WOW!house, and thoughts about bedrooms

Zimmer + Rohde Bedroom Suite by Tolu Adeko, Adeko & Co Studio Photographer James MacDonald

Zeez Sleep, and I, have been invited to be a part of WOW!house 2024, and I am thrilled.

WOW!house: 18 wonderful designers each designing a room / garden space of a showhouse in Chelsea Harbour, their work exhibited for a month. Textile company Zimmer and Rohde and designer Tolu Adeko have created a bedroom, a beautiful crafted space using gorgeous fabrics and handbuilt furniture, and there on the bedside table you will find a Zeez Sleep Pebble, custom-coloured in Orient Express blue. If I sound excited, it is because I am. Running a small company is a lonely business, and it is a real pleasure to work with others, in pursuit of excellence. Thank-you Zimmer and Rohde, thanks Nina, Jonathan, Tolu and Oscar.

I spend a lot of time thinking about sleep: how it manifests in our brain, and the conditions needed for sleep: our food, mattress, heating, lighting, phone lines and electricity. But I haven’t, until now, really thought about bedrooms– their purpose in our lives, and how we can make the most of them, as a place for sleep.

Having a separate room for sleep has a real value for our physical and mental health, and I don’t take it for granted. For children, it is often the place where they develop, test and defend their sense of identity, and as adults, we might benefit from appreciating the unique nature of our bedroom as a sanctuary in which our sense of self can be reinforced, and our health strengthened.  We can legitimately close the door to our bedroom and make it truly our own, when closing other doors may be unacceptable.

First, a reminder of what sleep is:  a cyclical process in which brain activity slows down, some brain activity stops altogether, whilst other parts of the brain become active. As this happens, our breathing and heart rate also slow down and our nervous system calms. Whilst we are thinking, the principal frequencies generated are beta frequencies between 12 and 30 Hz. As we relax that activity is supplanted by alpha frequencies of between 8 and 12 Hz. We eventually fall asleep with theta frequencies of between 4 and 8 Hz. In deep sleep, our brain generates powerful delta frequencies of 0.5 – 4Hz.  Our memories are processed and stored during the “REM” sleep that follows deep sleep, and during deep sleep our body repairs itself and our brain clears debris that is implicated in the development of dementia.  If we don’t sleep deeply enough our risk of obesity, diabetes, cancer and dementia roughly doubles, and risk of mental illness soars. Our Zeez Sleep Pebble is designed to prompt a pattern of good sleep, and is programmed with alpha, theta and delta frequencies in a timed sequence.  We may have the greatest effect in a bedroom that is calming and is conducive to good sleep.

So, how can the design of a bedroom help sleep?

It is a truism that bedrooms should be relaxing – and that is supposed to justify acres of beige with flower prints on the walls. But it is not the job of a bedroom to make us feel calm and relaxed. That should be achieved long before we get into bed, by relaxing in good company, having a bath, stroking the cat, or reading a bedtime story. We should not expect our brain to transition from thinking to sleep in the time that it takes us to move from the computer to laying our head on the pillow.  If we do fall asleep in that short space of time, it can indicate that we are over tired.

It is the job of our bedroom to deepen our relaxation so that we gently fall asleep, and to maintain our sleep environment so that we sleep well – to keep the room quiet and dark, and at a good temperature for sleep (cool), with breathable sheets, tactile materials, and no electromagnetic interference. We have to feel safe to sleep well, and I think that, without even being aware of this, we feel safest in an environment that fits us, as individuals. That beige bedroom is a negation of individuality and rather than everyone feeling at home in an anodyne and unchallenging environment, I suspect that no one does.  I also think that connections with nature and with our history ground us and help us feel secure and can be particularly valuable in a bedroom.

With all of this, I am delighted that the Zeez Sleep Pebble is part of the room that Zimmer and Rohde and Tolu Adeko have created in this inspiring show.  This bedroom is perfect for us: strong, sophisticated, full of natural and sustainable materials, innovative and modern.   Zimmer and Rohde describe their company as “at the intersection of tradition and innovation” and those concepts fit Zeez Sleep too. Zeez tech is unique and innovative, yet the sleep we promote is traditional: we prompt the brain to return to the natural sleep patterns that we had before stressed lifestyles and electromagnetic interference lightened our sleep and left us wired and weary. 

Want to visit WOW!house? Buy tickets

Our new blue Zeez Sleep Pebble, colour matched to the WOW!house bedroom

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