How to revolutionise your sleep, the Swedish way with Carpe Diem Beds
In popular imagination, the Scandinavian countries are associated with a fundamental understanding of how to live well. Northern European lifestyles share a focus on wellbeing, tolerance and simple style, with an equal respect for nature and technology. And attitudes to sleep are no different: in Sweden, they know how to sleep. How can we learn from them? How can we sleep like Swedes?
Firstly, respecting sleep is a starting point. Treating sleep as a luxury and yet also a necessity is important, and therefore crafting a serious space for it is paramount. The Swedish bedroom is world-leading for its fusion of nature and innovation, and for its muted, minimalist aesthetic and clean lines. One brand that embodies this is Carpe Diem Beds, a household name in Sweden, associated with the ultimate in sleep comfort and design credentials. This is the brand that patented a mattress designed by a chiropractor and a team of medical experts with the aim of offering a lifetime of quality sleep. If anyone can teach us to sleep, they can.
The brand was founded 25 years ago by chiropractor Börje Thuleskär in partnership with the Spinal Unit at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden. Its ethos centres on creating a cohesive bedroom, incorporating a range of considered pieces that complement the bed as centrepiece, with a dedication to optimising the bedroom environment as an oasis of calm and thereby revolutionising your sleep. While choosing the perfect mattress for you is at the heart of the brand’s in-store experience, there’s a strong focus on bedroom design and streamlining, so that the bed you choose can be housed in an environment that’s conducive to optimum sleep health.
To this end, everything in the bedroom should be considered together. Some principles are simple – banishing clutter, for instance, while others are more sophisticated and design-led. Carpe Diem Beds opened a showroom on Wigmore Street last year, where visitors can experience the company’s ethos first hand. Here a wide selection of Designers Guild fabrics for beds and headboards can be colour-matched with carpets, and cushions, all of them in neutral tones, which are adopted in Scandinavian design to create a sense of calm in the mind. The palette is dominated by beiges and greys with some darker tones and some light pinks at the more colourful end. The look is luxurious but minimalist, all clean lines and cohesive pieces.
Behind all this lies a deeply scientific approach to comfort. Carpe Diem Beds’ mattresses use a patented contour pocket system designed to contour your body so that you feel you’re sleeping on a cloud. The company’s patented system has a unique cushioning ability, which yields and supports at the same time, instantly moulding to your body’s contours and changing with your every movement. The sensation is unique: almost weightless and quite unlike most standard mattresses.
The beds themselves contribute to the floaty feeling with their focus on comfort and ergonomics, and the process of deciding on precisely the right one for you is lengthy and detailed. Carpe Diem Beds’ innovative approach is visible on their website, where an interactive bed configurator introduces the available options, revealing how each bed can be matched with personal preferences. Each bed is customisable in size, finish and fabric, with a variety of headboard options. Top of the range is Vindö, the most innovative adjustable bed that offers automatic lumbar and neck support, with head and foot rests that can be lowered or raised to suit your needs. It has a variety of massage functions that can be controlled via an app, as well as built in under-bed lighting. Skaftö is Carpe Diem Beds’ most exclusive continental bed and its moveable mid-section can be adjusted, with built-in back support customised by remote control.
All this high-tech innovation is fundamentally grounded in a respect for nature and craftsmanship. Using the best and most sustainable raw materials including slow-growth Nordic pine, Talalay latex and organic cotton, expert bed-makers craft each bed by hand in a Swedish manufacturing facility. Each bed is built from start to finish by the same person, who signs the frame at the end as an ultimate marker of quality, because a belief in sustainability and workmanship lies at the heart of the brand’s values. Linda Schori, Creative Director of Carpe Diem Beds, explains: “We represent the perfect combination of innovation, design and quality. Our dream is that your bed becomes an integral part of your life, providing years of restful sleep and aesthetic pleasure. Why compromise when you don’t have to? Beds can and should soothe both the body and the soul.”
If we want to revolutionise our sleep, we should start by designing our bedrooms with a Nordic-inspired approach to luxury, technology and nature. There’s no better single route to wellbeing for body and soul than rest and sleep, and that’s why a Carpe Diem bed is a long-term investment in your overall health. Länge leve revolutionen!
