Take Your Sleep Seriously

Why you need pillows from the Woolshire

You spend, for argument’s sake, a full third of your life sleeping. Anything you spend 33% of your life doing is obviously very important, even if you aren’t fully conscious when you’re doing it. And yet people are still surprised when I tell them they could revolutionize their health if they just took their bedtime habits a little more seriously.

Consider testosterone, the master male hormone, which men have to thank for libido, muscle mass, drive and a willingness to put themselves in harm’s way to save a cute little kitten when no-one else will. Most of a man’s testosterone is produced at night, so if a man doesn’t sleep properly, he’ll produce less testosterone.

One study, by a researcher called Plamen Penev, showed that if older men double their sleep from four to eight hours a night, they can double their testosterone levels. Just like that. I don’t think there’s another health intervention a man could make that would have such a drastic effect on his hormonal health.

There are many different things you can do—simple things—to improve the quality of your sleep. You can turn off your electronic devices a few hours before bed and start to darken your home, to simulate the natural diurnal rhythms that have governed sleep since time began. You can take a hot shower or bath before bed to lower your core temperature. Really: doing that can send you off to the Land of Nod up to half an hour earlier.

You can change your bedding too. Of course you want to be comfortable, and if your bedding is itchy or too thick, you won’t be and you won’t sleep. But an under-appreciated aspect of your choice of bedding is whether or not it contains harmful chemicals.

Lab mice sleep on corn-cob bedding. A study showed that corn contains a substance that mimics the “female” hormone estrogen, and so lab mice get a huge dose of artificial estrogen while they sleep, through their skin. Enough, in fact, that it can interfere with reproduction and even make them sterile.

There haven’t been many studies of the effects of bedding on human health, but we have every reason to believe most bedding, which is made of synthetic fibres and laced with nasty chemicals like fire retardants, is having a negative effect on our health. Dermal contact—through the skin—is one major route for harmful substances to enter the body, and if you have your face buried in a pillow that’s soaked in fire retardant, you’re inhaling that stuff all night long. Do you want to inhale fire retardant all night long?

But help is at hand. The Woolshire, a wonderful little family business up in Idaho, are making the most amazing organic virgin-wool pillows—not a single synthetic fibre or harmful chemical in sight—and what’s more they’re doing so in a way that benefits their local community and the nation.

All their pillows are handmade, using antique American machinery and local wool that’s milled in one of the longest-running wool mills in the country, in Montana. These pillows are as American as apple pie.

Wool is a superior material, and not just for pillows. It makes you wonder why we ever stopped using it. I’ll let the good people at the Woolshire explain:

“Wool is naturally flame retardant, self-cleaning, and temperature regulating. It retains its loft, is moisture-wicking, and it is very cozy. It has been used by humans for its incredible properties since the Stone Age.”

The Woolshire currently offer two products: their signature Woolshire pillow, with a variety of different fill depths; and a child’s pillow. I’m told they’ll be expanding soon to offer other products, including a travel pillow, a prototype of which I’m lucky enough to own.

All my pillows are now Woolshire pillows and, honestly, I’ve never slept better.

Oh, and before you go to their website and order the best pillows money can buy and then have the best night’s sleep of your life, take this promo code with you. Enter “REN” at the checkout and get 10% off your order. Thank me later.