How was your sleep last night? Are you full of beans or are you like a zombie with a headache and crankiness after little sleep? If so, you’re not alone. In fact you’re part of what is being termed as ‘Shattered Britain.’ In an attempt to sleep soundly and wake up fresh as a button ‘team ratesit’ (perhaps the world’s most incompatible bedding-partners) put Silentnight’s Bounceback pillows to the test…

What happens in our bedroom…

I know we’re not unique in this, I mean at the moment in households across the country couples are at war over the central heating. The same applies to duvet togs. I’m typically cold and enjoy a range of tog-age whilst the other half is generally warm and therefore known as the ‘anti tog.’ Instead he prefers a sheet or duvet cover (without the duvet inside) or nothing at all. All this as well as the 2am wrestling to grab back a corner of coverage and it’s taken us since 1998 to realise that we are incompatible in the bedding department.

Rather than cosy up under a 13tog duvet we now sleep very peacefully and comfortably, thank you very much, in our King size bed with our own, unique set of bedding.

Bounceback pillows enter the bedroom…

I’m afraid to say our pillow situation is not much different either. He only likes certain pillow cases and certain combinations of pillow. Like me he reads with two behind his back but when it’s sleep time we throw one on the floor.

The Silentnight Bounceback was dressed in a permitted pillow case (nothing too scratchy or slippery for his delicate skin) and the testing began. Reading wise we both felt very supported and plumped up. No problems there. Then the real test came.

I am lucky. I go to sleep very quickly and usually sleep really well. I generally don’t wake up in the night and only in the morning when either the alarm goes off or a small person starts blasting out a groovy tune on the CD player or banging the floorboards with Lego. It was no surprise then that on settling down sleep my head sank softly into the Bounceback pillow and there it remained. I liked the fact that for one single pillow it was actually quite big and comfy whereas sometimes a lonesome pillow can be very flat. True to its word, when I took my head off it also bounced back into shape.

On the other side of the bed however the Bounceback was getting more of a grilling. This customer does not fall asleep straight away and does wake up a few times during the night.  Let’s face facts he was never going to be easy to please was he?

Whilst the size and feel of the pillow was ‘appreciated’ he found that the pillow ‘gave’ too much and that he needed to fold it to create adequate support. So, whilst I’m happily enjoying a good night’s kip (I have a dodgy neck/shoulder but the support was enough for me) the other side of bed was wriggling away trying to get the right foldage to match the correct pillow case to match the correct bed linen combination for that night’s autumnal temperature!

So again, it’s the male/female divide when it comes to the Bounceback. Whilst some of you may be thinking it’s time we took a trip to our local Relate counselling service I can assure you there’s no need to worry. Just take a look at the Silent Revolution survey results below… they make us look perfectly ‘normal!’

Silentnight’s Silent Revolution

The new Shattered Britain study, commissioned by bed manufacturer, Silentnight, found that despite being fully aware of how important a good night’s sleep is, a massive three quarters (75 per cent) of today’s time-poor, stressed society is not getting its recommended eight hours – and this is impacting on work, health and relationships.

• 30 per cent say they can’t concentrate on their work
•  Almost half (46.5 per cent) complained that a lack of sleep gave them headaches, or left them feeling depressed (31 per cent)
• Two thirds of UK adults say they are grumpy without their eight hours.
•  50 per cent admitting to losing their patience with their family due to lack of sleep.
• A third of bleary-eyed Brits blame lack of sleep for their kitchen disasters.

Silentnight’s The Silent Revolution campaign is calling for the government to remove VAT on British made beds and mattresses beds zero rated for a better night’s sleep for all.

DISCLOSURE: We were sent a pair of Silentnight Bounceback Pillows to review. All opinions and words are our own.