About Us
Welcome to Sleep Satisfaction! We wanted to real quickly tell you a little about us and what’s behind our site. As you can see, it’s even now in the process of being rolled out and still something of a work-in-progress. But then again, aren’t we all . . .
The idea for this site grew out of a casual conversation one day between a brother and sister. And, yes, that brother and sister is, in fact, us! We’re Mike and Carol, the founders of Sleep Satisfaction.
We were noticing a lot of other little conversations we’d had – with friends, family, coworkers – that tended to come around suspiciously often to the subject of sleep. Or a lack thereof. You find yourself commiserating with people about the strangest things:
“I had trouble falling asleep again last night. I must have tossed and turned for hours.”
“Woke up at 3:00 am and couldn’t fall back asleep until 30 minutes before the alarm went off. It’s like I couldn’t get my mind out of gear…”
“I’m tired all the time, but I just can’t seem to fit anything like 8 hours into my insane schedule. In my life, sleep comes last.”
Seemed that everywhere you looked, people were really struggling to get good sleep and to get enough of it. You could go ahead and throw the two of us into this group as well. Too many nights of not getting to bed at a decent time, or not being able to fall asleep once there, or stay asleep. For a lot of folks, the sleep they do get can sometimes seem fitful and unsatisfying, like it doesn’t quite “take”. The flip-side, of course, is that you end up feeling tired and low on energy in the daytime.
This is no small problem. Sleep truly is a vital part of our lives, affecting literally everything about us – our health, our performance, our sense of well-being. You’ve got to figure that anything we would devote a third of our lives to must be pretty important, right? Particularly when you’re getting to that age when your body starts to let you know that it won’t be taken for granted anymore.
We also realized how sad this all is, because like most people, we really do love to sleep! Think about that nice, deep, restful kind of sleep, when you just climb in bed and let it wash over you. It’s sort of like an 8-hour vacation from all the maddening cares of the world. Not many things in life are as pleasurable. Or as beneficial. The pity is that we, as a society, just can’t seem to find room for it in our lives anymore. We’ve pushed it out to the margins. We no longer allow ourselves to enjoy sleep.
We wondered if there was any way to break out of this dilemma. Nobody’s ever accused us of being cock-eyed optimists and we don’t go in for a lot of frothy self-help happy-talk. But we do have a certain faith in the simple power of being resourceful and proactive. We believe that with a measure of ingenuity, it really is possible to gain more control over life.
Many times, even the most seemingly intractable problems will yield easily to a few modest, well-applied solutions. It’s just that sometimes the frustration of the situation blinds us to the answers, even when they’re staring us right in the face. The trick is to keep your eyes open, be willing to do a little intelligent experimentation, and stay focused on what’s truly important. Could this be the way to approach the sleep problem? We wanted to do some exploring of this issue…
That’s when Mike said off-handedly to Carol, “You know, this would make a really great website.” That did it. Everything was decided. We plunged head-first into the subject of sleep. We talked and planned. We read everything we could get our hands on. We wanted to know the science behind sleep – how it works, what it does and how it impacts our health. We wanted to hear what the experts were saying. Along the way, we each learned some things about ourselves and our own sleep. Next, we turned our attention to the bewildering array of products and sleep aides on the market today. Everything from melatonin supplements to form-fitting pillows to high-tech alarm clocks. What works and doesn’t work? What started out as a kind of side-project turned into darn-near an obsession.
The result is Sleep Satisfaction. We have dedicated this site to the serious pursuit of truly satisfying sleep. At its core is the simple philosophy that sleep is one of nature’s great blessings in life and that it is up to us to understand it, value it, and take full advantage of its life-giving benefits. If you are looking for the secret to a more prosperous, healthy, and enjoyable life for you and your family, you just found it!
We want to spread this message as widely as we can, and help show people how they can put it into practice.
Are there ways of getting good sleep back into your life that don’t involve quitting your job and going to live with the Amish? We think so. Very often you find that it’s the modest little changes made here and there, that bring about the biggest breakthroughs. That’s what this website will be about.
Given the fact that this topic brushes close to issues of health and medicine, it’s important for us to let you know who we aren’t. We are not scientists, researchers or credentialed experts. Neither one of us is a doctor, nor do we play one on TV. Our mission is to bring you the best information we can about sleep issues, presented in a clear, accessible way. This site will be intelligent, credible and informative. We are happy to help our visitors find their way to better sleep. But you should understand that our qualifications do not include an ability to hand down authoritative medical advice. We’ll leave that end of the business to the pros.
Always talk with your doctor before you make any drastic change in your life that has health implications. And if you have a serious sleep-related problem, we strongly urge you to seek proper medical attention.
We say all this not so much to cover our butts legally – you can read our legal disclosure here – but because of an emphatic belief in being fully informed and wide awake in the choices we make about our lives and our health. Whether you are on our site or anywhere else, we encourage you to be discerning. Always get all the information you can, double check, ask questions, be skeptical, and never make any critical decision based on what you heard or read from any one source.
We are delighted to have you as a visitor to Sleep Satisfaction, and we can’t wait to show you what we have to offer. This site is for you. We sincerely hope that you enjoy it and learn from it. And we hope that you can rediscover the power and the pleasures of a good night’s sleep.
In order to make this website everything that we’ve envisioned, we need your help and input. Your questions and comments will be greatly appreciated. What kinds of things would you like to see and read about? What is your most pressing need or problem when it comes to sleep? What have you found that helps you the most? We would love to hear from you!