Sleep and the culture of sleep is our passion. We sell the perfect product for enhancing your sleep: the Beautyrest mattress. But we also keep our ears open for other sleep advice.
This week we came across this quote by Dr. Kelly Glazer Baron: “Most people who have sleep problems spend too much time in bed trying to sleep. If you are spending eight hours in bed and only sleeping six restless hours, why not get six hours of deeper sleep rather than eight hours of fragmented sleep? It’s counterintuitive, but I recommend most of my insomnia patients go to bed a little (or a lot) later.”
Dr. Baron is the assistant professor of neurology and director of the Behavioural Sleep Medicine Program at Northwestern University. His suggestion is interesting, but probably should not be taken at face value.
If you do have problems sleeping, you probably already have anxiety around the issue. There is no sense going to bed early if you are going to fret about not falling asleep. Stay up later and tire your body for a short, but substantial sleep.
Also, if you find yourself staring at the ceiling, praying for rest, remove yourself from the situation. Go for a walk, read in the living room, or have a snack. Return to your bed when your body and mind are more relaxed.
Can’t sleep at night thinking about your less than pleasurable day at the office? Maybe it’s time for a new mattress. Or maybe it’s time for a new job!
Lululemon shocked the social media world this week when they posted a banner ad on the front page of their website advertising their vacant CEO position. “CEO wanted, click here to apply,” is written in all caps. Once clicked, the banner takes visitors to a brief job-posting write-up.
In the job description, the company states: “You report to no one, you are the CEO (duh).”
The post suggests the applicant mirror the following description:
You communicate powerfully, often through Sanskrit
Not only do you lead the organization to create components for people to live long, healthy and fun lives, you know the secret to how they got the caramel in the Caramilk bar
And our favourite:
You voted for Pedro
The company is obviously attempting to have some fun with a fairly serious management dilemma.
Christine Day abruptly announced her upcoming departure from the CEO position on Monday. Day claims she is leaving the company with a five-year plan in place and a vision for the next ten.
The move did scare a few investors, with the stock dipping 18 per cent the day after the announcement.
This is the second scandal that has rocked the company this year. ‘Tansparency-gate‘ highlighted some production problems that needed to be addressed.
Hopefully the Vancouver company will be able to find its course fairly quickly. Maybe with your help!
June is Bike Month in Vancouver, a whole month devoted to two-wheel transportation. Bike culture seems to be exploding in our city where bike lanes multiply like rabbits. A moderate climate keeps riders on the streets later in the year and environmentalists encourage us to permanently leave our four-wheels at home.
To further promote alternative transportation, local organizers have created Car Free Day. This year, Car Free Day lands on Sunday, June 16th. Festivities will take place at four specific locations and one general neighbourhood. The specific locations are Main Street, between Broadway and 30th, Commercial Drive, between Venables and North Grandview Highway, Semlin Street, between Adanac and Venables and Denman Street, between Davie and Robson. The general neighbourhood will be Kitsilano.
There will be fare booths, entertainment and of course citywide rides.
The street parties will close their roads to traffic and so will some of the official block parties. The current location list of block parties being held in Kits can be seen at this website.
If you do plan on attending any of the FREE parties in the city, please, don’t drive your car. Use transit or your own two legs. Bring your bicycle and visit a variety of venues.
Nothing feels better than a lazy summer Sunday on the deck, with a cold drink, a good book and your swimsuit.
Nothing feels worse than a sunburn on Monday morning, that makes you look like you bathed in cherry Jello, has you shuttering at contact of any kind and leaves you wishing you had spent two minutes lathering up with sunscreen.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Don’t make the same mistake twice. Here are a few simple facts about sunscreen and the damaging effects of the sun:
2 million people each year are diagnosed with skin cancer.
The sun admits harmful rays all year round, not just in the summer.
Dermatologists suggest wearing sunblock whenever you go outside for extended periods, no matter what the weather.
Snow, sand and water reflect the sun’s rays and increase the potential for skin damage.
Sunscreen wears off and should be reapplied every two hours.
Experts suggest a 30 Sun Protection Factor or higher (30 blocks 97% of the sun’s harmful rays).
‘Broad spectrum’ protection is optimal.
Sunscreen should always be combined with seeking shade and wearing protective clothing.
Babies six months old and younger should not wear sunscreen. Their skin is far too sensitive for direct contact with the sun’s rays.
Enjoy the warm weather responsibly.
If you do forget to apply, here are some of our tips for treating a sunburn:
Here is a quick survey of how the Greeks started to theorize about sleep:
The Greek philosopher Alcamaeon of Croton penned the first recorded theory on the nature of sleep. He correctly theorized that sleep was the loss of consciousness, but missed the mark when he claimed that sleep was the result of blood vessels filling in the brain. His connection between sleep and the brain would prove to be invaluable.
Less than a century later, Hippocrates, expanded on Alcamaeon’s theory. He proposed that blood left the outer tissues of the body to retreat into the inner organs. This, he claimed, was the reason a sleeping body drops in temperature; a keen observation, but an inaccurate conclusion.
Around the same time Androsthenes, the scribe of Alexander the Great, was observing tamarind trees. He documented the plants natural movement to close its leaves during the night. This is the first recorded documentation of circadian rhythm, or daily, internally controlled, activity.
Next up, Aristotle mused that sleep was connected to physical renewal. This was big! Unfortunately, Aristotle also believed that sleep was the cause of warm vapours rising from the stomach, as a result of digestion. Plato’s finest pupil must have been a fan of turkey sandwiches.
Sometimes, scientific advancement needs to take a step back before moving forward again. In 162 A.D., five hundred years after Aristotle, the physician Galen returned to Alcamaeon’s thoughts and connected sleep with the natural processes in the brain. A big win for the science of sleep
We’ve said it before, but the best wedding gift you can give is a new mattress. The first year of marriage can be draining, as couples try not to rock the often-delicate balance created when two people coexist.
The bedroom can bring unintended complications to a newly married couple. Let’s put aside the physical play and focus this article on the hours spent trying to sleep with another human being beside you.
One of the greatest challenges is differing sleep schedules. It is rare that couples go into a marriage or a relationship with the same preferred bedtime. Finding a happy medium early is a good idea.
A snoring partner is another disruption. Identifying a sleep position that lightens the bear growl is a start. So are earplugs. Sleeping in separate rooms should be a last resort.
Food in bed is also a polarizing topic. Some individuals can’t stand to see their partners snack in bed. Crumbs, stains and smells can infuriate an unwilling mattress snacker.
Finally, some mates still require a peripheral light when falling asleep. Getting used to a light on can take some time.
Your children are your life; Protecting them is an on-going struggle that never really ends.
A child’s teen years are the most stressful for parents. It is the age when they are exposed to counter-culture ideas, their bodies are going through dramatic physical and chemical changes, they are under a huge amount of stress in terms of school and social belonging and they are given the opportunity to step behind the wheel of an automobile, possibly the most dangerous activity they will do in their lives. Throw these all in a pot and stir, then serve over an over-protective creator.
What can we do as parents? Educate. Listen. Support.
If you want to limit the dangers associated with drugs and alcohol, give them all the facts.
Explain their body’s potential for change before it occurs so that they can articulate their concerns when it happens.
Don’t push unreasonable academic expectations.
Talk to them about their social life at school and on the internet.
Pay for driving lessons.
And, most importantly, encourage a healthy sleep schedule. When your child is properly rested they will be much more likely to make reasonable decisions. Their bodies will have more energy to grow and change naturally. They will be able to stay awake during class, at home and when they’re with their friends. And, they will stay awake at the wheel; Drowsy driving is estimated to be responsible for 20 per cent of all car crashes in North America.
But how do you improve their sleep habits?
Three simple ways: Model and encourage consistent bedtimes, limit use of electronics before bedtime, make sure they have a proper mattress that offers adequate support.
Vancouver is listed as on one of top ten bed bug infected cities in North America. As a travel hub, thousands of visitors pass through each year, many of them, unintentionally carrying unwanted pests. These bugs are left in hotels, hostels, friends’ homes and retail stores. They attach themselves to local residents, are transported to homes around the city and thrive once they settle on or around the mattress of a host.
Dealing with these bugs has been a major issue for local health organizations, Vancouver tenants and local homeowners. People have been forced from their homes and have paid tens of thousands of dollars to remove the bugs from their living quarters.
Pest control companies are flooded with daily bed bug calls, often servicing the same location two or three times before the issue is properly handled. As the exterminators refine their methods, the bugs adapt too, creating a hopeless cycle of infestation.
The demand for a more stable bed bug control method has lead local biochemists to invest heavily in the industry.
Two local companies with products on the cusp of launching are SemiosBIO and Terramera.
SemiosBIO has developed a synthetic pheromone that repels bed bugs from beds and luggage. The bio pesticide lasts longer than natural airborne pheromones.
The product will be marketed towards police personnel, medics in the field and other individuals who are forced to enter homes that may be infected.
Sidenote: A good friend of ours is a documentary filmmaker. She picked up the bugs when working on a film in the Downtown Eastside. Her West End apartment needed multiple treatments before she was finally rid of the little terrors.
The other company, Terramera is set to release a product called Cirkil. This product is made of natural neem oil, a product produced from an evergreen tree in India. The oil interferes with the bugs metabolic systems. It can kill 100 per cent of the bugs in an infected area within 24 hours. This includes the eggs. The company is currently developing a travel size product line.
Till their release, consumers will need to continue to exercise caution when sharing beds, visiting local hotels and visiting the DTES. Never accept a mattress from the home of someone you don’t know. Recycle your old bed. When it comes time to buy a new one, shop at Simmons Mattress Gallery in Vancouver.
The first rule of Art Battle: Tell everyone you know about Art Battle. The second rule of Art Battle: Tell EVERYONE you know about Art Battle!
Vancouver has a new performance competition and it ain’t “So You Think You Can Dance.” Artists from around the province are entering the Art Battle arena to compete in monthly live events that pit artist against artist in a live setting.
The battles consist of twenty-minute rounds, where the competitors are given a blank canvas on which to create a speedy masterpiece. Once the time is elapsed, the audience, democratically, votes on their favourite piece. The creator then moves on to subsequent rounds. Each evening concludes with a winner who is rewarded a cash prize and a chance to compete in the national championships in July.
The artists/performers must use acrylic paint, brushes, palette knives and or any non-mechanical implement.
The audience is given free reign to roam the floors and comment on the artistic process. Painters are also given the right to fling paint at any heckler.
Each piece that is created is put up for silent auction and sold to the highest bidder at the end of the evening.
The competition takes place at the Fan Club, at 1050 Granville Street. Last year was Vancouver’s inaugural battle season, with competitions being held at Raw Canvas. The change in venue was needed to accommodate the crowds.
Audio inspiration is provided by DJ SimonSayz.
And remember, if this is your first night at Art Battle, you have to vote.
A new study has found that a lack of sleep can be as harmful as drinking to intoxication. Yet not nearly as pleasurable.
When people are tired they make bad decisions. Their mental processing is slower. And they are worse drivers, causing far more accidents and fatalities.
The more hours we are awake, the more prone we are to making mistakes.
If you have one takeaway about the dangers of sleep deprivation, let it be this: a lack of sleep is killing North Americans. For being a nation of half-walking dead zombies living intravenously through our smart phones, it’s scary to think that we might as well be in the middle ages with everyone half cocked on mead all the time.
If you’ve been up for more than 16 hours, your performance goes downhill. Way downhill. And once you get to about 18 hours without sleep you might as well be 3 martinis in.
In our sleep deprived culture where expectations run high, a lot of us cut corners in the sleep department to make time. Bad call. It makes more sense to do things slowly, methodically, and to get the rest you need.
For a more efficient dream machine, try a Beautyrest. Thanks to individual pocket coils, there is no motion transfer between partners. That means you will fall to sleep easier, and stay asleep longer. There is no point laying wide-eyed on a bed for 2 hours, that doesn’t count towards sleep. You want to be out like a light and to do that you need a comfortable bed. Talk to us, we’ll set you up.
It’s great to have company. When friends and relatives that you haven seen in ages come in from out of town, it’s always fun to catch up, share stories and enjoy each others company.
However, people have their routines. And sometimes a houseguest can disrupt the usual flow. After about four nights, even the most polite and accommodating guests can become a mild irritation and the joyousness of the first few nights can turn dreary.
This is too bad, because with visits so infrequent, it’s best to make the most of the positive times, and eliminate any chance of friction.
The solution, for some, is to have uncomfortable beds for guests. But what kind of host does such a thing? It’s rather cruel.
A better solution is to have a happy, helpful guest. Give them a great bed and they will be inclined to stay longer. Then you can put them to work.
A helpful guest is a great guest. When the pleasantries have all been said, you can get them babysitting the kids, or tending the garden or helping you mend the fence.
The only way to keep a guest around long enough to endure a bit of back-breaking labour is to ensure that they have a soft bed to rest in each night. If your bed is better than theirs at home, you might even secure yourself a free workforce in family help.
There has never been a better time to stock up on comfortable beds for your guests. Simmons Mattress Gallery is having a Close Out Mattress Sale, with beds up to 75% off.
As the name implies, this sale won’t last forever, and once the remaining models are gone, so is your chance at free help around the house.
So don’t delay and visit Simmons at 1001 West Broadway today.
Simmons Mattress Gallery is closing its doors for good.
It’s been great to service Vancouver and Coquitlam (and for a while Victoria and Nanaimo) but the days of SMG are no more.
To make our final goodbye a little less painful (and a lot more drawn out) we hare hosting a Close Out Mattress Sale.
It’s a one-time event that will feature our amazing Simmons mattresses on sale for as much as 75% off.
Everything must go, because once we shut off the lights for the last time, the Simmons Mattress Gallery will left to rest forever.
So, before it’s too late, make your way down to 1001 West Broadway for our downtown Vancouver location or 101 Schoolhouse Street in Coquitlam to find a sale to cap off almost 15 years of business.
This could be your last chance to buy a bed with the Triple Edge that only Simmons Mattress Galleries offer. Because we close SMG, Simmons is going to stop making that product.
And it’s really good one. Plus at 75% off, you can’t go wrong. So take this chance to say goodbye, and enjoy the savings of a lifetime.
It’s one thing to save up to 75% on a brand-new Simmons Beautyrest mattress and a whole other thing to actually visually that money and imagine what you could be doing with it.
If you are getting yourself a Queen-sized bed for under $900, that means you are leaving over $1100 in your bank account – untouched – ready to do oh so many things.
Here are a few things that you can do with an extra $1100.
1. Take the family to Hawaii. Right now there are deals on flights. And kids under 2 travel free. There is no better place to relax after having a newborn than the luxurious Sandwich Islands. Warm sunshine, fragrant breezes, soothing waves – you can imagine it while drifting off in your new Beautyrest, right before experiencing the real thing with the money you’ve saved.
2. Cover your car insurance. Wow, that’s a lot less sexy, huh? But very practical. Rest assured on your new bed knowing that your payments are taken care of for the year. All thanks to Mr. Simmons himself.
3. Put it into RESPs. Your kids will thank you after they graduate, get jobs, raise a family and start putting money aside themselves (yeah, it’s a long process). The 25% top-up from the government makes it the best saving plan out there.
4. Buy another bed. Yeah, we said it. But realistically, when you are saving that much on a quality bed, why not buy one get two free (that’s what 75% off actually is) and get your whole family sleeping well. Just a thought.
For more suggestions on sleeping well or spending wise, drop in our Simmons Mattress Gallery at 1001 Broadway off Oak.
John Cleese was the mastermind behind some of the best British comedy sketches and shows to ever grace our shores.
He was a key and founding member of Monty Python, writing such classics as the Parrot Sketch, the Ministry of Silly Walks and The Spanish Inquisition (where they tortured an old lady with a comfy chair).
He also starred and wrote several incredibly funny movies, including Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life Of Brian, The Meaning of Life and he received an Oscar nod for A Fish Called Wanda.
Then there was Fawlty Towers, possibly the funniest short-lived sitcom ever made.
John has toured the world giving comedy shows and lectures and amused millions with his sarcastic British wit and rubber-like movements.
However, John Cleese is not going to be around forever. And this next Vancouver appearance at the Vogue could very well be his last.
This epic funnyman has always seen the humour in the darkest of times – even while giving the eulogy for fellow Monty Python alum and friend Graham Chapman. (It’s worth the watch.)
However, this time he has his sites set on his own mortality. His latest show is eerily named Last Time To See Me Before I Die.
Let’s hope he’s in good health. And enjoy the show.
You can get your tickets to see John Cleese in Vancouver here.
We are well into Elections Week. And if you haven’t decided who you would like to lead our good province for the next four years or so, now it the time to take action.
There are polling booths set up in almost every community centre in the city, and chances are – the CC that’s close to you is the place where you are supposed to vote.
Thanks to early registration and voting, mobile voting booths, door-to-door canvassing and more press that we ever recall having seen for an election campaign (we are talking TV ads, radio, front cover wraps and even fake news – we’re talking to you Christy Clark, supposed debate winner).
No matter how you slice it, it’s working. People are coming out in record numbers to vote and the official day isn’t even upon us yet. No matter what party you’re siding with, at least people are exercising their hard-fought right to represent themselves – and that’s a good thing.
If you are still undecided and need to sleep on it, then we recommend you do so on a luxurious Beautyrest. Right now we have them on sale for up to 75% off! We’re closing our doors just as new opportunities are opening up.
Rest your mind, think it through, and clear out the cobwebs with a beautiful bed.
One of the most unique buildings in Vancouver is the Marine Building at 355 Burrard Street. Its art deco detailing portrays local marine life, zodiac signs and transportation methods. It is a frosted cake and a giant sea crag simultaneously. It has no match in the City of Vancouver.
Built in 1929 and completed in 1930, the Marine Building was once the tallest building in the British Empire. It remained the tallest building in Vancouver till 1939.
Designed by the architectural firm McCarter and Naime, the building cost $2.3 million to construct. During the build, the Wall Street stock market crashed, signaling the start of the great depression. When it was finally completed, less than a year later, few companies showed interest and a large portion of the suites remained empty. There is little interest in lavish construction when the average company is struggling to survive.
The British Pacific Building Company (of Guiness beer fame) purchased it three years later at a cool price of $900,000.
Over the years the building has seen many tenants come and go. It has also seen a number of feature films and local television programs use the exterior as a set; the Fantastic Four and Smallville both filmed at the Marine Building.
For the average passer-by, the main entrance is enough to catch one’s attention. Inlaid with hand carved depictions of sea snails, skate, crabs, turtles, carp, scallops, seaweed and sea horses, the work resembles an aquatic version of the Chartes arch entranceways. Step back twenty metres and the building’s detailed frosting becomes visible.
Hidden between our modern skyscrapers, the Marine Building has lost some of its awe factor, at least in terms of height. But when you take the time to look at the details, you truly see why it has no equal in Vancouver.
There is nothing quite like the full sound of a vinyl record; no digital recording will ever match it.
Lovers of vinyl know how hard it is to find quality records these days. But fear not! The Main Street Record Fair is returning for its annual swap meet of fine vintage vinyl. The fair will take place on the 18th and 19th of May.
Held at the Cambrian Hall, this two-day event features vendors selling thousands of different records. Each day promises new vendors, with over forty in total.
Along with the selling and swapping of vinyl, the fair has live beats provided by the Knights of the Turntable (knights have no need for computers) and local food trucks. The event costs $2 to enter. If you’re interested in booking a vendor booth, the cost is $60. The tables are 6ft by 3ft and are limited to one per vendor.
The price of admission also qualifies you for a Main Street Meal ticket, a discount card that will reduce your restaurant or liquor bill at a number of Main Street establishments.
While scouring through the stacks, you may run into a local celebrity DJ or two. Nardwuar ‘The Human Serviette’ is a regular at the event.
For more information on the vinyl phenomenon, check the fair’s homepage. The website has a number of cool vinyl related links on topics such as: where to buy records in Vancouver, how to clean your old vinyl, how to hire a vinyl spinning DJ for your next party or private function and how to price your old vinyl (including those stacks of Streisand records you parents left you).
If spending Friday nights on the couch watching “Chopped” with your significant other is the ideal date night, prepare to be excited. The EAT! Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival returns this month. The festival is Canada’s largest foodie extravaganza. This year, it will be held at BC Place over the May long weekend.
The consumer food expo will include celebrity chefs, food from local restaurants, cookbook author appearances and friendly competition.
Attendees will be able to sample food and beverage items from the Bites of Vancouver and Wine and Spirit Tasting, restaurant pavilions.
There will also be a Food Network stage, where stars of the reality food channel will speak. This year’s presenters are Chef Chuck Hughes and Chef Anna Olsen. Local cooks Bal Arneson (The Spice Goddess) and Rob Feenie will also talk.
There will be small cooking classes, where new methods will be taught to amateurs and professionals. There will be classes on liquids and the appropriate wines to pair with a meal. And here will also be the opportunity for consumers to talk directly with the manufacturers and growers of local foodstuffs.
The competition portion of the festival will include two fields: Chocolate Showpiece and Cold Culinary. The cold culinary portion has a number of different subcategories. The application deadline for entering the competition is May 20th.
Prices for each day of the event are: adults $16, seniors $14 and youth $9.
We all try to prioritize our lives around our families, but many of us often forget about our own basic needs in the process. To maintain a healthy lifestyle, fitness, diet and sleep should never be neglected; no matter how many soccer practices you have to attend. Sleep, especially, needs to stay on your constant to-do-list, without it, you’ll crash.
A newborn in the house is the classic reason why many adults neglect their regular sleep schedules.
Late-night crying sessions, feedings and diaper changes can have us up at all hours of the night. Often, these can’t be avoided. When baby calls, as a parent, we have to respond.
But sharing the responsibility is also part of being a good parent. If we take on too much, we run the risk of providing a lowered standard of care.
Try to split the late-night duties with your spouse. Create a schedule and try to stick with it. For single parents, employ the help of a family member or close friend to ease the load.
The same holds true for those of us taking care of an elderly family member. Make sure to split up the duties.
If you’re not getting enough sleep, the loved one you’re looking after is probably not getting the care they deserve. Stay healthy and prioritize sleep. You’ll feel better, you’ll have more energy and your loved one will see the difference in your smile.
If you’re reading this article and thinking ‘lucky me! I’m free of both an infant and a senior,’ you may want to consider helping out someone who needs it. Often our friends and family are too embarrassed or shy to ask for help. Volunteer your services and add a little good karma to your week.
If your daily playing card reads like the stats above, it is time to change your mattress.
A worn, tired out spring mattress will have you tossing and turning trying to find the optimal sleeping position. This is time your brain and body could be resting. Instead, your brain is focusing on realignment alternatives and your body is trying to accommodate.
If it takes you more than ten minutes to fall asleep each night, you need to buy a new mattress.
The stage of sleep, just before REM, is the most important in your sleep cycle. This is the stage when your brain waves are at their slowest. This stage is vital for physical and mental refreshment.
When your early hours of sleep are interrupted, your body takes longer to reach the deep sleep stage. With less hours of deep sleep, you will often wake feeling as tired as you were when you originally laid down.
Again, initial interruptions in sleep can often be blamed on an old or less than adequate mattress. Upgrade and sleep soundly.
When your total hours of sleep are less than seven, you are running a sleep debt. Some of us may intend to get a full eight hours rest, going to bed at a reasonable time, but still we fall short. This is due to nightly disturbances, often caused by our partner’s movements. When we limit these disturbances, we create the potential for longer bouts of uninterrupted sleep.
How do we stop this motion transfer from disturbing us at night? You guessed it: We buy a new mattress.
Simmons Mattress Gallery has a bevy of mattresses to choose from. Visit one of our two Vancouver locations and improve your stats instantly.
Bloomberg’s online periodical had an interesting report this week on men’s pajamas. According to the weekly economist paper, sales in the U.S. for men’s pajama bottoms rose 15% in the last 12 months. Overall, men’s apparel rose 2.4% in the same period. It would seem that the pajama trend is taking off; or should we say, staying on.
In a survey by CivicScience Inc., 18% of men said they wear their pajamas to bed; that means 82% are using them strictly for lounging or dare we say, day wear. It would seem that men are choosing comfort over traditional pants.
And why not? Women have had the Lululemon yoga pants for years. And a pajama pant is much less transparent (just joking Chip).
Men have been held to khakis, jeans and dress pants. A few may have embraced the jogging pant, but compared with pajamas, the style factor is completely lacking. It’s like comparing a solid spring coil flip mattress to a Beautyrest non-flip pocket coil bed; the Beautyrest will win every time.
To stay up with the fashion trend, checkout the Bay for the newest styles in men’s bedwear. If you’re looking to impress, try shopping at Andy Trott Menswear in Kerrisdale. AT carries the Derek Rose line, one of the highest quality pajama manufacturers on the market.
C’mon men! Don’t be afraid to wear them out! We’ve earned our comfy pants.
We love our pets. They offer comfort, increase our desire to exercise and decrease feelings of loneliness when human partners are sparse. All of these things help us sleep at night.
Pets can also be our best friends. We share our living space, our time and even sometimes our bed with our animals. But there are dangers involved with snuggling up to your four-legged companion, especially if that snuggle time is done on your mattress.
A study, set to be published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication put forward by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, indicates that sleeping with your pet can greatly increase your risk of infection due to parasites. The study mentions everything from salmonella to the plague, as diseases that can be transmitted through direct and indirect contact with your pet.
When animals share your bed, they leave behind parasites and fecal matter that spread disease. When we spend eight hours a night on our mattress, the chance of infection greatly increases when a pet shares that same space.
According to the study, over half of pet owners admit to sharing their bed with their animals. The research also showed that women are more likely to share their bed with their pets than men are.
Another surprising statistic is that cats carry more dangerous diseases than dogs, despite the age-old belief that cats are a much cleaner species. One of the most common diseases contracted from pets is cat scratch disease, a bacterial infection transmitted by fleas.
The individuals who are at the greatest risk of infection are young children, especially ones who have not received their immunization shots.
To protect yourself and your family from pet-related diseases, take your animal to the Vet for regular check-ups. Discourage your children from kissing your pets and never let your child lie with your animals. They make look ridiculously cute taking a nap on Rex, but the unseen threat should be more than enough to avoid the photo-op.
In general, you should never let your animal sleep with you. We know you might want to share the incredible comfort of your Beautyrest with your BFF, but it’s just not worth the risk. Make a trip to your local pet store and pick out a luxurious animal bed if you’re feeling guilty. They’ll understand.
A large portion of the population takes in their news at night before they go to bed. We turn on our TVs from the luxury of our Simmons Beautyrests and hear about the world issues of the day. Peter Mansbridge, Wendy Mesley and our local boy, Ian Hanomansing, share their reports and we watch intently. We hear stories about politics, sports, celebrities and world events. Many of these news items are positive, but it would seem a great majority of them are negative.
With climate change affecting the weather around the globe, the world economy in a downward trajectory and more shootings in the US than freckles on Lindsay Lohan’s tired face, the news of the day often plays out like a sad retelling of a Steinbeck novel.
Now the million-dollar question: Is this really the appropriate time in the day to be spoon-fed a large dose of doom and gloom?
One should never put their head in the sand and hide from current events, but hearing about Kim Jong-un’s latest nuclear test, minutes before you turn out the lights, cannot be good for your slow drift into slumber.
Simmons Mattress Gallery would like to boldly suggest that the hours before bed be free of any contact with the news. Read a book to your children, talk to your partner, listen to soft music but avoid any news program that leaves you feeling anxious or upset. You can read about the flooding in Brazil in the morning.
You should really start preparing yourself for rest at least two hours before bed. We know this is hard with the frantic twenty-first century lives that we lead, but it should become a major priority. Securing proper rest provides our brains with the energy to complete a full day’s work, organize our families and enjoy our downtime. Mess with your sleep hours and the gloom that so often is portrayed in the news, will become part of your own reality.
Take in your current events in the morning. Spend your nights with your mattress and not with a Stanley Cup rioter.
Trade deadline has come and gone, and while the Vancouver Canucks were eager to trade the albatross that is former number one goalie Roberto Luongo, at the end of the day, Gillis and the once mighty Canucks were still shackled to Lou’s ridiculous 12 year, $64-million contract. Everyone in the Canuck organization, including Luongo, were hoping a trade would get done, but it wasn’t meant to be; at least not this season.
The silver lining on this story is the move Mike Gillis made two days prior to the deadline. On April 1st, Gillis traded away AHLer, Kevin Connauton and a 2nd round pick in the 2013 entry draft for centerman Derek Roy, from the Dallas Stars.
Roy is a solid center who once posted 81 points in the regular season; that was in 2008. Since that year, his numbers have taken a significant dip, due to injury and second line minutes. In the 2010-2011 season, Roy finished with 54 points.
In the summer of 2012, Roy was traded to Dallas for Steve Ott and Adam Pardy. With the Stars, Roy has posted 22 points in 30 games of the shortened lockout season.
On the international stage, Roy represented Canada at the World Juniors in 2003, at the World Championships in 2008 and was on the initial squad for Team Canada for the 2010 Winter Olympics, before being cut.
Roy is in the last year of his contract and will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.
So those are his playing stats. Not bad. He’s not gonna blow the lights out, but he will hopefully add some stability at the center position.
Now on to the juicy personal details.
Let’s start with the cars. Roy owns a Ferrari 599 GTB and a Mercedes Benz G55.
He wears number nine, but it’s rumoured he will defer the number to its current Canuck owner, Zach “The Kracken” Kassian.
Roy owns a summer beach home in Muskoka on the Lake of Bays. Being a family man, Roy outfitted the ‘cottage’ with two master bedrooms; one for him and his hubbie and one for his parents. His bedroom includes a giant glass shower and steam enclosure in the center of the room. Exhibitionist…
The real prize of the beach home is his custom bed. Decorated with driftwood, the sleep platform was lifted into the house using a crane. Classy. Let’s hope he spent just as much on the mattress as he did on the frame.
Settling into Vancouver may take a couple of weeks for Derek Roy; he’ll need all the sleep he can get. And though he may not recreate a home on par with his Muskoka digs, he will be able to sleep on a luxury bed with the purchase of a Beautyrest Black mattress from Simmons Mattress Gallery. If any of you see him around town, make sure to question him about his mattress. Kidding!
We wish him success with his new team and welcome him to our fair city.
For the twitter users, Derek Roy’s can be followed at @Roy9ner.
There she is, just lying there; probably been on the couch the whole day.While you slaved over reports, answered emails and daydreamed about your Simmons Beautyrest, she was trying to find the best position on the pillow. With feelings of resentment boiling up, you consider withholding her dinner. But after thirty seconds of watching her little ears twitch, you remember how adorable she is and all your bitterness turns to affection.
Your kitty cat’s resemblance to a shiftless loafer is part of his/her DNA make-up. Cats are predators and like larger cats, they do most of their (hunting) in the hours just before dusk and just after daybreak. During the day they spend the majority of their time recharging their energy reserves. It takes a lot of effort to stalk and pounce on unexpecting prey.
In fact, cats spend about fifteen hours a day recharging. Add that up and cats spend about two-thirds of their life with their eyes closed.
Their sleeping patterns consist of two states: deep sleep and drowsing. The majority of the time, cats are in snooze mode. The brain waves are in long rhythms, much like their active conscious brain. They only slip into deep sleep for short, five-minute intervals. The rest of their sleep is spent in a semi-state of preparedness.
If you wonder which state of sleep your cat is in, watch their twitches. If they twitch their ears, they are snoozing. Their ear twitches mean their brains are still monitoring the sounds around them, their bodies ready to spring to action. Paw and whisker twitches usually mean they’re dreaming, a sign of deep sleep.
Another interesting fact about cats and their sleeping patterns is their sensitivity to weather. If it’s cold and wet outside, cats will sleep more. During sunny days they are more active.
Cats also adjust mildly to the sleeping patterns of their owners (roommates). If food is served, you can guarantee they will pull themselves out of their curled-up coma.
So don’t wake her. Let her sleep. There’s stalking to be done later and not the ‘Facebook’ kind.
A Beautyrest mattress is not a traditional coil mattress. It is a single structure made up of over a hundred individual pocket coils. Each one of these coils works independently to provide a mattress that shapes to the contour of your body.
Pioneered in 1925, the pocket-coil design has seen many changes. Today, the Simmons’ coils are made of heavy grade steel. They are wider at the base for added stability and narrower at the top to reduce motion transfer. They come pre-compressed in a non-allergenic, soft fabric pocket.
The pocket coil design eliminates movement disturbances from your sleeping partner and creates a single sleeping surface that cushions each user separately. It prevents mattress sag, reduces spring wear and provides the most comfortable sleeping platform on the market today.
If you have ever spent a night on a Beautyrest, you know the difference. You may not have realized how the coils worked, but you felt the support and slept through the night.
For those of you who have never felt the luxury of a pocket coil mattress… Go for it! Swing in to a Simmons Mattress Gallery location and test sleep the finest mattress money can buy.
The daffodils and crocuses are up; that must mean Easter is almost here.
With less than a week to go before the holiday weekend, Simmons Mattress Gallery would like to pass on a few ideas for vamping up your annual Easter Egg hunt. Here is a list of audible plays for bringing your egg challenge to the next level:
Bubble Bath Hunt (Infants and Toddlers)
-For toddlers who may not get to experience the hunt with their older siblings. Add 2 to 4 inches of bath water to the tub. Include a large squeeze of bubble bath and foam up the tub. Then hide a dozen plastic hollow eggs under the foam. Place your little munchkin in the tub and model the act of finding an egg. Smiles guaranteed.
Garden of Deceit (Ages 3-6)
-Before Easter, take your child around the garden and plant small seeds (these can be anything). If you’re doing it in the backyard, try to spread out the seeds, so the area is a little wider. If you don’t have a back or front yard, use small pots in your living space. Before Easter morning, plant a variety of lollipops in the areas where the seeds were planted. It’s a little bit of a stretch, but so is a big bunny who drops off chocolate eggs. Use the activity to talk about the actual life cycle of plants.
The Tables Are Turned (Ages 5-9)
-Let your kids hide the eggs for a parent hunt in one room of the house. Half the fun is hiding them, so let your children in on it. Be careful, kids don’t always remember where they hid all the chocolate. Prepare to find a moldy egg during your May spring clean.
Code Breaker (Ages 8-15)
-Give your kids riddles and written clues to direct them around the house or your garden. Have them work together or on their own. This hunt is heavy in prep work, but rewarding as a parent.
Alien Eggs (Ages 10-16)
-Use glow in the dark paint to decorate plastic eggs. Wait till dark and then hide the eggs in the garden or around the house. Before you start the hunt, make sure to visit each cluster of eggs with the flashlight for a glow top-up. For prep, have one parent take the kids out for dinner, while the other hides the eggs.
-Using Google Maps, create a bike map around your neighbourhood. You can drop pins on different places along the map route. Hide different items at the pin points. We would not hide candy or any edible item, as it may be tampered with. You can combine this hunt with code breaker. For the kids to use Google Maps, they will need a smart phone, but what teenager doesn’t have one these days.
You wouldn’t build a skyscraper without building a solid structural base. You wouldn’t start a marathon without lacing up your shoes. You wouldn’t plant a garden without weeding first. So why do some people still believe they can plan a productive day without eight hours of decent sleep the night before?
It doesn’t make sense! if you want to be at your best, you need sleep. The stronger the base, the better.
How do you secure optimal rest you ask? Here’s a quick checklist for the ideal conditions:
Follow these steps and you’ll sleep till daylight. Neglect one and you could toss and turn for hours.
Need extra sleep security? Invest in a Beautyrest. It’s like the perfect pre-game meal. Start the day with vigor; plan for success; secure eight hours a night minimum.
“Even if those apps are as useful as they claim, I don’t think it is wise to use them. Having cell phones on the bed exposes people to electromagnetic field at close quarters and no one can say if this exposure will not cause a health risk.”
Our advice is to keep your device at a two-foot minimum distance from your head and use the apps only as a last resort.
If you are experiencing problems falling asleep, try the benefits of a new Simmons Beautyrest mattress. You won’t believe how much difference the right mattress can make.
Come into our mattress showroom and take advantage of our 75% off sale on all in-store mattress Vancouver may be swamped with digital hand puppets, but very few citizens are spending their nights on the perfect mattress. Be one of the privileged and skip past the technology-tethered crowds.
Vancouver’s signature yoga pants are causing quite a stir in the news, as the ever-popular Lululemon chain has pulled their black luon pants from their shelves. The reason: ‘over exposure’ (we thought that was the point).
The Vancouver chain issued a press release on Tuesday, claiming that 17 per cent of their woman’s bottoms were affected by a fabric malfunction. The company insists that the problem is being handled internally and plans are already in the works to replace the removed inventory.
Lulu is offering a full refund for anyone who purchased the black luon pants after March 1st.
The revealing fabric story is getting global coverage and some believe, the press release may be more of a marketing ploy than a public apology. Lululemon claims that they pulled the pants after their store managers expressed concern over the ’sheerness’ of the fabric. But if no external body or individual had a problem, why the apology? Things that make you go hmmmm…..
We would never try such a tactic with our mattresses. We take too much pride in their design and the quality of sleep they provide to our valued customers. We stand behind every Beautyrest mattress in our showroom; that is when we’re not lying on them on ourselves (occasionally in our yoga gear).
There is no shortage of aromatic coffee shops in Vancouver Mattress retailers have a love/hate relationship with the wicked brown bean. It gets us out of bed, but it also keeps us from it. Most sleep specialists recommend not drinking coffee up to 8 hours before bedtime. But given that most if us try to be lights out by 11, why are coffee shops so packed at 5?
We have an insatiable desire for caffeine. Workers are expected to be productive all day long. A slump is inexcusable, especially an hour before quitting time when the crunch comes to get everything done before the drive home. So what is our answer? The dangerous 4 pm pot. We know it’s a bad idea, and that it’s going to mess us up until midnight. But we can’t help it! We’re addicted.
Western society has a chemical ritual that us echoed through the halls of banks, schools, and government offices – caffeine, sugar, alcohol, sleep aid. It’s terrible for our health, and could all be remedied, with simply a good sleep.
With a proper brand name mattress designed to your comfort preference level, you can sleep soundly every night, wake up with coffee, have the jump to exercise (and thus no longer depend on sugar and carbs to get your rush), be more relaxed, wine free, in the evenings, and perfectly sleepy by 11 that evening.
The right bed can solve your diet & health worries all in one go.
Vancouver has been named the Earth Hour Capital by the World Wildlife Federation (WWF). This is quite the honour for our city, as we pride ourselves on blue skies, bike lanes, and air so clean it made Air Care moot.
Vancouver beat out five other cities to claim the Earth Hour prize, including green enclaves in Sweden, the States, India, Italy and Norway. The ceremony was held in Malmo, Sweden last Tuesday.
In order to win, the judges wanted to see a city that was devoted to the idea of combating climate change through green initiatives. Vancouver, with its goal of becoming the greenest city in the world, fit the bill nicely.
This honour is a testament not only to governing policies that appear to be working, but also the residents of Vancouver, who have embraced everything from car-sharing, to bike to work programs, to incredible recycling initiatives to keep our new city looking fresh.
Even little old Simmons Mattress Gallery is trying to do its part. Mattress recycling didn’t exist a few years ago, now it is a reality. We have even introduced a program called ‘Trade In and Trade Up’ where we will recycle your old mattress for you while delivering (and assembling) your new one.
Other ways that Vancouver is attempting to be the World’s Greenest City by 2020 is by making buildings carbon neutral, expanding green jobs, and ensuring that residents make it to work at least 50% of the time on bike or public transit.
Today (March 18th, 2013) the BC Government announced that any couple, hetrosexual or otherwise, that has been co-habiting a home for two years or more is officially married in the eyes of the law.
Common law partners will see an equal division of assets, visitation rights with children as well as a sharing of debt should they separate. They will be given the same power of attorney as married couples, the same rights of not testifying in court if it came to that, and the same status in the eyes of the CRA.
However, this supposed equality comes at a price. What of those who don’t want to be ‘married in the eyes of the law’? What ever happened to making your own decisions on what the nature of a relationship should be? Can we expect to see a slew of crazy court cases between jilted exes and roommates in the next few months?
In the world of mattresses Vancouver stores are anticipating an influx of couples buying new beds. After all, in for a penny, in for a pound, and if your two-year shack-up has turned into a full-blown marriage, you might as well splurge on a good bed.
Right now Simmons Mattress Gallery has Beautyrests on sale for up to 75% off. It’s a Close Out Sale and if you get your roommate, er girlfriend, rather wife down here with you, it’s the perfect time to choose a luxurious bed for your ‘honeymoon’ and happily ever after.
That rainbow-bricked model of Optimus Prime that you made when your were eight; the one you refused to disassemble because of its pure beauty; the one you warned your mother never to throw out; the one you sneak up to see whenever you visit your parents; well, there might finally be a stage worthy of its blocked magnificence.
On Sunday, April 28th, the Vancouver Lego Games will commence at the Firefighter’s Club in Metrotown. The games will feature two events: ‘Ready, Set, Build!’ and ‘My Own Creation’. All proceeds will go to Canucks Place Children’s Hospital.
The ‘Ready, Set, Build!’ event will give contestants one hour to build an original creation. Contestants will be given a theme and a set number of Lego pieces to work with. The builders will compete in pre-defined age brackets. And yes, there is an adult category, but that doesn’t mean adult themed entries.
The second contest, ‘My Own Creation’, has far less pressure. Contestants can bring one original creation to the games and submit it. Their piece must fit in a one-foot square base and be no higher than two feet. The primary build must be made entirely of original Lego parts. The subject matter is open to the contestant. Again, keep it PG.
The judging will be done by Robin Sather. Sather is the only registered Lego professional in Canada. We’re sure his father, Glen (Sather), is very proud. Not quite the hockey career the old man envisioned for his son.*
The cost to enter either contest is $10. Spectators will be asked to pay $3. But remember, all the proceeds will be going to charity. So bring the whole family, register your finest talent and enjoy the show.
Making the bed in the morning is not a task that most of us enjoy. There is that wonderful snooze button that we love to tap so much. There is breakfast to be made, make-up and hair to be done and kids to get off to school. But if we take the time, making the bed can have its rewards.
The following is a short list of the benefits of making your bed before you head out the door in the morning:
We all need a kick-start in the morning, one more reason to ‘not’ press the snooze button. Knowing you need to make the bed will get you up and out of your bed earlier. This will lower your morning stress and reduce your tardiness at the workplace.
Making your bed in the morning instantly builds self-esteem. It’s one completed task done. Model this activity daily and your children will follow. You will both leave the home on a positive note, ready for whatever the day has to offer.
Dust and dirt are less likely to get between the sheets of a made bed and no one likes the idea of falling asleep on a layer of dust.
Those sheets you spent over a hundred dollars on look much better tucked in to your mattress Vancouver is such a small city, that you don’t know who will drop-by later in the day. It could be your mother-in-law or the gossipy couple from down the block. You can’t show off your luxury mattress, so why not show off your luxury sheets.
A made bed is much more inviting for after-hours fun. There is nothing sexy about rolling over a pile of unmade sheets.
It’s one less task to do at the end of the day. Chances are, if you wait till you go to bed to tuck in your sheets, it won’t get done.
For single men, a made bed seems much more attractive to a woman companion. It shows cleanliness, focus and responsibility, all traits that most women find appealing. (No science behind this, just experience)
Science: The National Sleep Foundation found that people who make their bed sleep longer and feel better about going to sleep.
Finally, Sleeping in a made bed is more comfortable. We all enjoy comfort. That’s why we sleep on Beautyrest mattresses, buy down pillows and choose soft bedding fabrics. A made bed is a comfort platform. Don’t deny yourself the benefit of a comfortable sleep.
This week, around the water cooler, we started making a list of the top sounds we enjoy falling asleep to. We had quite a bit of fun making our list, so we thought we would share it on our Simmons Mattress Gallery blog. Here’s our top five from our brief staff chat:
5. Rain on the Window
There’s something extremely comforting about snuggling into a warm bed, when the weather outside is miserable. Tonight is a perfect example…
4. Classical Music
Not all classical music, but most, has a flow that is conducive to sleep rhythms. And yes, we may have used that as an excuse for falling asleep at the symphony. But a soft orchestral movement, with no lyrics to cloud it, acts like a movie score, when it’s time to head for the mattress. It sets the mood, reduces tension and offers a tempo to unwind to.
3. Waves Against the Shore
This is obviously not something that all of enjoy on a daily basis, but those few romantic nights spent at the beachfront cabana in Mexico, bring back memories of drifting effortlessly into dreamland.
2. Wind in the Trees
Much like the rain, the wind is a wonderful sound to sleep to. Unless, of course, it’s rattling the shutters or threatening to blow the front yard Elm down.
1. Your Partner’s Heartbeat
Yeah, yeah, yeah…we went there. And maybe for some, it might seem like romantic hogwash, but after discussing it, we all agreed that the soft, slow rhythm of our partner’s heart was the most comforting sound we could listen to in bed.
And to avoid the cynical retorts, here’s a list of some of our least favourite sounds:
We all know the effects of the holiday bird on our bodies; A couple helpings of turkey and it is lights out. But what about the dangerous foods that keep us awake at night. This week Simmons Mattress Gallery would like to pass on a list of foods to avoid before bedtime.
Chocolate: A small piece for dessert is acceptable, but an entire bar can contain as much caffeine as a can of pop.
Pizza: Those extra slices you’ve been saving from dinner are not an advisable snack before bed. Fatty foods can interrupt your circadian rhythms, disrupting your natural sleep cycle. An overly greasy dinner can also create symptoms of discomfort that can affect your sleep hours later.
Red Meats: Protein rich diets are deadly for those of us with trouble sleeping. Your body works hard to break down the proteins in red meat, complicating the digestive process. With added work, comes less rest and a higher chance of stomach discomfort.
Spicy Foods: If you love to add Tabasco or other hot sauces to your dinner, you could be doing your sleep a disservice. Spicy foods increase our core temperature, creating a warming sensation that can confuse the brain. They also increase the chance of heartburn.
Citrus: Oranges might seem like a nutritious nighttime snack, but the added acidity can make our stomachs
Coffee: We shouldn’t even need to mention it, but the late-night caffeine hit is a bad, bad idea. No matter how much you love the taste of it, coffee should not be an evening indulgence. Even a cup at 4 p.m. can affect your sleep.
Did you also know that when our bodies are sleep-deprived, our appetite increases and therefore our potential for weight gain? We also start to crave the items that offer spikes in our blood sugar, like soda pop, McDonalds and other salty-sugary treats.
Break the vicious cycle by giving your body adequate amounts of rest and you will be less likely to crave a bag of chips at 8:30 at night.
For improving your sleep, try a glass of milk or a mug of tea before bed. Some even suggest a sandwich. Preferably one padded with the aforementioned gobbler.
Can’t afford the cost of traveling to Southern California to take in the Coachella Music and Arts Festival? Missed the insanely quick ticket sale for Sasquatch? Well Vancouverites, you’re in luck. The Squamish Valley Music Festival is back for another year with possibly its best line-up yet; no-fun city, we think not!
Starting on the 8th of August, the Squamish Festival will open its gates to the music loving masses. With three days of bands from around the globe, this year’s festival promises to be as big as the 2008 Pemberton Festival – If you missed out on that epic weekend…well, we won’t rub it in.
This year’s headliners include Queens of the Stone Age, Vampire Weekend, Band of Horses, Dan Mangan, Jurassic Five and the insanely popular duo, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. But if you have to go for one band only, check out Gogol Bordello. They will have you dancing to accordion rhythms, screaming for purple and wondering why you were ever scared of gypsies!
Camping passes are available for onsite tenting. Mattress Vancouver suggests commuting. Carpool with friends, save the environment and spend your nights resting on your Beautyrest. Spending three nights on a Therm-a-Rest, while thrashing your days in the mosh pit, is hard on the body. Get some sleep and smell better than the greasy dude beside you.
Regular weekend tickets go on sale this week at the festival website for $149. Single day tickets will go on sale once the schedule has been confirmed, possibly in a few months.
Over the years we’ve had a number of customers ask us about what is the appropriate age to give a child a pillow. Not being doctors, merely mattress experts, we consulted a few online forums frequented by new moms.
According to our research, most pediatricians suggest two years. Any younger than that and the child is probably sleeping in a crib. Adding items to a crib setting can be dangerous, so leaving the pillow out till your child has a ‘proper’ bed is probably the right decision.
When your child does make the move, offer them a contoured pillow designed for infants. This will encourage the natural alignment of their spine.
Try to find a firm foam pillow that is anti allergenic. Feather or down pillows should be avoided at all costs. They offer little support and are conducive to unwanted dust mites. Never substitute an adult pillow for a toddler.
If you’re worried about your child’s positioning, monitor their sleep while napping and see if the pillow is being used properly or if it is having a negative impact on their rest. There will always be a small chance that your child could windup with the pillow over their heads, so the flatter the better.
If your child is sleeping fine without a pillow, even when transitioning to a bed, don’t feel rushed to introduce one. They can be helpful with congestion, children suffering from earaches and light sleepers, but if your youngster is expressing no desire for extra softness, don’t introduce it until needed. It may seem weird to see your child sleeping without a pillow, but that is nature’s way.
We hope this has been helpful to you new moms out there.
If you have further questions, please direct them towards your family doctor. All other mattress inquires, send to us.
It’s the first time all week that the whole family has had a chance to sit down to a meal ‘together’. Everyone is laughing and sharing stories from the last few days. Michael, your middle child and amateur-comedian, begins a retelling of his first day at Volleyball practice. He is in the middle of describing a fish-in-a-net metaphor, when the doorbell rings. It’s a young man selling yard work. He is nice enough, but his sales pitch soon accelerates. His forcefulness ruins your mood and you return to the table slightly bitter. Two minutes later the phone rings; it’s your local incumbent or one of her people, asking for your support in the next election. You remind the caller that it’s dinnertime and excuse yourself. When you get back to the table, Michael has finished his story; the plates are being cleared and the moment has passed.
At Simmons Mattress Gallery, we are not about the pushy sale. We respect your family time; we know how important it is. That’s why we blog each week. We create simple short pieces that you can read at your leisure. Articles that inform, entertain and express our enthusiasm for improving the sleep of others. We also like to keep you abreast on all the fun things happening in our fair City of Vancouver.
The majority of our submissions include one or more reasons why a mattress purchase at Simmons Mattress Gallery is a smart decision. Rarely do we include all the reasons in a single blog. But that’s what we would like to do this week; a short list of the top ten reasons why you should buy a new bed from Mattress Vancouver.
So, without the pressure, here’s our list:
10. They’re on Sale
If you haven’t heard, we’re having a clearance sale. It’s massive! And all our beds are on sale, some of them up to 75% off. Why so low? Because we’re liquidating our stock.
Get eight hours or more of rest each night and your physical appearance will mirror your added energy. We can’t promise you’ll take on Beckham’s high cheekbones or Jennifer Lawerence’s dimples, but your natural features will take on new highlights. More energy, means more smiles.
When we’re tired we get cranky. Fact. Sleep more and you will be more patient with others. Improve the bed you share with your partner and you will both reap the rewards.
No one wants to get romantic on an uncomfortable bed. Sure, in the moment of a passion, any horizontal surface will do. But for prolonged satisfaction, a new mattress will give you more excuses to retire early and more time on the bed means more opportunities for fun.
We’re not IKEA. We specialize in one thing: Mattresses. The mattress professionals working at Simmons Mattress Gallery know their trade inside and out. Bring all your questions to our showroom and receive the exemplary service that SMG has become famous for.
Saving the planet should be one of the top concerns of every human sharing the beautiful setting we know as Earth. Reusing household items is a way of eliminating waste. Unfortunately, with mattresses comes the risk of spreading bugs. The solution: proper mattress recycling. Buy your mattresses new and recycle your old one. Don’t bringing bugs into your home.
We sell a superior product. A Beautyrest Mattress is made of non-flip pocket coils that work individually, rather than as a single mattress spring. This unique feature provides motion separation from sleeping partners. Simmons Canada also provides a 10-year warranty on all of their beds. The fabrics used to top a Beautyrest are a mix of a cotton, wool and silk blend. There are multiple options for firm or plush support, as well as a variety of comfort profiles. The full line of Beautyrest mattresses is available at Simmons Mattress Gallery.
Get more sleep and improve the quality of your family time. Rested kids, results in fewer tears, which equals happier parents. Spend more time laughing and listening to Mike’s stories.
The evidence is there in the research. A solid sleeper is less likely to succumb to age related health problems; Less likely to develop breast cancer; Less likely to suffer anxiety as a young adult; Less likely to develop type 2 diabetes. An individual who avoids sleep debt is more likely to excel at physical sports; More likely to resist weight gain; More likely to maintain a strong immune system; and more likely to exercise.
The final trailer finishes, you’re reminded (once again) to turn off their cell phones, the lights dim further, you take a final handful of popcorn, shimmy further into your personal recliner and prepare yourself for two-and-a-half hours of Middle Earth. Fifteen minutes later you’re dozing deeper than Dorothy in a poppy field.
What is it about modern film that is putting audiences to sleep?
Is it our overstuffed modern lives?
Between work, family commitments, gym guilt, engagement parties, and Facebook updates, no one has time to squeeze in naps anymore. When given the chance to sit quietly, our body must instantly assume it’s bed time.
Or maybe it’s the running time of these new three-hour epic dramas and sci-fi adventures?
Should we go back to the days of an intermission? They might sell more popcorn; and you know that’s where the real money is (‘Sorry, you want nine dollars for that bag of seeds and butter flavouring?”).
Or, could the answer simply be the advancement in personal comfort (the seat)?
The last cinema we visited, the chairs were so plush they reminded us of the Beautyrest Black. Give moviegoers a hardback, high school auditorium chair and a not a soul will slumber.
One of our colleagues has suggested that it’s the removal of dialogue.
Modern films are so intent on impressing their viewers with 3D technology, CGI blending and overproduced audio, that they forget the simple exchanges. Colonel Kurtz, explaining the will of an enemy, so dedicated to their cause, that they will hack off the inoculated arms of children, speaks more about the failure in Vietnam than any jungle battle scene.
We’d be interested in hearing your points. Send us your comments: Why do you fall asleep at the movies?
In just over a month, the stars of Bollywood will descend on Vancouver for the Times of India’s Film Awards. The three-day event will feature a Musical Extravaganza, a film screening night, a technical awards show and a red carpet awards evening.
Shah Rukh Kahn, Ranbir Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, Katrina Kaif and a number of other Bollywood megastars are attending this year’s event.
The festivities begin with the musical night at the Pacific Coliseum on April 4th and conclude on April 6th with the final awards night being held at the much larger BC Place.
A different country hosts the TOIFA awards each year. There is hope that the attention of the Bollywood film world might reignite the floundering BC Film Industry by luring studio interest and potential overseas investment. The Bollywood industry in India already produces more films per year than any other country.
With one-fifth of Canada’s 600,000 South Asian population living in Vancouver and the surrounding suburbs, the city was a natural choice for the awards gala weekend.
If you plan to attend any of the events, you may want to start saving your money now. Tickets for the final awards night will range from $47 for upper bowl tickets to $1,523.75 for floor seats. Ticketmaster is selling premium ‘package’ ticket bundles for $3,273.75 that include the best available seats for both the musical night and the gala final evening.
Organizers are estimating the awards show will generate from between $13 million to $18 million in tourism and event production.
It’s the lead-up to Oscars week and to celebrate, Simmons Mattress Gallery is posting three film related blogs.
Everyone knows the physical manifestations that occur when we miss essential hours on the mattress Vancouver streets are full of busy professionals who have neglected their eight hours. The signs: red eyes with dark shadows beneath, colourless facial tones, lack of proper posture and irrational irritability.
But in the movies, it’s often the work of a trained makeup artist that transforms a beautiful face into a haggard, sleep deprived, sunken eyed workaholic.
5. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort in the Harry Potter series
Barely recognizable as the new ‘M’ in Skyfall, the make-up team for Harry Potter removed Fiennes masculine lines and replaced them with a featureless face, void of hair or a proper nose. Voldemort may have been missing for years, but he certainly didn’t spend his time catching up on rest.
4. Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La vie en Rose
For Marion Cotillard’s transformation, the artists brought back the star’s hair line, removed her eye brows and accentuated her eyes. The ‘Little Sparrow’ took flight and Cotillard was able to depict her life from a young teen to a middle-aged woman.
3. Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady
Mark Coulier was responsible for Meryl Streeps physical transformation for her role as Margaret Thatcher. The star was in make-up for two-and-half hours each day before filming. The transformation included false cheekbones, a silicone nose, dentures and elastics on her wrists to swell her veins.
2. Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button in the Curious Case of Benjamin Button
We can just imagine the initial discussion between David Fincher and his makeup team: “So we want to portray Pitt as an eighty year-old baby. You think you can do that. Good. Then we’ll need you to make him an eighty year-old child. Oh… and scattering of years in between. And yes, it’s Brad Pitt, one of the most recognizable faces on the planet. Good luck.”
1. Charlize Theron as Aileen in Monster
With the actors above, you could always see a trace of their original features. The makeup and performances were incredible, but you knew who was behind the prosthetics and coverup. In Monster, the illusion was so complete, that without being told it was Charlize Theron, audiences would never have guessed that the actress was the same beauty seen alongside Keanu Reeves in the Devil’s Advocate years earlier. Beauty removed, Charlize became one of the most hatable antiheroes ever in American cinema.
With Valentines only a few days away, the Simmons Mattress Gallery is full of romantic ideas to turn your bedroom into a symbol of your shared love.
Now, our ideas are intended to be romantic gestures that will last beyond the fourteenth; No rose pedal trails or edible underwear. Our suggestions are crafty projects for prolonged romantic enjoyment. That’s our waiver and we’re sticking to it!
So if you feel like your bedroom could use a romantic makeover, try one or all of the suggestions below.
More Than Just a Frilly Fort: The Homemade Canopy.
You’ve always wanted one. They’re every girls dream, but they can also provide an intimate chamber for you and your partner. They can be made as easily as installing ceiling hooks and draping thin fabric or as complicated as the construction of the beautiful bed below. At the very least, they add a theatrical touch to your sleeping space. The roles you take on when the curtains close is up to you.
Words of the Heart: Romantic Message
Words are the keys to the heart. Choosing the right ones is a delicate matter. A classical sonnet, written above the bed in your own handwriting can be a beautiful reminder of the power of language. Even a simple phrase can ignite nightly emotions: “Always kiss me goodnight.”
Country Creativity: Kitchen Spoon Candelabra
What you need: mounting board (something antique looking or painted wood), a variety of tablespoons (the ornate the better), a drill (with a bit for cutting through stainless steel), small screws and tea candles (amount should match your spoon count). Take the spoons and bend them where the stem meets the bowl making a 90-degree angle. Then mount the spoons using the drill and screws on your board. Hand on you wall, add candles, light and voila – a homemade candelabra.
The Globe and Mail recently published an article about methods for decreasing the stress levels of teenagers. It contained the usual, lower their social media contact and avoid creating unrealistic expectations (unintentionally ironic), but it also included some fresh suggestions that parents might consider to improve their teen’s overall confidence and self-worth.
One of the more interesting suggestions was ‘find your teen an auntie’. Research shows that young women benefit from the unbiased advice of an older woman. For many reasons, teens often feel that their mother is too close to be a proper confidant. Sometimes they seek wisdom from an educational role model, such as a counselor, classroom teacher or coach. And in some cases, they reach to an aunt.
These relationships are important because they allow teens to discuss peer groups openly. They also allow for discussions on gender roles, anxiety issues and sexuality. The adult in this relationship does not need a counseling degree, just an ear (preferably two) for listening and an open mind for responding to any issues with tact and understanding.
If teens do not have an aunt figure that can fill this position, a friend of the family can play the same role. In Britain, groups of mothers are offering this service to the daughters of their friends. These surrogate sounding boards can relay any red flags that may appear.
The articles other suggestion involves the encouragement of sleep. Parents can load their children with so many expectations, that they forget the simplest need: sleep. If your teen wants to take a nap after school, let them. A nap will improve their post-dinner studying and overall demeanor. It is also extremely important to be hyper diligent about encouraging an earlier bedtime during the school week. A great way to do this subtly is by modeling. Cut out an hour of television and head to bed at the same time your kids do.
An extended sleep schedule will help your child focus, preform up to their athletic potential and increase their ability to control their fluctuating emotions. All good things.
If they are struggling to fall asleep at your suggested time, improve their sleep with a new bed. Nothing spells stress relief like a comfortable mattress Vancouver teens need your help. Good luck.
An Aunt hugs like a Mother, Keeps secrets like a Sister. And shares Love like a Friend.
This month, Vancouver is having a unique competition between restaurants. The challenge, the ultimate poutine, with twenty Vancouver diners, bars and bistros competing. Surprisingly, Fritz and La Belle Patate (both on Davie Street) are not entered in the competition.
The heart attack platter will be served as a feature from February 5th to the 28th. Voting will take place between February 26th and March 2nd.
For the uninitiated, poutine, at it’s base level, is fries, cheese curds and gravy. But ask any Canadian worth their flannel shirt and you’ll receive a detailed breakdown of what it actually takes to make the perfect poutine.
Some of us are fond of adding pulled pork, others peas, some say it needs turkey gravy, while others swear by beef. Some of us like our fries to be crispy, so we eat it immediately, while others prefer a more saturated fry base. Some even enjoy mozzarella, over the traditional cheese curd staple.
What is a cheese curd you ask? Cheese curds are small bite size portions of fresh soft cheddar cheese coated in a thin layer of fresh milk. They are intended to be eaten on the same day they are made. A true connoisseur knows that the cheese should have a squeeky texture, similar to bocconcini balls.
The origins of Canada’s unofficial national dish are a little hazy. A number of Quebec towns claim to be responsible for the initial mixing of frite sauce (gravy) and crottes de fromage (cheese curds) atop of bed of fries. The two with the most substantial claim are Warwick and Drummondville.
Over the last fifty years, the mish-mashed dish has slowly made its way across Canada.
Now, for the second year in a row, Vancouverites are asked to vote on their favourite ‘thousand calorie‘ plate. Be careful judges; always remember to eat with a partner.
Have you ever attended an afternoon staff meeting with a keyboard imprint on your face? Have you ever received more than $5 dollars at the bottle depot for your Red Bull empties? Have you ever taken a quick catnap in a bank line-up? If you answered yes to any of these, it’s time to do something about your sleeping situation.
First off, you need to catch up on your sleep.
Drive, walk, grab a bus, rent-a-bike just get to a Simmons Mattress Gallery location as quick as you can. We have plenty of Beautyrests in our showroom and this is an emergency. We’ll give you one at the back of the gallery and dim the lights. It’s yours for the morning / afternoon / fortnight, whatever you need.
Once you’re rested we’ll talk mattress replacement.
We know it’s hard to part with items you may have built up an attachment with, but it’s time to get rid of your old mattress. Right now! There are people who will take it away.
Now, let’s get down to replacing it.
Inform a Mattress Vancouver employee about your personal sleep preferences; ie. firm or soft. Next, let the mattress professional suggest a bed that will meet your sleep needs. Finally, pay for the bed and enjoy.
You will never again hear the phrase: “Are you going on vacation, cause it looks like you already packed your bags beneath your eyes.”
They’re just words… Words you’ll never hear again!
Chinese New Year is approaching and a number of local businesses around mattress Vancouver are celebrating by offering Year of the Snake special features.
The Urban Tea Merchant, at 1070 West Georgia, is preparing a unique tea service to celebrate the days leading up to the February 10th celebrations. The tea service includes a three-tiered tasting platform of savory and sweet delicacies, paired with signature TWG tea blends. Simmons Mattress Gallery suggests the Jade Dragon Tea and the Peking duck crepe.
For the uninitiated, Chinese New Year is the most important festival in the Chinese calendar. It marks the end of the winter season and the start of the New Year. This year’s Chinese zodiac sign is the snake, replacing the dragon days of 2012.
During Chinese New Year celebrations, married couples give red envelopes to unmarried youth. These envelopes almost always contain money. It is bad luck to refuse an envelope request.
The money given in red envelopes during Chinese new year is always of even denominations. Odd numbers are given at funerals. An interesting note: odd numbers are not determined by the last digit but by the first (34= unlucky, 47=Lucky).
Traditionally, Chinese nationals use this money to improve their sleeping status, often spending their New Year money on a new mattress.
Sleep researchers at the University of California, Berkley have published a new article in Nature Neuroscience that suggests seniors can improve their memory, or at the very least slow the memory-loss process, by improving their sleep conditions.
The suggestion comes from a study that compared the brain patterns of 18 youth and 15 older adults. Both groups were given word sets before they went to bed. They were then tested on the same sets when they woke. During their sleep, both groups were monitored with equipment that measured their brain wave activity.
Lead researcher, Matthew Walker claimed that the seniors had a lower score due to disrupted sleep patterns that limited activity of slower brain waves that move short term memory from the hippocampus, to the long term memory bank in the prefrontal cortex.
“In older adults, the results showed a clear link between the degree of brain deterioration in the middle frontal lobe and the severity of impaired ’slow-wave activity’ during sleep. On average, the quality of their deep sleep was 75 per cent lower than that of the younger participants, and their memory of the word pairs the next day was 55 per cent worse.”
The clear correlation lead the team to conclude that improvements in sleep could help boost the transfer of slow brain waves, thus improving memory potential.
One company that knows a few things about improving sleep is Mattress Vancouver. A new Simmons mattress will enhance the nightly slumber of anyone who makes the switch from an older mattress to a Simmons Beautyrest.
For seniors, this is great news. Sleep through the night and complete the crossword. You have Berkley to thank.
This week Simmons Mattress Gallery is featuring the Beautyrest ‘World Class’ mattress. The World Class is a step up from the Beautyrest Classic. It is a new addition to the traditional Beautyrest line-up.
Its defining feature is the number of individual non-flip pocket coils that make up its construction. All together, the World Class has a whopping 1008 individual coils to give you the perfect undisturbed sleep. These coils provide individualized back support and superior pressure relief for all your aches and pains.
The World Class also comes equipped with a total surround BeautyEdge foam encasement. This encasement is specially designed to give you ultimate comfort to the edge of the bed.
With a range of comfort levels to choose from, the upholstery layer can be as thick or as thin as you please. For the ultimate plush finish, choose the hi-loft pillow top. For a firmer mattress feel, go with the tight top. Both choices are covered with a cotton-wool-silk fabric blend.
Spread out and enjoy the extra pocket coils. You deserve it.
Hockey is back. The boys of winter will have a late start and a condensed season, but they’ll play.
Mike Gillis, General Manager of the Vancouver Canucks, hopes this will finally be the year the Canucks bring home Lord Stanley’s Cup. Gillis has been grooming his squad for the last five years, making solid player acquisitions while keeping a core group together. He has also brought a new line of thinking to the science of hockey.
“What we’re concentrating on is methods to bring a more scientific and objective approach to how players are treated, how they compete, how they prepare, to give us any advantage we can possibly get with respect to performance,” said Gillis.
The preparation part of this formula has been key to the Canucks recent success.
Part of this formula has been the addition of a sleep research team. Gillis hired Fatigue Science, a company that works with the U.S. military, to monitor and establish sleep routines for his players for the purpose of maximizing their efficiency on the ice.
The Fatigue Science team is integral to making decisions on whether the team flies directly after a game or if they stay in town and fly out in the morning.
Vancouver has one of the most strenuous travel schedules in the National Hockey League this season, so keeping energy levels high will be paramount.
Applying the sleep first approach to your own daily routine can bring the same rewards. If you plan on having a late night, try to receive a few extra hours of sleep the night before or the night after. Be cognizant of your sleep debt and your on ice performance will remain at a high standard.
A bloodstain can be an ugly mark on any mattress. Accidents happen. But don’t worry, there are simple ways to remove a stain and bring your mattress back to its original condition.
Here are a few tried and tested techniques for getting blood out:
1. Immediate Response
The quicker you attack the stain the better. Blood is protein based, so the longer it has to set, the more work it will be to break down the natural components.
2. Start With the Basics
Water, mixed with salt and applied with a spray bottle is a simple first step. Don’t use warm or hot water.
3. Protein Breakdown
Head to the pantry and retrieve a jar of meat tenderizer. This will help break down the proteins, especially if the stain has had a chance to set.
4. Hydrogen Peroxide
Apply the product and then use a clean white cloth to blot at the mark.
5. Mom’s Go To: Baking Soda and Water
Grab a mixing bowl and combine one part baking soda with two parts water. Apply with a clean cloth and let it stand for 30 minutes. Then use a damp cloth to remove the solution. Again, only use cold water. Once the solution has been removed, place a dry towel over the wet area and allow time for the moisture to be absorbed.
6. Detergent
If none of the above work, go with detergent. Mix one tablespoon of liquid dishwasher detergent with two cups of cold water. Place a clean white cloth in the mixture and let it soak. Apply this cloth to the fabric stain. Then, with an old toothbrush, lightly brush the area to remove the proteins from the natural fibers of the mattress. Like step 5, you can then use a wet cloth to blot the detergent away.
If all else fails, try enlisting the help of a Transylvanian cleaner.
It’s January, the holidays are over and a fog has settled on the Lower Mainland. It might seem like a blue time of year in the self-described No-Fun-City, but in reality, the events calendar is packed with festivals to get you off your mattress and out on the town. Here are three events to make time for in the coming weeks:
1. The Push Festival (Jan 15th – Feb 3)
The Push Festival is already underway at a variety of venues around the city. The festival is a contemporary mash-up of live performing arts shows. It highlights the work of local and other Canadian artists, as well as inviting international stars to preform. This will be the 11th year that Push has thrilled Vancouver audiences. This year’s theme: “Persist Until Something Happens.”
Not-To-Miss: Ride the Cyclone (playing at the Granville Island Stage)
DineOut Vancouver (Jan 18th – Feb 3)
The dinner deals are back. Almost every restaurant worth its risotto is participating in this year’s DineOut program. We visited Judas’s Goat this weekend and had an amazing three-course tapas menu for $18. Try to find a restaurant out of your comfort zone and let some of Vancouver’s finest chefs expand your culinary palette.
This Friday, Bar None is hosting a musical art show for the Yaletown foodie crowd. Part of the DineOut events calendar, tickets include entrance, welcome beverage, special appetizers, two musical performances and art display with a live painting demonstration.
Vancouver Comedy and Arts Festival (February 7th to 17th)
This years Comedy Festival starts on Thursday, February 7th. Bob Saget, Tig Notaro and Margaret Cho are all signed up to perform. This year’s must-see: Scott Aukerman’s live taping of Comedy Bang Bang.
Some say they add character to a face, others refer to them as laugh lines, but with the amount of concealers on the market, most would agree that wrinkles are an unwanted record of our true age.
They form around our eyes, along our forehead and beneath our chin. Where once there was a flat sea of healthy skin, their now stands a face of rippling waves, a tempestuous transcript of time.
Their technical name is rhytide, referring to folded or creased skin due to glycation (the aging process), but wrinkles can also form because of sun damage, smoking, poor hydration and in many cases, a lack of sleep.
To hide them, we purchase a bevy of facial creams, ointments and spa therapy sessions.
The cost for these treatments adds up fast. One bottle of quality concealer can cost nearly a hundred dollars and a spa skin package can easily run over a C note.
Funny thing too, cause one of the oldest and easiest methods of avoiding wrinkles is completely free.
A good night’s sleep will do more for your daily complexion then a Mac store full of make-up. Get to bed on time, limit your bedroom distractions, sleep in a healthy environment and lie on a quality mattress and you could hold off the signs of aging by a decade. No lie! It’s the oldest wrinkle remedy known to man.
Mattress Vancouver wants you to fall in love all over again. You may already be in a committed relationship with a loving partner, but a new Beautyrest mattress will have your stomach turning with butterflies. It’s not cheating. It’s sharing…
Here are a few of the reasons why a Beauyrest Mattress is a worthy love interest:
800 Non-flip Pocket Coils
-Each coil works individually to provide you with the perfect undisturbed sleep. It’s like an 800 armed cuddly bear.
Softest fabric tops in the business
-Available in tight or pillow top, a woven blend of cotton, wool and silk will have you believing you’re sleeping atop a cloud
10 Year Warranty
-Unlike your actual partner that may pack a few pounds on or lose some hair on top, a Beautyrest will retain its form for 10 years. Guaranteed. (Just try taking Brad back after 6 years and ask for a full refund…)
Triton Foundation
-Support when you need it. There is no, “just wait until after the game,” the triton foundation provides support whenever you feel the need to retire.
Available from a trusted mattress Vancouver dealer
Want to improve your carbon footprint this year? Start with your bedroom and move out.
Here are a few tips for ‘greening’ your sleeping space:
Walls
Start with your walls and literally ‘green’ them up. Earthly colours, presented in pale tones, will help create a calm atmosphere for sleeping in. It will also be a daily reminder of your fresh start. Try to use zero or low VOC paints that are less harmful to the environment.
Floor
Cork is a great option, made out of a naturally renewable material. It provides added insulation for lowering your heat bill and repels bugs, mold and mites. Some forms of cork flooring are made from recycled bottle stoppers.
Lighting
Get creative with your lighting. LED and unconventional fairy lighting use less wattage than traditional light bulbs. Replace your overhead lighting with eco-friendly compact fluorescent light bulbs.
Bed Frame
Bed frames will often last much longer than mattresses. When replacing your mattress, keep your old frame. You might also want to do a Sunday flea market scour to find a vintage frame that will add character and nostalgia to your bedroom decor.
Mattress
Simmons produces a Natural Care line of mattresses that utilizes rubber tree based latex foam made from biodegradable materials. This mattress line is also popular for its hypoallergenic qualities.
Over the holidays, one of our mattress professionals was talking with a few friends at a dinner party about Coca Cola’s Christmas branding. The discussion centered on Coke’s domination of the holiday beverage market. The iconic symbol of Santa Claus holding a Coke bottle is ingrained in our brains from years of commercial saturation. It also helps to share your product colours with the traditional Christmas hues.
The consensus was that Coke had reached the zenith of brand potential.
It was then pointed out, by another party guest, that the Simmons brand was equally as iconic in the mattress world. The guest claimed that whenever she thought of mattress imagery, her brain/memory triggered the image of the bowling ball being dropped on a Simmons mattress.
The image the guest was referring to first showed up in a television commercial for Simmons mattresses in 1996; This was the height of television, when Seinfeld and Friends were at their peak, the PVR was just a dream and families sat together to watch their favourite programs. The following month, after the ad was first shown, Beautyrest mattress sales increased more than 50%. Since then, Simmons has used a number of different marketing campaigns, but the one that sticks in everyone’s mind, is still the bowling ball.
If only we could get St. Nick to do a cannonball drop onto one of our Beautyrests. That would be marketing gold.
Trying to keep above the wave of sickness that is drowning the office in sore throats, fever and uncontrolled vomiting?
An interesting new app uses Facebook statuses to identify friends or acquaintances that may be coming down with flu like syndromes. The app is titled Help, My Friend Gave Me the Flu and is available only for users of the social networking site Facebook.
The app enlists the help of a search engine that scans your friends status updates, searching for certain keywords that are linked to sickness: coughing, stomachache, sneezing, doctor, hospital, projectile…the list is extensive.
It also takes into consideration what time the statuses were written. Too many late night status updates will identify your friend from choir as an at-risk acquaintance.
It’s basically a witch hunt tool, but fun nonetheless.
It might be nice to message those friends with late-night issues and tell them that, because you care about their health, you think they should go to bed earlier. If they refuse to listen, maybe recommend a good mattress Vancouver Company, so at least their limited hours of sleep will be comfortable.
If you do get sick, maybe keep your updates clean. You’ll avoid the look of zombie-death-fear from Deb in Accounting.
There are few things harder for a heart then an unforeseen break-up. When it happens, there is truly no place to hide from the pain.
Losing someone significant is a major life-changer. It is incredibly hard to restart your life without that person in it. Every item in your house, song on the radio and food that you loved, reminds you of that individual. There are memories involved with each, tainting and marring your potential for renewed pleasure.
Sometimes, the only thing to do is to abandon what you shared in order to create something new.
A business is similar. Simmons Mattress Gallery has made the hard decision to close its doors for good. The mattress store, that thousands of Lower Mainland residents have come to love and depend on, is ending its long run as supplier of Simmons Beautyrest mattresses.
Because of this development, the ownership team at Mattress Vancouver has decided to reduce the prices on virtually every mattress in the galleries. We are parting with all our beds and starting fresh.
To clear our massive stock of Simmons Beautyrests, Simmons Mattress Gallery has decided to offer up to 75% off. It’s heartbreaking to see them sell for so little.
Imagine paying a quarter of the suggested retail price for a Simmons Beautyrest…
Buy one this month and you will automatically improve your sleep, save hundreds and take a little piece of our pocket-coiled heart home with you.
Help us make a clean break. Take advantage of prices never before seen in the Lower Mainland.
People say, ‘I’m going to sleep now,’ as if it were nothing. But it’s really a bizarre activity. ‘For the next several hours, while the sun is gone, I’m going to become unconscious, temporarily losing command over everything I know and understand. When the sun returns, I will resume my life.
This is a quote from comedian George Carlin; an interesting observation on our bodies daily suspension of consciousness.
It really is an unusual contract that we have signed up for. We will turn off part of our brain, for eight or so hours, in return for a refreshed body and mind. We will be able to work and play for close to sixteen hours, until our bodies tell us it is once again time to shut our eyes.
Failure to agree to these terms results in serious health concerns and mental instability.
But this is the only deal on the table. There are no other offers. So we sign our name and agree to fulfill our daily sleep needs.
But there are variables in this contract, measurable terms that can be altered to improve results. Your mattress is the most appreciable. Improve it and your time spent in slumber can increase your daily energy.
Don’t try and ignore the fine print. Embrace the wording. Let your eight hours of temporary suspension be the catalyst for an active day.
Resume life with the vitality that comes from sleeping on a Beautyrest mattress.
A lot can happen in ten years. Families can grow, styles can progress and our bodies can take on new forms. What won’t change is the guaranteed comfort offered by the top mattress brand in the world, Simmons Beautyrest.
As children are born, grow and eventually leave home, a Simmons Beautyrest can move around the family home, floating from one bedroom to the next. Each user will enjoy the same, unparalleled support, experience the same luxurious textures and feel the same firmness as the user previous.
As styles change, comfort preferences remain stable. A Simmons Beautyrest is a timeless vehicle for an undisturbed night’s rest.
Even when our bodies begin to feel a stronger gravitational pull and muscles that were once firm, begin to sag; the coils of a Simmons will retain their original form.
In fact, Simmons Canada is so confident that their mattresses will defy time that they offer a 10-year warranty policy on all their Beautyrest mattresses. That’s a 10-year guarantee that your Simmons mattress will preform exactly like the day you brought it home for the next 10 years.
A lot can happen in ten years, but one thing will stay the same – experience the Beautyrest difference and shop for your next mattress at Simmons Mattress Gallery.
Can you believe it’s already 2013? Crazy! Where did the time go?
Well a lot of time was spent writing blogs for you wonderful readers, so this week we thought we could review some of our favourites from 2012. Here are our top ten. Hope you enjoy reading them
10. Sleep In The Diet Mix
The perfect article for improving your chances of solidifying your New Year’s resolution to lose weight. It also has an interesting examination of body sizes and the genetic link to why we look like we do.
9. “Aye, Aye and Goodbye”
A shout out to one of the original late night television self-marketers; The Captain. We’ve bottled his enthusiasm and have put it towards selling Beautyrest mattresses. Thanks Captain for the inspiration. Your video spots are greatly missed.
8. Eight Ways To Crack Your Back
Our favourite: The Noodle. Yup, the same ones you see floating in swimming pools. “Simply lay on your back and slide a noodle underneath yourself (a folded up towel works wonders as well) and roll slowly backwards and forwards. That will take the creaks right out of your spine…”
7. Where Do Kings Sleep?
Vancouver’s early departure from the 2012 playoffs was hard for all of us. But the Kings were a pretty impressive team in the playoffs last year, going on to win the Stanley Cup. We did some research to find out what brand of bed hockey royalty prefers.
6. Enjoy The Freedom
“You should never take your freedom for granted.” We live in a country that provides us with social programs, universal health insurance and the freedom to love, write and express our opinions openly. Never forget how lucky we are to be Canadians.
5. West End Mattress Store
Abandoned mattresses are a major problem in the West End of Vancouver. Read more about what’s being done to help curb this issue.
4. Guru Dreaming
Gurus are interesting characters. Not the life we would choose, but still interesting as a character study. Reach enlightenment without sitting precariously on a cliff face. A mattress from Mattress Vancouver will help you usher out the negative thoughts that clutter our brain.
3. Pregnant? Sleep While You Can.
It seems like every woman between 28 and 35 is expecting these days. Exhaustion can affect a mother’s health as well as her newborns. This article provides a few sleep tips for new parents. A must read if you’re expecting in the new year.
2. Sleep Talking
Guilty murmurs in the night can give away our darkest secrets. If you have skeletons to hide, upgrade your mattress and guard your guilt under a blanket of sleep.
1. Mosquito vs. Beautyrest
The battle rages in bedrooms around the world. Here are some interesting ways of combating our common bloodsucking enemy. Apparently they hate blue; The number one fashion faux pas for mosquitos. And spicy foods. Week bellies…
Relationships are not easy. Why? Because they involve ‘two’ people with very different needs, romantic tendencies and comfort levels.
It’s very rare that we are attracted to a person with exactly the same mannerisms. We seek out partners that bring new facets to our lives and encourage new experiences.
But relationships, as we all know, bring new challenges.
One of the biggest is in the bedroom (and we’re not talking about the sexy times).
We all have different sleeping schedules and when two people share a bedroom, it’s hard for those sleep patterns to align. If one person likes to stay up, then the other is disturbed when the night owl finally comes to bed. If the night owl decides to sleep on the couch instead of waking the other, then their sleep is affected.
It might seem unromantic, but earplugs and eyemasks are good investments.
Mattress preference might also be an issue. Finding a bed that suits both you and your partner’s comfort preferences can be trying. Fortunately there are proffesionals that can help. Simmons Mattress Gallery employees are in the business of solving couples’ sleep issues. By recommending a bed that will satisfy both partners, Mattress Vancouver can provide relationship help on a base level.
Build a healthier relationship with your partner. Improve your sleep and increase the enjoyment of sharing a bed.
Every parent’s goal is to spend more time with their children. Unfortunately, modern society demands that we increase our working hours. We stay late, bring work home with us and spend our weekends prepping for the following week.
At the same time, this same society encourages us to enroll our children in every after school activity imaginable. We also are swayed to hire tutors, to provide our children with an educational advantage.
This all adds up to less time with our children. So what do we do? We stay up later to increase the number of hours spent together as a family unit. We read to them, talk about their day and play games late into the night.
But our good intentions are putting a strain on the family’s sleep schedule, producing a negative from a positive.
When kids lose sleep hours, they lose their ability to focus in the classroom. Their relationships at school suffer and in-turn, our relationships with them are weakened.
Reading one less story at night might seem like a poor parenting choice, but it could provide an extra boost to your child’s sleep requirements. It will also allow you to hit the pillow earlier.
Make sleep a priority and your family unit as a whole benefits.
Rise with the touch of a button. The power is yours when you purchase an Adjustable Bed from Simmons Mattress Gallery.
Let the power foundation lower and raise your position in bed with a simple remote click. You can adjust your angle manually or choose from a number of preset preferences.
Adjustable beds are also a great source of relief for those struggling with back pain. Instead of fussing with pillows, you can use the remote to lower and raise different portions of your bed to find the ideal sleeping position that will eliminate your pain.
With three different power foundations to choose from, you can pick what options are important to you.
Want the luxury of a cordless remote with the option for a variable speed massage? Go with the Deluxe Power Foundation. Want to be near your bedside table, no matter your position? The Wallhugger Foundation with keep your tea close.
All of the Power Foundation series work with the full line of Beautyrest mattresses, so you can enjoy the comfort of individual pocket coils with all the benefits of an adjustable bed.
It is incredibly easy to pack on a few extra pounds over the holidays. With staff parties, Christmas treats, awful weather and the grand feast on the 25th, keeping the waistline to a desired width can be a struggle. Here are five things to watch to keep the holiday weight off:
1. Alcohol Consumption – There is crazy pressure to drink over the holidays. From the wine bottles from your guests, to the wonderful winter ales we talked about in a previous blog, alcohol contains sugars that go right to your middle region. There’s a reason they call it a beer gut. Take a few nights off and offer to be the designated driver. If you are drinking, set a limit to the number of drinks you will consume. If you’re looking for a lighter alternative than rum and egg nog, try a cranberry juice blend or a vodka soda.
2. Christmas Baking – If you love to bake, make sure that a high percentage of your sugary yield ends up as gifts for your friends and family. You may also want to try using other products besides butter and cream. Applesauce and other fruit purees can stand in for butter in some recipes.
3. Second Portions – You may want to try all of the culinary options at your Christmas dinner, but coming back for a full second plate of food is dangerous. Shrink your portions and create a small tasting plate. Try everything without the binge eating.
4. Time on the Couch – You knew it was coming… The temptation to veg out is always high on the holidays. Break free with nightly walks around the neighbourhood. Take in all the light displays and enjoy some outdoor time with your family. For higher impact exercise, hit the gym. Ask a loved one to buy you a membership pass as part of your gift exchange. Note: Never buy a gym membership for a significant other unless they’ve expressed a desire to go. Awkward situations will be avoided…
5. Sleeping Hours – It’s easy to lose an hour or two during the course of the week, especially with all your social obligations and midnight wrapping sessions. Try to make practical choices about what you ‘can’ do over the holidays. Losing sleep means your body has less energy to burn fat. Keep your metabolism moving at a high level and secure at least 7-8 hours per night.
Everyone loves to come down Christmas morning and see the base of the tree stuffed with gifts from the portly little man up North, but there are a few gifts that probably shouldn’t be added to the tree pile. Here are seven that the staff at Simmons Mattress Gallery thought of:
A bicycle: A bicycle can be the greatest gift a young child ever receives. It offers exercise, coordination control, transportation, but most importantly freedom. Even for grown adults, a bike symbolizes a step back from the dependancy of the modern world. But does it belong under the tree? No. Too much grease, too many moving parts, too much space. Find an area in the garage and bring your loved one out of the house to discover their gift.
A puppy: Total disaster. A puppy needs attention and supervision. Leaving one under the tree, even for a short amount of time, is unfair. There’s also the possibility it could destroy the rest of the wrapped gifts. Even worse, it could sniff out some Christmas chocolate; dogs and chocolate don’t mix well.
BB Gun: Not as common as they once were, the traditional BB gun was often given to a young adolescent, especially in rural areas. But nothing will put a halt to the Christmas merriment faster than a BB to the eye. Keep the guns out of the living room.
Potted Plants: A potted plant is a great gift to receive at any time of the year, but it doesn’t belong with your other wrapped items. Why? Jealousy. The focus should be on the tree with the lights and decorations. Welcoming another green member into the equation will only create discontent.
Gas Powered Anything: Hot lights, wrapping paper, gasoline… Christmas up in flames. Keep the mini motorcycles, lawn mowers and camp stoves out of the living room.
Engagement Ring: You spent three months salary on a ring that could easily be misplaced among the wrapping paper and other gifties. An engagement ring is the ultimate gift, well besides a new kidney or a baby brother. It should have a moment unto itself. Any other gifts given that morning will become meaningless if a ring appears. Save the moment.
Mattress: Now why would a Vancouver mattress company not advise you to wrap up one of our beautiful beds up and put it under your tree? Three reasons: First, it will take up far too much room. Basic Christmas morning spatial logistics. Second, tree sap and fine linen tops like the ones you find on our Beautyrest mattresses don’t mix. Thirdly, it’s always better to shop with your partner for a new mattress. Take an afternoon off between now and New Years and spend the time needed to properly pick out a new bed.
Christmas Magic
Feel free to leave us a comment if you would like to add to our list.
We often talk to customers who are looking for solutions to improve their morning mood. Sometimes it’s a couple, where one member is less of a morning person than the other.
We would love to say a new mattress would be the perfect fit for this issue, but we wouldn’t be completely honest in our answer.
It’s true that a new mattress will improve your sleep and supply you with more energy for your waking hours, but it’s a stretch to say it will improve your morning mood, especially if you’re a chronic snoozer.
Our morning routines have much more to do with who we are as people and how we value our daily lives.
Folks who have an active disdain for their working environment, often have troubles getting up with a smile on their face. Especially Monday to Friday. A constant grumpiness in the morning may mean its time to look for another position or a change of field. People who enjoy their work have a far easier time motivating their bodies to rise.
On the flip-side, those without a job may also experience a slower ’sleep inertia’, the transitional period between sleeping and being fully awake. If you don’t have anything to look forward to in your day, then it’s hard to take the positive first step out of bed.
If you are having trouble battling the grumps in the morning, here are a few tips:
-Mondays are often the worst days for a grumpy demeanor.
Combat the Monday blues by scheduling a fun activity for afterwork. You might also try PVRing your favourite shows and then leaving them till Monday to watch.
-Reduce your busy schedule
Yoga classes are great for your body, but if you’re packing too much into your week, you may want to drop a few.
-Spend the first 30 minutes of the day walking outside
For some, being outside instantly improves their mood. It may work for you too. Try it.
-Make your bed
We can’t really explain it, but there is something about making your bed that puts the rest of the day in perspective. It’s kind of like saying: “Ok bed. We’re done for now, but I will be back later to enjoy your Beautyrest softness.”
Nobody loves holiday treats more than the staff at Simmons Mattress Gallery. Literally…no one! We have a jar at the back that we take turns filling each Monday morning. The treats usually last till Tuesday afternoon.
Eating holiday treats is probably the only activity we enjoy more than selling the perfect mattress. Ok, that may be a stretch. There are a few other things, but this blog is not the forum.
Anyways, this week, we thought we would share more than our professional mattress Vancouver knowledge; We thought we could share a few tips for making the perfect gingerbread men.
The following is a list of do’s and don’ts that will help elevate your holiday baking.
Always chill the dough for at least an hour before you start to work with it
Powder your working surface with flour and icing sugar
Keep your cutters from sticking to the dough by misting with cooking oil or dusting with flour
Never decorate a warm gingerbread man (Very Important!)
If you’re using a glaze, try a little citrus zest to enhance the flavours
Basic, but always add decorations soon after icing to create a proper bond
If you plan on freezing or storing your cookies, use wax paper to separate the layers
Once made, hide them from your other family members until the appropriate time
Christmas is stressful enough as it is without having too worry about shopping for all your friends and family. Simmons Mattress Gallery would like to offer a little help with a few gift ideas for the holidays.
For your boss (a little something to warm a cold heart)
Drambuie 15 Scotch Whiskey
A Don Draper whiskey, perfect for cocktails or sipping slowly on the rocks.
For the lady in your life (cause you couldn’t afford a ring)
Jewelry box
Right now her jewelry is all over the bedroom. Help her organize and offer a subtle promise to fill it with pretty things in the future.
For the man in your life (he may not have been good all the time, but he was pretty good most of the time)
Movado Watch
Perfect for work and going out on the town. His friends will be impressed, he’ll love it and he won’t be late to pick you up.
For your father (the one with four remotes on the coffee table)
Netflix subscription
It’ll blow his mind. Your mom may hate you for it.
For your mother (a fashion statement)
Designer Umbrella with Matching Rain Boots
Tis the season for rain. Let your mom strut around the city in style and stay dry in the process.
For all of the above (when in doubt, go with the gift of 365 days of sleeping bliss)
Simmons Beautyrest mattress
A Beautyrest mattress is the gift that keeps giving. Everyone loves a new mattress, but a Beautyrest says you really care. To find the perfect Beautyrest mattress, saunter down to Simmons Mattress Gallery, the mecca of luxury mattresses.
The West Coast cold is a little different than the rest of Canada. Our temperatures don’t drop as low, but the moisture in our air gives our lows a little extra bite. Warming up requires more than a block heater and a muffler knitted by Nan.
On West Coast nights, when the mercury drops, it’s nice to have a satisfying beverage with a little taste of the season. Thank goodness we live in the land of premium brewmasters.
Below are three quality winter ales, brewed here in British Columbia, that are perfect for relaxing with friends, celebrating the holidays and fighting off the cold.
Granville Island Lions Winter Ale
Brewed on Granville Island, just below the Simmons Mattress Gallery showroom and named after the two peaks that proudly guard the Lower Mainland, Lions Winter Ale is a moderately priced beer that you can purchase right from the brewery. It is made with caramel malts and vanilla aromas and contains a moderate hop bitterness to control the sweeter flavours. The brewery recommends a pairing of clam chowder. The Lions Winter Ale is also a silver medal winner at the 2011 world beer championships.
Okanogan Springs Winter Ale
This is a milder ale, with the same flavours of the Granville Island, but slightly toned down. Price wise, Okanagan Springs tends to be cheaper than Granville Island and easier to acquire at your local liquor store. Their website suggests a stew pairing. We suggest friends, a fire and The Drifters “White Christmas” (we can pretend).
Tree Brewing Winter Vertical Ale
Brewed in Kelowna, the Vertical Ale has a subtle nut hint, mixed with the traditional caramel and vanilla flavours. A little harder to come by, we suggest calling ahead to check on availability.
Bonus Brew:
Storm Watcher Winter Lager
Not an ale, but a beautifully crafted winter lager, with a touch of honey and a crashing splash of West Coast weather.
Travelling along the Broadway corridor on your way to work or school, you may have noticed the signs outside our mattress showroom advertising our final Closeout Sale. You may have thought to yourself: “That can’t be. Simmons Mattress Gallery has been a staple in the Vancouver community for years.”
Well friends, it’s true. Mattress Vancouver is prepping for closure. We’re packing up our files, boxing up our personals and most importantly selling off all our mattresses at ridiculously low prices. It’s our way of saying thank you for all the business you’ve brought us over the years.
We’ve helped young couples pick out their first mattress together. We’ve suggested wedding beds. We’ve supplied mattresses to whole families who have redone their homes. We’ve even picked out retirement mattresses; the perfect beds to spend one’s golden years on.
But as they say, all good things eventually end. And our time is ticking down.
So again, the signs are accurate; our doors are closing. This will be our final sale. And yes, that sign does read up to 75% off. We can’t take the beds with us, so we’re selling them to you at factory prices. Come in seven days a week and buy the bed you’ve always dreamed of at a fraction of the price. Our mattress professionals are still on site to help you pick out the perfect bed.
Looking for a mattress that will support you night after night and will leave you with enough spending cash to buy presents for everyone on your extensive gift list? If so, the Simmons Beauty Sleep is the ideal mattress for you.
With a high performance interactive coil system and soothing top fabrics, the BeautySleep is surrounded with an outer foam encasement to increase your sleeping surface area. The BeautySleep is supported by a Triton Lite foundation layer that works in synch with the top mattress.
The BeautySleep comes in either plush or firm and offers a variety of comfort profiles, including tight top, hi-loft pillow top and comfort top.
All the mattresses in the BeautySleep line are non-flip, so you can save your back for horsey rides with your young nephews on Christmas mornnig.
Take time out of your shopping day to visit Mattress Vancouver at either our Broadway or Coquitlam locations. You will be able to take advantage of our Closeout Sale prices and guarantee yourself silent nights for years to come.
If you think that Kerrisdale does not have the breadth to satisfy all of your shopping needs, you are not alone. There are many fantastic boutique stores, coffee shops and local outfits, but there is one thing missing – a specialized Kerrisdale mattress store.
Sure, you can get a small selection of Simmons Beautyrest mattresses at some of the stores on 41st, but it’s hard to find a specific, exclusively Simmons retailer.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t one nearby. Simmons Mattress Gallery is only 5.6 km down the road. Simply drive down 41st to Oak, hang a left, and keep driving 32 more blocks until you hit Broadway. According to Google Maps it should take you 11 minutes.
At Simmons Mattress Gallery you will find that mattress Vancouver retailers wish they had, but never have – The Triple Edge Beautyrest. Only SMG can carry the Simmons Triple Edge. So be sure to ask for this signature beauty by name.
Another interesting note, if you search for mattress Kerrisdale on Google.ca, you will see that Simmons Mattress Gallery is already at the top. So that has to tell you something.
For the next short while Simmons is having a Close Out Sale. Everything must go. We are offering mattresses for up to 75% off! This offer is not to be missed, because it will (obviously) never happen again.
A young local artist from the Sunshine Coast, Heather Passmore, has recently sold one of her paintings to the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG). Beyond encouraging young, local artists, Simmons Mattress Gallery is impressed by this because her painting was entitled Mattress #3.
Her strange images depict the lives of the poor and homeless in downtown Vancouver. The canvasses she uses are old mattress covers that she has found in dumpsters on the Lower East Side, cleaned (we hope, yuck!), and painted on.
Many of the mattreses were discarded during the Olympics when the homeless were displaced, or because of the bedbug epidemic that is striking that area of Vancouver.
She strives to show the loneliness of single rooms, where a mattress is often the only or dominant peace of furniture.
If you want to see the famous painting of the mattress Vancouver Art Gallery will be exhibiting it along with more of Heather Passmore’s work.
Have you seen this photo of the police officer and the homeless man in New York? The man was sitting out in the freezing cold without anything on his feet. No shoes, no socks. The officer noticed that he had blisters on his toes and looked miserable. After speaking with him briefly he discerned he was a size 12, went back to his cruiser and found a pair of boots and socks that would fit him.
Unbeknownst to the policeman the entire incident was watched by a bystander and he caught a photo of the officer kneeling to help the man put on his boots. The touching moment soon went viral online with warmhearted comments gushing from the pages they were posted.
The officer was only 25 years old, with two years on the force, but it was obvious that his mother had raised him to have his heart in the right place.
The photographer, Jennifer Foster, posted the photos on the NYPD’s Facebook page on Tuesday, where it received more than 320,000 “likes,” 77,000 “shares” and 20,000 comments.
It’s these tender moments that remind us the true nature of generosity and goodwill that the Christmas season is all about.
When you are doing your Christmas shopping this year, don’t forget about those in need. And those who are spending the holidays in shelters, or worse, on the streets. If you have clean, extra pillows, sheets, or sleeping bags. They are all appreciated by those down on their luck. As for a mattress Vancouver shelters have special regulations because of bed bug concerns, but they always accept non-perishable food items.
Your iPhone starts to vibrate and play a marimba sound bite that is all too recognizable.
Your hand reaches over to the side table and without opening your eyes, you instinctively touch the screen where you know that glorious snooze button resides.
7:18
More marimba. For a brief second, your thoughts go to Costa Rica. These images are violently replaced by Powerpoint slides of the report you will give this afternoon. You turn over and buy yourself another eight minutes. The phone gladly accepts your payment.
7:26
You’re officially late. You check the time, knowing the answer. In zombie-mode, you make your way to the shower. Fifteen minutes later, in the kitchen, you decide to skip breakfast. You put your coffee in a to-go mug and head for the door.
8:11
You arrive at work, hungry, late and tired.
The lesson here: The snooze button is an evil temptress. Avoid her at all costs.
The eight minutes you think you’re gaining is actually sleeploss. Interrupted sleep increases fatigue. You are much better off getting up with your original alarm.
To avoid the snooze temptation, remove the option – easily done on a phone, a little harder with an alarm clock. Needle nose pliers work well.
Debt is an unavoidable topic of conversation – We have all been living beyond our means. Personal debt is growing, nations are making unrealistic promises to control spending and credit card companies are more powerful than ever.
What’s to be done?
On a personal level, individuals can curb spending habits, especially around the holidays. Christmas doesn’t need to be a needless exchange of impractical goods. The holidays should be about sharing moments together, not gifts. Your little nephew already has enough toys.
Put the money you were going to spend on your partner towards reducing your credit card bill. It may not be the romantic gesture you want it to be, but years from now when you can afford a trip to Hawaii, you’ll be much happier.
Another element of debt that is often looked over is our sleeping habits. As our lives get busier, it becomes easier and easier to cut back on our hours spent in bed. Trying to squeeze a zillion activities into our day, even if they are for physical gain, is counterproductive.
Our bodies need time to recharge. Drop an activity or two. Spend at least four nights a week at home and get to bed early.
When you continue to reduce the number of hours you spend asleep, your sleep debt increases. If you don’t pay back this debt quickly, the interest payments could arrive in the form of physical exhaustion, heart problems or diabetes.
Start to make payments this week. Take time to sleep. Spend less money out on the town. Reduce your debt and feel better about your place in the world.
Generation X’ers! A little pop culture question for you.
Do you remember The Captain from those late-night pawnshop commercials? Do you remember how excited he would get to show you the latest deals?
The man was a ball of joy, producing homemade TV spots with a limited a budget, a passion for used goods and a welcoming smile. He loved what he did and he seemed genuinely excited about selling his wares.
Well mattress Vancouver is experiencing a similar joy. Like the Captain, we honestly love selling the items in our store. Mattresses are our passion and with our final Closeout Sale extended, we can sell the beds we love at prices that almost anyone can afford.
But unlike our rotund friend’s wares, all our goods are factory direct, warranty guaranteed and destined for your bedroom.
We have the complete line-up of Beautyrest beds for you to test. Each one utilizes the non-flip pocket coils that Simmons Mattresses have become known for. And the best part: you can now buy a Beautyrest at up to 75% off.
Undisturbed sleep… check!
Lowest prices in the city… check!
Enthusiasm in spades… check!
The Captain may have moved on to deeper waters, but his passion remains in our hearts. Mention your love for our common friend and receive two bonus pillows for your new bed.
An interesting article was published in the Vancouver Sun this week from a B.C. teacher who was concerned with the number of students falling asleep in her classroom. It was written as an open letter to parents, imploring them to increase the number of hours their children spend sleeping each night.
Her argument was based on the fact that the brain requires an adequate amount of rest to function at a level suitable for cognitive learning. This fact and many more concerning the relationship between sleep and mental potential, have been identified on this blog and others like it.
Sleep deprivation limits our memory, creativity and our ability for self-motivation. Depriving a child of sleep is the equivalent to depriving them of three basic meals. Learning only occurs when the student has the energy to engage.
The article lists a number of ways parents can facilitate proper sleeping schedules. Here are two that stood out:
1. Make bedtime something that children anticipate. Create routines for sleep preparation. One routine that the article suggests is having the child say goodnight to the inanimate objects in his/her bedroom. Engage in low impact activities like reading a book with lowered light. The physical act of tucking a child in also helps to calm them. Even with teenagers, a quiet verbal goodnight is invaluable. Keep these routines and children will automatically get into a rhythm conducive for winding down the day.
2. Don’t hide the fact that you want to change your child’s approach to bedtime. Engage them in the conversation and explain how important sleep is to their learning. Extend the discourse by discussing the sleeping patterns of other animals. ie: A giraffe only needs a few hours of sleep each day, compared to a child’s suggested ten hours.
-If your child is still having problems sleeping through the night or falling asleep at a reasonable time, consider the comfort of their mattress. If their bed is older than ten years, it is definitely time to replace it. If their feet are jutting off the end of the bed, consider buying them a larger one at a Vancouver mattress store.
The West End is one of Vancouver’s most unique neighbourhoods. From the shopping corridors of Robson, Denman and Davie, to the green hideaways nestled between stacked apartments, to the sandy coastal retreats along the seawall; the West End is full of people, vegetation and quaint living spaces.
Some of the most intriguing passageways of the West End are the ones less travelled by tourists and busy commuters. The alleyways are a 24-hour a day network of animals, bottle scavengers and junk collectors.
Living off the throwaway scraps of the high-rise tenants, this ’subclass’ of resident survives on the materials abandoned in the West End Alleyways. An unofficial recycling program is alive and thriving in this neighbourhood.
But like all recycling programs, there are items that are looked over. One of the most obvious is the used mattress.
Walk the alleys of the West End at any time of year and you are bound to see at least one abandoned mattress set. With a dense population of renters, tenants are constantly moving out and moving in. The mattress seems like one of those items that is easily tossed, but hard to dispose of.
Most waste management companies refuse to pick-up mattresses due to their weight and their potential for legitimate recycling.
Being a larger item, in a community of transit and pedestrian commuters, owners do not have the means of transporting their used mattresses to the appropriate recycling station. As a result, mattresses find their way to the rear of the West End apartment towers, where they sit collecting moisture, until a begrudging property manager calls the appropriate services.
On behalf of the West End Business Association, mattress Vancouver would like to suggest that tenants make plans for the removal of their used mattress before they collect their damage deposit.
The raccoons and dumpster divers can only recycle so much of our waste. Keep our alleys clean of mattresses.
Now it is easier to do your preliminary mattress Vancouver shopping online. Take roughly ten or fifteen minutes to browse their site and learn about each of the unique mattress collections in the Beautyrest line.
The mattresses are divided into five groups: Beautyrest Studio, Beautyrest Classic, Beautyrest World Class, Beautyrest NxG and Beautyrest Black. Click on a collection and explore the options available. Learn more about the luxury features; investigate how a pocket-coil works; discover why motion separation is such an important element in mattress construction. You can use the e-guides provided or watch a few short videos to expand your mattress knowledge.
No time to surf at work or at home? Tired of staring at a computer monitor all day? Still on dial-up? No worries.
At mattress Vancouver, a mattress professional will gladly show you around the showroom, explaining the benefits of each mattress on the floor. This will help you make an informed choice about the mattress that is just right for your personal sleeping preferences.
We have two locations for customers in the Lower Mainland and one for residents of Vancouver Island. We carry all the mattresses shown on the Simmons Canada website and more.
Start your mattress search online and finish it with the pros.
The Sunday morning special – garage sales are great if you’re into antiques, you still listen to CD’s or if you just like collecting other people’s junk. The only items up for sale are things the owners have chosen to part with and there’s usually a reason.
2. Boxing Day Sale
It’s held the week after or for some of us the day after, we finish our Christmas shopping. They should call it the ‘extend your credit’ sale.
3. Season Ending Sale
Traditionally for winter sports equipment, the season ending sale is another ‘right idea at the wrong time.’ No one needs snow pants or Burton bindings in April.
4. Half-Price Sale
Sounds amazing! Half price! But of course there’s usually a catch. You usually have to buy one of the same item to receive an additional one at half-off. Not so sweet now…
Yes folks, the Closeout Sale trumps them all. Simmons Mattress Gallery is putting it’s ENTIRE stock of mattresses on sale, with a selection of beds at 75% off! Our entire inventory must be sold. It’s that simple. So come take advantage of this incredible opportunity. We’re open all week, not just Sunday, and you can buy a bed ahead of the Christmas season and before the snow melts on the mountains.
With flying back and forth across the country, dealing with the aftermath of ’superstorm’ Sandy, being re-elected President of the United States and now the Petraeus scandal, President Obama probably hasn’t had that much time to sleep the last few weeks. It’s tough being at the top.
Being rushed from one engagement to the next, Obama makes use of the full bedroom on Air Force One to catch some much-needed shuteye. When he sleeps at the White House, he has a personal aid call him each morning to wake him up.
Obama has also been known to burn the midnight oil, often working late into the night. With another four years ahead of him, chances are high that the 44th President won’t be seeing much of his mattress till 2016.
As mattress professionals, Simmons Mattress Gallery is concerned that Obama’s work might suffer due to his lack of sleep. For this reason, SMG would like to extend an open invitation to the American President, to visit either our Broadway or Coquitlam locations at any time over the next four years.
It would be great for Canada / U.S. relations and the President could take a quick test-nap on one of our premium Beautyrest mattresses. I’m sure Michelle would love it if her husband came home with a new bed. We hear the one in the White House is as old as Jimmy Carter. But that may just be a rumour.
-Teddy once gave a speech directly after an assassination attempt, with the bullet still lodged in his chest. Courage aplenty, but sleeping soundly was not one of his skills.
John F. Kennedy was a pill popper
-Narrowly avoiding nuclear war might bring up your stress level. To fall asleep, Kennedy used to pop barbiturates.
Bill Clinton was a short sleeper
-Clinton’s nocturnal wanderings may have kept him up longer than the average Commander and Chief.
George W. Bush was a napper
-”Fool me once, shame on you.” Fool me twice and it’s probably because I missed my nap.
You’re young, single, independently wealthy and looking to play the field. You have designer clothes, a two-door sports car and shoes from Italy; but none of that matters if your mattress won’t hold up during game time.
Ladys, fellas, a word of advice. If you want to impress a potential partner, don’t bring them back to a saggy, worn out, 10 year old bed. If you’re going to be having guests and you want them to make a second visit, invest in a new mattress. You’ll be able to enjoy it on a nightly basis and your new friend won’t make excuses like ‘I have laundry to do’ the next time you call.
Simmons Mattress Gallery can help you find the perfect mattress set for your bedroom. Our mattress professionals will listen to your sleeping needs and suggest a handful of mattresses to try. Spend the afternoon in our showroom and improve your nocturnal activities.
We can’t promise performance enhancement, but we can promise potential. Visit Simmons Mattress Gallery and pick-up the only wingman you’ll ever need.
Someone really needs to build a city out of mattresses. They could dub the pillowy kingdom: “Mattress Vancouver.”
Miniature cities have been created before. If you go to Legoland in Denmark, they have built most of the major European cities out of Lego blocks.
Remember the Dairy Queen commercials where they used to take you to a land of chocolate and ice cream, with a caramel river flowing through whip cream mountains. Mmm. I think they should do the same thing with Mattress Vancouver, a city made of mattresses, comfortable, welcoming, warm.
I’m actually surprised that a mattress company hasn’t made an ad that has a city made of mattresses. I could see Mattress Vancouver being the first of its kind in that sense.
There have been cities made of newsprint, cities made of cheese, cities made of money – but there has never been a city made out of mattresses.
What do you think? Should Simmons Mattress Gallery create the first Mattress Vancouver?
While Metro Vancouver refused to reduce the price of garbage tipping fees in 2013, it did make an exception for mattresses. Vancouver residents can bring their mattresses to Surrey to have them recycled for the reduced rate of $15. It currently costs $20 to recycle a mattress.
Tipping fees have risen exponentially over the last ten years and there is no indication of it slowing down. They flat out refused a proposal to drop the cost by $2 next year
It’s all a part of the cities dead-serious Zero Waste Proposal. They will fully support recycling and reuse of materials, and keep as much as possible out of landfills.
At Simmons Mattress Gallery we offer what we call the Trade In, Trade Up offer. If you buy a new mattress, we will take your old mattress, and for only the price of recycling it, we will take it off your hands for good, and instead of bringing it to the dump, we will bring it to that recycling depot in Surrey.
How nice is that? Instead of knowing that your old stained bed is going to be taking up space in a landfill for the next ten thousand years, that it is actually being dismantled for the springs and wood and bare materials, which will be used once again to make anything from battleships to wooden horses! Kidding. It is only a good thing that there is a greater push to make use of these materials as opposed to letting them rot with mounds of steaming Huggies and take out containers.
There is only one Pitt Meadows mattress store that stocks exclusively Simmons mattresses. That store is Coquitlam mattress store, Simmons Mattress Gallery.
Why is it important to stock only the best brand? Simply put, we want to have the deepest selection of only top quality beds. That bed would be the Simmons.
Everyone has their personal preference level for what makes a comfortable night’s sleep. No two people are alike. So instead of being forced into an inferior brand just because you like a model that is not a traditional bestseller – Simmons Mattress Gallery has that model ready for you, in premium brand, no less – the Beautyrest.
If you live in Pitt Meadows and you need a good bed, drop by Simmons Mattress Gallery at 101 Schoolhouse Street, just off the Lougheed Highway, today.
It’s only 22 minutes into Coquitlam. That could be the best 22 minutes that you’ve ever spent in your life.
Getting paid to walk and jump on mattresses has got to be up there. We once wrote an article about Professional Sleepers, who are paid to sleep in various hotels to determine if their mattresses are up to snuff. Well, that requires a certain commitment of time. And sure, you may be sleeping, but there is a lot of travel involved. An even better job is just jumping up and down on a mattress for a while in some factory. And believe us, someone is paid to do this.
There is a mattress manufacturing plant in San Francisco, and they have someone on staff whose job it is to walk over the mattresses before they go out the door. Here’s the rationale. The cotton needs to be neatly and evenly distributed over the mattress. This is best done by someone who knows what they are doing – walking and jumping on the bed.
Reuben Reynoso is a professional mattress walker at McRosky’s mattresses in San Francisco. Reynoso needs to walk on a mattress to “expertly compress no fewer than 28 layers of fluffy cotton batting while seeking to detect tiny lumps or other imperfections”.
He also jumps on the mattresses. Too little bouncing and a mattress won’t fit into the machine for its final sewing. Too much jumping and the cotton becomes too compressed.
Wowee Zowee, did you follow that epic election down south? One year to determine the new leader for the country – at least for another three years until this whole fiasco begins again.
It was pretty wild, but Obama came up triumphant, and good for him, but despite all the pomp and circumstance, and invincible swagger, you need to wonder: How did they sleep on the night of November 5th?
You know both Mitt Romney and Barak Obama had to be nervous. The future of the country was in the balance. Their careers. Everything about their lives was about to turn completely on its head.
How do you sleep when you have the weight of the world on your shoulders and everyone is watching?
We are guessing that Obama, in the White House, has nothing less than a Beautyrest Black. There is no way that the President of the United States would not have the best bed that money can buy. There’s no way.
Mitt Romney, with his millions and binders full of women, would also have the very best luxury a man without vice could afford. Mitt, we sure hope you had a Beautyrest, but in the end, Beautyrests are for winners. So probably not.
Who else sleeps on the Beautyrest mattress Vancouver renowned mattress of kings? Well of course, the King. Elvis Presley slept on a Beautyrest. The CEO of Walmart sleeps on a Walmart.
Do Obama and Romney sleep on Beautyrest mattresses – we can only speculate. But like election polls pointing us to the winner hours before the real votes are counted, we feel confident in our analysis that the President of The United States, Barak Obama, sleeps on a Beautyrest.
27 minutes. That’s all it takes. If you want to get a top quality mattress you only need to drive to Coquitlam. It’s probably something you do once a week or so anyway.
Sure, there are mattress stores in Maple Ridge, so why would you drive the extra mile? Because we do the same.
At Simmons Mattress Gallery, they have the least pushy salespeople out there. They are informative, patient and they are there to help you answer your questions. Located at 101 Schoolhouse St, Simmons is not technically a Maple Ridge mattress store, but it is the best!
If the professionalism of the sales staff is not enough to make you go from Maple Ridge to Coquitlam, consider the pricing.
Currently, Simmons Mattress Gallery in Coquitlam is having a Closeout Sale! This could be your last chance to get a Beautyrest with Triple Edge Technology. That’s incredible. They have mattresses bargain priced at up to 75% off. And everything must go.
So if you are looking for a mattress store in Maple Ridge, look a little further, and you’ll find the perfect place for your new bed.
The Dead Body – If you sleep face down with your face gnashed against the pillow, and your arms splayed out hither thither like you’ve just fallen out of a ten-storey window, psychologists say this is indicative of a person who feels ‘out of control’. The worst part is, studies have shown that those waking up from such a position generally feel tired and with less energy. I suppose falling out of buildings is not the most restful situation.
The Starfish – If you sleep on your back with your arms and legs outstretched, you are selfish. It’s not surprising though, that you will also have the best sleep. People who sleep in this position generally wake up feeling rested and ready to start their day.
The Dracula – If you sleep with a straight body, and even worse, if you have your arms over your chest, vampire-style, then you are a stubborn person. You are going to wake up feeling stiff in the morning. Blood? Blood? Better settle for a sausage, buddy.
The Fetus – Not surprisingly, the most common sleeping position is the fetal position. Arms and legs curled up like a ball to enjoy a glow of warmth. I suppose we all spent nine months in this very position, for the first nine months of our lives, so it’s not surprising that this would be our go-to. 58% of people do this. Those who sleep this way wake up with the stresses of the day before gone.
It’s never a good idea to fight before bed. Neither of you sleep well.
Or one of you might fall into a mouth-open trance while the other shoots eye daggers into their snoring face all night. This only leads to a very bitter morning indeed. There is a saying that you should never go to bed angry. That’s possible. But it could take hours and hours to resolve the issue that has made you both so heated.
It’s very easy to sit there, fuming, while your partner does the same. It doesn’t solve much. And it makes for a rather unpleasant day at work the next morning.
What we suggest is that you don’t fight in bed. Get up, go to the living room and have it out on the sofa. Anywhere but the bed. Your bedroom is supposed to be a sanctuary. A place of peace and good rest.
As another ploy, suggest that your angry partner and yourself get some space. She can lay on the Beautyrest Black King-Sized bed you just bought, and you can cool off in the kitchen. When she ceases to yell through the door, you’ll know, the undeniable comfort of the bed has quelled her savage breast.
Wait until she falls silently asleep. Join her under the covers. Problem solved.
Who has been voted the Best Mattress Store In Vancouver 10 years in a row? It’s Simmons Mattress Gallery! That’s right for exactly one decade the mattress Vancouver needs has been right here at 1001 West Broadway in the centre of Vancouver.
Simmons Mattress Gallery is proud to say that we are the #1 Vancouver, BC Mattress Store. Not just once, but for ten years! That has to say something.
It says something about our knowledgeable and dedicated staff. We have had the same people working for us all that time. They understand mattresses, and what makes a good sale, a good deal, and the right comfort preference level for you.
Everyone is different. You might like a soft bed, you might need some spine support, you might move more than your partner in the night. Not matter a person’s individual idiosyncrasies, they need a bed that suits their own personal level of preference.
Soft beds aren’t for everyone. In fact, most men prefer a harder mattress. Let us help you find the mattress Vancouver professionals like you need, to make you sleep better.
Only Simmons Mattress Gallery has triple edge support system technology in its Beautyrest mattresses. It’s the ultimate in undisturbed sleep.
You can buy a Beautyrest from a plethora of other mattress stores in Vancouver, but none of them have the revolutionary technology known as triple edge. Only Simmons Mattress Gallery has the mattress Vancouver needs – the Beautyrest with the Triple Edge Support System Technology built right in. Other retailers simply don’t sell this particular brand of Beautyrest.
The advantage of the Triple Edge is, frankly, a better night’s sleep.
Triple Edge is found in the support layer of a mattress. You can rely on the Triple Edge Support System for increased firmness along the mattress edge and enhanced sleeping comfort throughout the entire mattress surface. Only Simmons Mattress Gallery has this technology in its mattresses.
There is a limited window of time for you to capitalize on these rare Triple Edge Simmons Beautyrest mattresses before they are discontinued forever.
Simmons Mattress Gallery is having a one-time Closeout Event. Beds are going for as little as 75% off. It is your only chance to get the Triple Edge Support System and the extra comfort it allows, before the technology disappears forever like the Age of Enlightenment.
So don’t wait, this sale will only last so long and then they’re shutting down Simmons Mattress Gallery and the Triple Edge Support System Technology forever.
There is only one Kitsilano mattress store that stocks exclusively Simmons mattresses. That store is Vancouver mattress store, Simmons Mattress Gallery. We’re just on the edge of Kitsilano, actually, just down and across Broadway and Oak.
Why is it important to stock only the best brand? Simply put, we want to have the deepest selection of only top quality beds. That bed would be the Simmons.
Everyone has their personal preference level for what makes a comfortable night’s sleep. No two people are alike. So instead of being forced into an inferior brand just because you like a model that is not a traditional bestseller – Simmons Mattress Gallery has that model ready for you, in premium brand, no less – the Beautyrest.
If you live in Kitsilano and you need a good bed, drop by Simmons Mattress Gallery it’s your closest Kitsilano mattress store, at 1001 Broadway (and Oak) today.
We are sad to say, but Simmons Mattress Gallery is going to be shutting its doors for good. In a few short months, there will be no more SMG’s out there in the world. So if you are going to purchase a third wave Beautyrest mattress (only available at Simmons Mattress Galleries) now is the time!
We are offering up to 75% off our stock. And everything must go! Hurry down to either of these convenient locations before everything in the store is gone!
1001 Broadway (off Oak) Vancouver, BC
101 Schoolhouse Street (off Loughheed Highway) in Coquitlam
Putting kids to bed can be troublesome when they are infants. But once they get a few years older, your biggest issue is probably How To Keep Your Toddler From Sleeping.
A few weeks ago we wrote about a condition called Somniloquy, or sleep talking. It has been the end of many a relationship, as secrets slip out in the night when one partner is sleeping away – evidence of affairs, locations of buried bodies, dark confessions, and other misdeeds make their way to the surface when one is too lost in sleep to keep their secrets in check.
Psychology Today wanted to pull back a few layers and get to the bottom of why people sleep talk.
It is interesting to note that somniloquy occurs when there is a transition between sleep states. When these transitions happen, most people fall immediately back to bed. Others partially wake up while in a deep REM state. A part of our mind is in deep wave sleep, while the other half is pulled out into consciousness, which is where sleep walkers get up, sleep eaters raid the fridge, and sleep talkers spill their guts.
Most NREM parasomnias occur when slow wave sleep occurs, in the first third of the night. The more you need to sleep, or the more you try to force yourself to stay awake, the more likely they are to occur. For example, if you are sleep deprived, and badly in need of slow wave sleep (which is thought to be the most restorative for the brain).
They are also more frequent when you are sleeping in a strange location (such as a hotel, airport, or roadside ditch). Moving sleeping children from one location to another (such as from the couch to their bed) can trigger paraomniac responsise like night terrors or sleep talking/walking. The mind is torn between being hyper-aware of harm, because it is in a new or changing location, versus the need for sleep. Sleep talking also occurs when you are sick, especially with fever, likely for the same reason.
When trying out beds at our Vancouver mattress store, be sure not to fall completely asleep, or we may hear you telling stories about how you usually wear your wife’s heels to bed.
If you live in Chilliwack, BC mattress stores with Beautyrests are few and far between. Sure, there are some Simmons stocked mattress stores in Chilliwack, so why would you drive the extra mile? Because we do the same.
At Simmons Mattress Gallery, they have the least pushy salespeople out there. They are informative, patient and they are there to help you answer your questions. Located at 1001 Schoolhouse St, Simmons is not the closest Chilliwack mattress store, but it is the best!
If the professionalism of the sales staff is not enough to make you go from Chilliwack to Coquitlam, consider the pricing.
Currently, Simmons Mattress Gallery in Coquitlam is having a Beautyrest Sale with queen sets for as low as $699. That’s incredible. They have mattresses bargain priced at up to 60% off.
So if you are looking for a mattress store in Chilliwack, look a little further, and you’ll find the perfect place for your new bed.
This is default description text on Padangan Themes, of course you can change this text via you profile administration.