for a better night's sleep at the Sleep to Live store here. And a new mattress was just part of it.
Ethan (a real consumer whose name has been changed) recently visited Kingsdown's new Sleep to Live store at North Hills here. Just as that uptown retail complex marks a new chapter for what had been a dowdy North Hills Mall, the Sleep to Live store in the warren of retail lanes here aims to break new ground in the mattress shopping experience. Don't call this a mattress store; it is a “sleep science store,” according to Kingsdown CEO Eric Hinshaw. Sleep to Live is a division of Kingsdown.
Ethan, one of the first shoppers to visit that store, found that out after he spent several minutes experiencing the education-packed environment offered up by the 4,800-square-foot store.
He was greeted by a “virtual concierge” when he entered. That welcoming woman, her image projected on a screen at the front of the store, invited Ethan to try out a diagnostic mattress in a screened room. He answered several questions about himself and his wife, Emma, who was unable to join him on this shopping trip.
The diagnostic bed took 18 measurements of Ethan and performed more than 1,000 calculations to determine the sleep surfaces that would provide Ethan and Emma with optimum surface pressure and postural support requirements.
Then Ethan received a printed sleep prescription crafted just for him and his wife. Ethan's recommended bed was sky blue, while Emma's was forest green. Colored panels in the Sleep to Live store helped him find beds with that configuration, tailored to provide the proper body alignment for both sleepers.
But that wasn't all. The prescription also recommended three different pillow types, based on the amount of pressure relief in the beds best designed to meet Ethan and Emma's needs.
And, in a step seldom seen in sleep shops, the prescription also made specific recommendations on behavioral and environmental changes that Ethan and Emma could take to improve their sleep.
Ethan's customized behavioral recommendations, based on information he had supplied earlier about his sleep habits, gave him specific advice:
• “Go to bed at the same time and wake at the same time each day to set your circadian clock.”
• “Don't drink or eat caffeine after 12 noon any day.”
• “Don't take naps in the daytime.”
• “Avoid alcohol after 7 in the evening.”
Emma got some of the same recommendations, based on information about her sleep life provided earlier by Ethan. Since she doesn't take naps, something Ethan enjoys on occasion, she didn't get the admonition about no naps during the daytime.
Ethan and Emma also got a set of specific environmental recommendations to improve their sleep lives:
• “Keep your room dark. Consider using window shades. Close your bedroom door. Don't use nightlights. Consider using an eye mask to limit light in your sleeping quarters.”
• “Keep your room cool. Have different blankets for seasons. Consider using twin sheets and blankets in your queen or king-size bed. Set your thermostat between 68-72 degrees.”
• “Keep your room quiet. Turn the thermostat fan to the 'on' position to mask noise. Don't expose yourself to stimulating sounds such as lively music.”
Kingsdown CEO Hinshaw said that those recommendations are essential to a good night's sleep. “Our goal is to educate consumers about critical components of the 'sleep triangle' — behavior, environment and equipment — and to offer all the tools to apply that learning every night.”
Ethan learned that lesson firsthand, when he received his customized sleep prescription. And although he didn't purchase a mattress, he did take his sleep prescription home with him that night.
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