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<\/p>\nSo here I am on the world\u2019s comfiest bed \u2014 wallowing, luxuriating, stretching, yawning and jumping. Yes, apparently, leaping about in your pjs is actively encouraged as it helps to massage the hand-crafted mattress.<\/p>\n
But also marvelling that, finally, I have something in common with Beyonce, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Courteney Cox and, by the sound of it, the entire royal family of Sweden.<\/p>\n
Because now I know exactly how they feel as they snuggle down for the night.<\/p>\n
I can experience the same enveloping softness Brad feels as his jaunty blue-and-white- check topper cradles his lower back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sense of lying on a cloud that Beyonce must get every night. The gentle support that George Clooney enjoys, after all the effort of looking so handsome all day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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I can safely say that Miles had one of the best night\u2019s sleep he\u2019s had in years. He was asleep in about 30 seconds and snoring like a train within a minute. Pictured, Jane Fryer and her husband Miles putting the bed through the test<\/p>\n
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I have something in common with Beyonce, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt (pictured), George Clooney, Courteney Cox and, by the sound of it, the entire royal family of Sweden<\/p>\n
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The sense of lying on a cloud that Beyonce (pictured) must get every night. The gentle support that George Clooney enjoys, after all the effort of looking so handsome all day<\/p>\n
For they all reportedly own a bespoke H\u00e4stens bed, just like mine, hand-made in the village of Koping, an hour and half from Stockholm, by a 170-year-old company that takes sleep extremely seriously and very much prefers the term \u2018sleep system\u2019 to bed.<\/p>\n
Of course, some buyers stick to the relatively austere 2000T model that I\u2019m currently tucked up in \u2014 a snip at just over \u00a350,000 and composed of a base, box spring and mattress topper, with three interacting spring systems, 35 hand-crafted layers of natural materials and an awful lot of hand-teased horsetail hair.<\/p>\n
Others have opted for the \u00a370,000 Dreamer \u2014 one of the company\u2019s best sellers and flying out of the factory.<\/p>\n
But a surprising number, including gazillionaire Canadian rapper Drake, have gone all-in and plumped for the three-metre by three-metre Grand Vividus, a hand-stitched, hand-crafted beauty finished with leather, decorated with stingray skin and topped off with gold trimmings which weighs 500kg and costs about \u00a3500,000.<\/p>\n
What? Yes, you read correctly. Half a million pounds \u2014 for a bed. Surely, the world has gone completely barking mad.<\/p>\n
Or has it? After all, the uber rich already spend so much money on all sorts of rubbish \u2014 gold-plated bathtubs, islands, endless homes and more cars and planes than they could ever use.<\/p>\n
But a bed, well, a bed is actually useful. Particularly if it lasts for ever and is so extraordinarily billowy and pillowy that it helps you sleep better, even with all the awfulness whirling around in the world right now.<\/p>\n
And, by all accounts, H\u00e4stens beds do just that.<\/p>\n
Which is why I am here, lolling about on one in the Infinity Suite at The Langham hotel in London, ready to put it to the test.<\/p>\n
Because as well as boasting wonderful restaurants, bars, and the most spectacular flower arrangements I\u2019ve ever seen, in this exquisite suite, The Langham also has its very own sleep system, along with an understanding with H\u00e4stens so that guests (albeit only those with a spare \u00a35,500 for a one-night stay) can really try before they buy.<\/p>\n
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But I can also say, hand on heart, that I have never lain awake listening to my husband snoring in a more comfortable bed<\/p>\n
Funnily enough, this was one assignment on which my husband, Miles, was extremely keen to join me. And don a pair of H\u00e4sten\u2019s soft cotton pyjamas, down glass after glass of the ice-cold Taittinger provided by the lovely Langham, and pretend to be stinking rich, just for a night. He even promised not to snore. If he ever got to sleep, that is, because he\u2019s a terrible sleeper.<\/p>\n
Sadly, sleeping is not one of my great life skills, either. Not since having children.<\/p>\n
Some weeks, the stars align, it\u2019s all fine and I get a good seven hours before the alarm goes off at 6.40am. But, in between, are great swathes of bad nights. Wide awake between three and four. Fantasising about a good night\u2019s sleep. Mornings with gritty eyes and grey skin.<\/p>\n
Which is a shame because, according to H\u00e4stens\u2019 sleep expert, Dr Chad Eldridge, sleep is the elixir of life and health. Everything unravels without it.<\/p>\n
\u2018All systems of the body are directly affected by sleep,\u2019 he explains. \u2018It plays a major role in cardiovascular, metabolic, and hormonal health, as well as being the time in which the demands you place on the musculo-skeletal system are repaired.\u2019<\/p>\n
On top of all that, it also helps with memory, makes you look better, keeps you slim, protects from cancer, dementia, strokes, flu, and makes you happier.<\/p>\n
Blimey. No wonder I\u2019m falling to bits. Or that the quest for the perfect night\u2019s sleep is a serious \u2014 and highly lucrative \u2014 business.<\/p>\n
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H\u00e4stens like all their customers to have at least two hour-long sessions, lying quietly in their beds, in their shops<\/p>\n
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Sadly, with the greatest will in the world, I am not going to be buying a bed today and so, as I float on my perfect cloud, we chat<\/p>\n
Which is why, before Miles and I barely stroke our smooth white bed, let alone bounce around on its cloud-like top, I pop round the corner to one of H\u00e4sten\u2019s four London stores, (in Wigmore Street), to pick up some top sleep tips from Rodrigo and Cameron, who live, breathe and practically pulse with high-quality sleep.<\/p>\n
Rodrigo starts by whisking me downstairs to a room awash with blue-and-white-check beds.<\/p>\n
\u2018They all look the same, but they are completely different,\u2019 he says, \u2018We do not want people to be led by the look, just how they feel.\u2019<\/p>\n
Which means that some are soft and enveloping, others are harder, with the feeling dictated by the layering of the material inside \u2014 a bit like a giant lasagne.<\/p>\n
In my limited experience, choosing a mattress is a stressful thing. Fifteen minutes in John Lewis, or wherever, while you perch on ten different beds and bicker with your partner over who is cooking dinner later.<\/p>\n
Here, it\u2019s rather different, as lovely Rodrigo quizzes me on which position I usually sleep in \u2014 my back. How firm my current bed is \u2014 crazily hard. How many times I wake in the night \u2014 about four. And tuts sympathetically.<\/p>\n
In fact, being properly fitted for a bed feels surprisingly intimate. (Until he rather breaks the mood by telling me that we all lose about 250ml of water when we sleep.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Which in a normal bed stuffed with man-made materials such as latex, will slop about at the bottom of the mattress. But in the H\u00e4stens, the horsehair wicks it away almost instantly, and hey presto, no night sweats.)<\/p>\n
And then, finally, he pops me into bed, saying rather masterfully: \u2018I will say how I think your body looks best. Then we choose a bed together \u2014 because the best bed is the bed for you.\u2019<\/p>\n
Anything you say, Rodrigo.<\/p>\n
And wow! The softness! The give! Just enough, but not too much. The sense of being enveloped, cherished, almost. And all under the warm cloud of the special H\u00e4stens duvet (between \u00a32,000 and \u00a34,000) and pillow (\u00a3300 to \u00a3600), softer than soft and stuffed with German and Norwegian down.<\/p>\n
In fact, it\u2019s almost too much after a hectic day. I can actually feel my eyes brimming.<\/p>\n
Which is why H\u00e4stens like all their customers to have at least two hour-long sessions, lying quietly in their beds, in their shops. Presumably, so there\u2019s time to get over the shock of how amazing they all are, and to work out which is the best one for you.<\/p>\n
With a normal customer, Rodrigo would leave them alone to slumber.<\/p>\n
\u2018I can tell the moment they\u2019re in if it\u2019s the right bed for them,\u2019 he says. \u2018Their faces change. They relax.\u2019<\/p>\n
Sadly, with the greatest will in the world, I am not going to be buying a bed today and so, as I float on my perfect cloud, we chat.<\/p>\n
About the factory in rural Sweden where it will take 15 top workers at least 600 hours to make a Grand Vividus.<\/p>\n
About the site visits conducted by the technical team, to work out how to get the beds in once they\u2019re finished. (And, presumably, with the half-tonne monsters, to double check that the bedroom floor is strong enough to support it.)<\/p>\n
How they never give freebies and never have sales, but have endless happy customers forever rushing back in, crying, \u2018Oh my God, you\u2019ve changed my life!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Then they come back and purchase beds for the country home, for the kids, for everyone\u2026\u2019 says Rodrigo.<\/p>\n
And just when I think it couldn\u2019t get any more surreal, he tells me about their specialist massage service.<\/p>\n
No, no, not for the customers! For the mattress topper, which needs rolling, kneading, swishing, squashing, anything to move the horsehair around a bit as the mattress starts adapting to your body.<\/p>\n
Surely, he\u2019s pulling my leg now!<\/p>\n
But no.<\/p>\n
\u2018Ideally, once a month in the first year,\u2019 he says. Though, alternatively, you could just jump about on it a bit.<\/p>\n
\u2018We do not discourage jumping on the beds,\u2019 he says. \u2018In fact, we positively encourage it!\u2019<\/p>\n
What would I give for a H\u00e4stens bed. Not quite fifty grand, but maybe a kidney. Perhaps it is better never to try them \u2014 never to know.<\/p>\n
It does seem a crying shame that most of us mere mortals \u2014 particularly the really knackered ones \u2014 can\u2019t afford to buy a single H\u00e4stens, let alone a fleet of them. Not even a second-hand mattress from eBay \u2014 where prices seem to start at a staggering \u00a320,000.<\/p>\n
\u2018Of course, you could just buy the topper \u2014 we can\u2019t stop you, but we really wouldn\u2019t recommend it,\u2019 says Cameron.<\/p>\n
And so with that, I haul myself out of Heaven and head back to the luscious Langham where, for one night only, we drink cocktails in the Artesian Bar, soak in our infinity bath, sip champagne and, eventually, hunker down in a bed made for billionaires. Which brings us to the million-dollar question, did we sleep like babies?<\/p>\n
Well, one of us did.<\/p>\n
In fact, I can safely say that Miles had one of the best night\u2019s sleep he\u2019s had in years. He was asleep in about 30 seconds and snoring like a train within a minute.<\/p>\n
I did not have quite such an A-list night \u2014 and I made a mental note to ask Rodrigo whether Beyonce and Brad et al tend to snap up two beds at once and stick their snoring partners in the other room.<\/p>\n
But I can also say, hand on heart, that I have never lain awake listening to my husband snoring in a more comfortable bed.<\/p>\n
In fact, I almost didn\u2019t care that I was still awake.<\/p>\n