Archive for October, 2009
Goose down comforters make for warm nights
As I sit down at my computer, cold weather is hitting various parts of the US and in not many days our furnaces will be running more. On long cold winter nights when we get ready to retire for the evening, we are greatly comforted knowing that warm bedding waits.
Owning natural bedding products such as goose down comforters, you can have confidence knowing that you have made the right decision. There is no need to sacrifice quality with something as important as sleep, which we do as much as one-third of our lives.
Can’t Sleep? The Problem Might Be Obvious
For years I struggled with insomnia and explored every avenue imaginable in an attempt to overcome it – or at least that’s what I thought. My doctor prescribed a number of medications, but I never felt comfortable taking habit-forming drugs. I tried aromatherapy, even inhaling lavender essential oils as they are supposed to induce sleepiness. All to no avail.
Then a friend reminded me that I was overcomplicating the whole ordeal. As it turned out, the solution was much simpler than I could have imagined. Old habits die hard, and I had been sleeping with the same lumpy cotton-stuffed pillow for many years. From the moment I substituted it with a down feather pillow, the difference was apparent. Now I’m sleeping right through the night and waking up refreshed and energized each morning.
The merits of down
Now that winter is fast approaching and when you crawl into bed your sheets are icy cold, the natural solution is to add more blankets and snuggle in. But then, in the middle of the night, you’re much too hot and you end up throwing off the blankets, and the air is freezing! This frustrating dance between hot and cold could all be avoided with a look into down comforters.
There is a variety of down for comforters: goose, duck, synthetics and others being fairly common. Goose down is considered by many to be the most comfortable as well as the most insulating. But it’s lightweight and breathable, so you’ll never be too hot. Goose down comes in bigger, thicker clumps than duck down, and it doesn’t have an unpleasant smell like other forms of down can have.
Hey, Nice Threads
The bedding industry has become notorious for touting high thread count as a measure of quality, but those stats can be more than a little misleading. If you’ve shopped for sheets or mattress pads in the last few years, you may have noticed that thread counts have skyrocketed – at least according to advertising materials and in-store displays. Most of the time, you’re actually better off paying attention to the length of the cotton fiber itself.
Egyptian cotton is often considered to be superior to its domestic counterpart because the fibers are longer. Short fibers are prickly, while long fibers are soft and gentle. You could compare this principle to that of a beard – long hair is fluffy while short stubble is rough and scratchy. An Egyptian cotton mattress pad might feature thread counts in the 300 range, but they actually feel softer than a 1000-thread count cover.