If anyone’s going to review anything about having good sleep, it’s me! I’ve been on a long quest to find anything and everything that can potentially help me sleep better. Journaling? Tried it. Melatonin? Tried it. Guided meditation? Tried it. Aromatherapy? Tried it. Pretty sure the only thing I really haven’t given a shot is changing up the site of my slumber! Thus, this article.

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Just a little background on my current sleeping state: to put it simply, I find it very hard to sleep at night. I love sleep but we don’t seem to have the best relationship. Sometimes it even comes to a point where I’d fall asleep when there’s sunlight peeking through my windows— and not just on a particularly long day. This has been going on for more than a year now and to be honest with you, I really have been slowly descending into insanity the way I sometimes hype myself to go to sleep. Somewhere along the lines of “You can do it! It’s just sleep! Everyone does it!” Some days, I just kind of accept it and say, “Well, this is the day I don’t fall asleep” right before I pass out. It’s frustrating and it makes me so anxious about the thought of sleeping at night— an unfortunate thing as sleep is one of the best joys one can experience in this life.

As for my sleeping arrangement, I’m gonna be brutally honest and say that I really don’t like my bed! While I’m grateful to even be able to have a bed of my own, that purchase was made in haste. At that time, I had just moved in to my previous apartment and I just wanted to sleep anywhere that wasn’t my make-shift couch bed. Turns out, the couch was better. The mattress was just too hard for my liking and it didn’t have any bounce or support to it. I even had to buy an egg topper just to make it a little more bearable. Sometimes, I’d be so exhausted from a jampacked day but even then it’s still a challenge to fall asleep. So, even when I moved to my current apartment, I still sleep on my couch more than I sleep on my bed. Needless to say, I may be sleeping, but I haven’t been getting quality sleep.

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Which got me thinking: there must be a solution to this. Some other angle that I’m not seeing. I must not be the first person to have trouble with sleep? But what do experts really mean when they say “good, quality sleep”? Is there a metric to it? We asked sleep expert Maria Campos Lopez of Himbing Sleep and Parenting Solutions to give us the lowdown on this topic and this is what she has to say: “Good sleep is when you get enough hours of sleep, it’s consolidated. Then, you wake up feeling rested. You should have enough energy to get through the day. We also go through different stages of sleep, so we need to go through several sleep cycles to get healthy sleep. Each person may need different hours of sleep but generally, we do need the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep as recommended.”

Ria says that sleeping should be intentional, not an afterthought and busts the myth that we can “catch up” on our sleep. “What takes away from good sleep is really not prioritizing sleep in your schedule. We usually put sleep at the end of our to-do list and assume we can make up for good sleep. We can't skip on sleep and catch up over the weekend or the next day.” Furthermore, Ria emphasizes that more than having the right tools for sleeping, having a healthy relationship with sleep is also important. “We assume that if we work ourselves to exhaustion, we will sleep better. This is one of the biggest sleep myths. When we force ourselves to stay awake when we're tired, our body releases cortisol and adrenaline and then it makes it harder to sleep as well.”

Emma

So while I’ll have to work harder on finding out the deeper roots of my sleeping problem, I’ll start with the external factors. Which really just means I’m giving my bed a makeover. For this experiment, our friends from Emma had us try out their Diamond Hybrid Mattress. It’s their newest (and most expensive) model and it features their Emma Diamond Degree® patented technology. It’s also infused with graphite dust for temperature regulation, promises exceptional cooling for deeper sleep, and has memory foam plus 7-zone spring technology to name a few. Now that’s a lot of claims for a bed but I expected nothing less for something that has that hefty of a price tag. Like, 2-3 months’ worth of rent price tag. But if I was going to do this experiment and test out a theory about having the best sleep of my life, it was only right that the variables I use were the best of the best.

I also added local brand Snoozy’s Silk Pillowcase and Deep Sleep Mask in the mix to get me maximum results. Their silk pillowcases are made from hypoallergenic mulberry silk that’s designed for incredible sleep. It also has a cooling effect compared to cotton and bonus: it’s also better for your skin and hair. As for the eye mask, as I mentioned above, I sometimes fall asleep when there’s sunlight already and I don’t have the right tools to have black out curtains in that area of my home yet so this sleeping tool is the best substitute. Plus, this one has adjustable straps so it doesn’t give me headaches.

Snoozy

If I’m being completely honest, I was a bit skeptical. How good can a good mattress really be? In my head, the Emma bed might be just one of those things that you can get the same thing from an item that’s cheaper, and you’re only really paying for the name because it’s the hot product at the moment. But boy was I proven wrong. First of all, the convenience of it being vacuum-sealed, and conveniently packed in a box for easy transportation is amazing. When I slept in that bed the first night, I slept hours before my usual sleep time and it actually did feel cooling. It’s actually getting harder to get up in the morning because I like sleeping in it so much.

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So while we have different habits and relationships with sleep, does investing in quality equipment like a mattress really worth it? Ria approves. She says, “Choosing a good mattress would be a good investment. Good sleep is essential to our overall health- both physical and mental. We have to be able to be well rested to function properly.” So there you go, investment mattresses are expert-approved.

As for my personal take, I also think it’s 100% worth it! I think growing up with four siblings had a lot to do with my feelings towards buying something expensive or investment pieces in general. I think that my mentality has always been more centered on sharing so “enough for everyone” was better than “the best” so I was fine with settling with okay quality. But this experiment might have changed my mind. As I become older, more financially free, and building my own life, buying cheaper products that might easily break is not so appealing to me anymore. I’m also in a position where I can make decisions where my sole thought is me so I think I’m slowly becoming okay with investing in myself. I kind of get how buying something expensive now will benefit me for years. (Pro tip: this particular mattress brand does go on sale every double month so watch out for those deals! They go up to half off.) Like this Emma mattress, for example, I truly believe and hope that this will last me through the next decade! Now onto the sleeping part.

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While I have so much to work on to “correct” my sleeping habits, I truly have never slept better. Together with the investment silk pillowcase and eye mask giving me total darkness (and stops me from looking at my phone until I pass out!), I have fallen asleep much quicker than without all the sleeping aids I have in my arsenal now. I’ve even cut back on my intake of melatonin even more. The more weeks pass, the more the mattress adapts to my body so I’m excited that with wear, it kind of does get better. I used to dread having to go to my bed to sleep at night, but now I actually look forward to it. And as an insomniac, this is a big deal to me. I still have so much anxiety with the thought of sleeping at night but at least now it’s gone from an 8 to a 6. So yes, the mattress is worth it. Just make sure to unbox it in a safe, open place. Take it from me that got swallowed up by it, you’ll thank me later!