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The City of Victoria has unveiled plans to develop eight of the eleven ‘special places’ along the five kilometre, inner harbour walkway. The City officially named the path “David Foster Way” last year, in an elaborate presentation that included the producer himself and homegrown crooner, Michael Bublé. This year, the City intends to expand the project, creating definite landmarks along the walkway.

The ‘special place’ that is receiving the most attention, is a public celebration site that will be built in front of the parliament buildings. The plans call for a 10,000 square foot green space to be paved over on the legislative lawn.

While many recognize the need for a common entertainment space downtown, there have been a handful of citizens opposing the choice of location. Mess with any green area and you are bound to have a few problems.

The pathway is set to be one of the longest uninterrupted harbour pathways in North America. Local pedestrians, commuters and the many visitors to Victoria’s gorgeous harbour hub, will use the route.

The other ten special places along the route are: Barclay Point, Canoe Club, Johnson Street Bridge, Bastion Square Waterfront, Ship Point, Belleville Street Lookout, Laurel Point, Heron Cove, Fisherman’s Warf and Ogden Point.

The project, in its current form, is set to cost the city $40 million.

Writer, actor and tall person, John Cleese, is coming to Victoria for two shows this fall. Cleese will preform on October 22 and 23 at the McPherson Playhouse.

Cleese has titled his one-man show: “Last Time to See Me Before I Die.” His fatalistic performance will include stories and clips from his 40-year career.

Cleese, rose to fame as a founding member of the comedy troupe Monty Python. Their BBC television program, Monty Python’s Flying Circus ran for three seasons, before Cleese decided to leave the project. The remaining members produced six episodes for a half-baked fourth season.

One of Cleese’s most famous sketches with the troupe is the parrot sketch. Cleese wrote the five-minute argument with his writing partner and fellow Python member, Graham Chapman. Cleese referenced the work during Chapman’s official eulogy in 1989.

Cleese went on to write and star in the equally famous, British television program, Fawlty Towers. He would later star in a number of feature films, including the Academy Award nominated A Fish Called Wanda. Cleese also lent his voice to animated works, most famously, the Shrek series.

The McPherson show promises to be a night of laughs. The formal program will conclude with a question and answer period, where Cleese will be given the opportunity to display his skill as an improviser.

Before you start pining for the fjords, secure a ticket for this memorable night. It has the promise to be ‘something completely different.’

Sustainable living has the faint smell of freedom fries.
A local biodiesel centre is producing a high-grade fuel from recycled kitchen oil. The Cowichan BioDiesel Co-Operative is producing over 150,00 litres of fuel a year. That’s a big jump from their initial 20 a year, sold at local farmers markets.
Local diesel vehicle owners, as well as the Cruise Victoria Bus Line Company are using their product.
The bus company is a tour operation that takes visitors around the Victoria area. Many of these visitors are on shore leave from the giant cruise ships that moor at Ogden Point. These ships, ironically, are one of the major suppliers of vegetable oil for the biodiesel collective. In a cool twist, the ship’s waste is being used to shuttle its guests.
Cruise Victoria has been using the biodiesel since 2007. It was only recently that they switched to B100, or 100 per cent biofuel. They own 19 buses that operate in and around Victoria.
For the average consumer, biodiesel offers a means to move away from fossil fuel dependency. The cost fluctuates, but the average user pays 50 cents more per litre. For longer trips, biodiesel users must carry extra fuel in their car or simply use regular diesel in a pinch.
For more information on using biodiesel, follow this link to the co-op’s home page. The page opens with the cute slogan, “We eat locally and so do our cars.”

A new study, published in last week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, shows a strong correspondence between low melatonin levels and the development of type 2 diabetes. The research shows that the lowest melatonin level participants were two times as likely to develop diabetes than those with average levels of melatonin. This study shows the importance of sleep in combating one of the worlds most debilitating diseases.

Melatonin is a hormone that is produced in the brain. It is generated three to five hours after the onset of sleep. Melatonin is used to regulate the body’s internal clock, but researchers have also found that it acts as a regulator for the production of natural insulin in the pancreas. When we fail to get those late hours of rest, our body is unable to produce the hormone. When the body receives less of this hormone, our insulin level dips.

Other studies have found that a pre-diabetic state can be imitated in test subjects by the simple altering of sleep patterns.

What does this mean for health organizations?

A boost of melatonin in our body may be able to ward off the disease for those who are genetically disposed to diabetes. Supplements may be an option, but a simple solution is a proper sleep schedule.

The studies findings are an excellent reason to aim for eight hours a night.

Stay healthy, sleep an appropriate amount and lower your risk of diabetes.

Diabetes Facts:

•  Scientists suggest that by 2030, diabetes will become the seventh leading cause of death in the world.
•  Approximately 347 million people have diabetes worldwide.
•  Shift workers are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those with 9-5 jobs.
•  Type 1 diabetes cannot be prevented.

Our city is looking a little lovelier this month, as the flowers return to our gardens and the trees begin to bud. Spring is here! But that also means our homes are due for a deep clean.

Once we’ve finished organizing the garage, dusting the living room and storing our winter sports gear, it’s time to turn our attention to our nightly partner: our mattress.

Start with the sheets. Strip them all and give them a good wash. Be kind to the environment and hang dry them in the backyard.

Then deconstruct your bed. Remove the foundation and mattress from the support structure. Vacuum the now empty space. If you have hardwood or linoleum, make like Cinderella and give the floor a good scrub.

Then turn your hoover on the mattress itself. You lose a lot of skin cells as you sleep every night. They have to go somewhere, so a good vacuum will suck them up. Don’t forget to go over the foundation as well. If you notice any stains, use the guide to stain removal provided by our friends at Simmons Mattress Gallery.

Before you put your bed back together, examine the mattress and make a decision on its life cycle. If you’ve had the bed for more than ten years it is definitely time to replace it. If you notice any substantial wear or faulty springs, it should probably go no matter what the age. If it is still a traditional flip every six months bed, you may want to exchange it for a non-flip pocket coil version. We suggest a Beautyrest.

Next, make a trip to Mattress Choice. We are located just off Blanshard, in the heart of Victoria.

Mention this article and our sales staff will throw in two pillows absolutely free.

Start fresh. Spring is here and you deserve a bed as nice as the one your daffodils are living in.

Pamela Anderson made a brief return to Vancouver Island this week, attending a funeral in Victoria for her Aunt Vie. The Baywatch star has always claimed that her aunt was an influential figure in her life. Vie inspired Pamela to compete in Dancing with the Stars. She was also a minor celebrity in her own right, penning the cookbook/biography “Aunt Vie: A Life of Pickles and Pearls.”

Pamela, who is a native of Ladysmith, got us thinking about famous Islanders, specifically famous Victorians (from the ‘city’, not the ‘age’). For a little bit of fun this week, Mattress Choice has decided to compile a list of the major and minor celebrities who grew up in the City of Gardens (Victoria).

Nelly Furtado: The Grammy winning artist was born in Victoria and attended Mount Douglas Secondary in Saanich.

David Foster: The multi-talented producer, composer, songwriter and music executive is one of the most famous celebrities to be born in Victoria. Foster received the Order of Canada in 2006. He has won 16 Grammy awards and been nominated three times for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards.

Steve Nash: The Fitness Worlds are a constant reminder that one of the NBA’s greatest playmakers has his roots in British Columbia. Nash was actually born in Johannesburg, South Africa. His family moved to Canada when he was 18 months old, finally settling in Victoria. Like Furtado, Nash briefly attended Mount Douglas Secondary, but later graduated from St. Michaels. Nash has also been awarded the Order of Canada and has an honorary law degree from UVic.

 Emily Carr: The Province’s most renowned painter was born in Victoria, growing up in a lavish English home on Government Street. Carr’s visual documentation of native art and artifacts changed the Canadian art scene. Her name is now synonymous with education, although Carr herself was a terrible classroom teacher. Many of her students boycotted her classes. Interesting fact: Carr has a crater named after her on Venus.

 Atom Egoyan: Egoyan was born in Egypt, but was raised in Victoria by Armenian parents. At an early age, Egoyan worked hard to distance himself from his Armenian heritage. His film Ararat is reconciliation with his roots. Egoyan is now a world famous filmmaker, professor and stage director.

So those are just a few. Feel free to add to our list in the comments below.

Victoria is a smaller, more civilized version of Vancouver. It comes with a little extra class, a slightly older population and a greener landscape. Victoria citizens take care of their gardens, spend more time out of their cars and live a less hectic lifestyle than their cousins across the water.

When they shop, they want to buy a product that will last, not a throwaway article from IKEA. They expect a high standard of service, not the kind dolled on her majesty the Queen, but close. When they spend their money, they want to pay for quality, but at the best possible price. That is why, when Victoria residents need a new mattress, they visit Mattress Choice.

Mattress Choice has the largest selection of mattresses in Canada. Our three major suppliers are Simmons, Sealy and Serta. These are the top manufactures of beds in the mattress business. With a complete selection from each of these companies, Mattress Choice is able to offer their customers the widest range of beds to meet every comfort level, budget and design preference. We have them all.

The same can’t be said for furniture companies that dabble in mattress sales. We won’t mention any names, but a number of department stores and furniture dealers sell mattresses on the side. Without a proper inventory, these companies are unable to provide their customers with the range offered by Mattress Choice.

Service is also an issue. Mattress Choice is completely focused on mattresses; that’s all we sell. Our sales staff are all trained professionals. They eat, sleep and dream mattresses. When a customer approaches with a question about a bed, they have an answer.

As well, Mattress Choice goes above and beyond with our delivery packages. When each mattress is delivered, the staff take the time to help each customer setup their new bed. They also, on request, remove the older mattress for recycling. Best of all, these services, including the delivery, are free with every purchase. We’ll repeat that in case you missed it: Delivery, setup and removal are FREE.

That is a service that definitely isn’t replicated by the other dealers.

But the top reason why Victoria residents shop at Mattress Choice is because we guarantee the lowest price. Bring in a competitors estimate and Mattress Choice will beat it. Every time.

Over the past few months, the Mattress Choice blog has touched on one or two issues involving the sleeping concerns of pregnant women. This week we would like to turn our attention to infants and toddlers and the incredible invention known as the sleep sack.

The sleep sack is a combination blanket and sleeping bag. It is intended for babies over 10 lbs and can be used for toddlers as well. Popular in Europe for years, the sacks are relatively new to the North American market.

The sacks provide two major features for young children. Firstly, they ensure your baby won’t lose his/her blanket during the night. This keeps them at a stable temperature from the time you put them down, till the time they tell you to get up (wink). Secondly, they prevent children from getting tangled in their sheets, lowering the risk of SIDS.

They are often constructed of breathable cotton and are machine washable. The sacs have upside down zippers to keep the zipper tag away from curious hands.  Instead of full sleeves, almost all brands have armholes. These allow for circulation and prevent babies from overheating.

Each brand has a range of sizes, usually according to the weight of the little one. They often come in either summer or winter models.

An extra tip: “These make great gifts for showers!”

So join the revolution, reduce your child’s bedding costs and invest in a sleep sac. Your own parents will wish they had one when you were a child.

Forget the Red Bulls and the litres of coffee; students of the Victoria region, what you need to get ready for finals cannot be found in a can. The answer to the age-old question, how can I stay awake for the hours of studying before finals: Get more sleep. It’s that easy.

Sleep is often the last thing on a student’s mind as they look ahead to the daunting month of April. With papers due and exams mere weeks away, this is not the time to panic and throw aside your sleep schedule.

Stick to a set time to head to bed. Close the books twenty or thirty minutes before this. This will give your body and mind a chance to cool down.

A rested brain will retain more knowledge, work at faster rate and be better suited for logical problem solving when it has had ample time to recharge. Securing eight hours of rest a night will ensure your mind is functioning at its peak capacity.

If you can’t seem to turn off your brain when it’s time to hit the sheets, you might need to reconsider your sleep routine.

Here are a couple of quick ideas for turning your dorm room into a sleep sanctuary:

Temperature

Lower it. The last thing your body needs is a hot environment to sleep in.

Keep the Electronics Away

Put the iPhone, laptop and tablet away, the further the better. The less electronics around, the more focused your mind will be on the simple act of sleep.

Make Your Bed

One: it will make your room look tidier and lower your stress levels. Two: it’s been proven that a made bed is more comfortable then an unmade one. Three: you never know who might join you.

No coffee after 5:00 pm

Or at least six hours before you want to turn in

Improve your mattress

Lose the hand-me-down and invest in a quality mattress Victoria has one of Canada’s best mattress stores. Mattress Choice has the largest variety of mattresses of any store in the country, for any budget. Before you hit the books this weekend, take some time and visit our showroom on Blanshard. Pass this message on to your study group and we’ll throw in two free pillows. One for you and one for…

It’s not just worries of the boogeyman that keep children up at night. Sirens, alley cats and barking dogs are a part of being a city kid, but the rougher the neighborhood, the worse it gets at night.  A recent report has found that the stress of poverty spills over into adolescents, causing them to sleep more poorly than their more privileged peers.

In a study by Concordia University, areas considered “neighbourhood disordered” led to higher sleep disturbances in children. Poor sleep in children is endemic of a host of symptoms, from depression, to hyperactivity, weakened resistance to infection, substance abuse and suicide. Obesity makes the list as well. Overall the findings were that the ‘sicker’ the environment, the more poorly children slept, which led to the same host of problems found in adults.

One of the symptoms of a ‘disordered’ neighbourhood is a place where tenants change frequently and children aren’t given a chance to know their neighbours. Sound familiar, Victoria? Burglary, drug use, vandalism, and general disarray set off warning bells in children as much as they do adults.

What is the answer? If you can’t change neighbourhoods, the least you can do get them a decent dream machine. Get your kid off that lame IKEA foamy as fast as possible. Have you ever tried sleeping on a three-inch piece of soggy sponge? What are they, prisoners? Get your tweens a decent bed to call their own. Right now if you need a good mattress Victoria’s Mattress Choice has beds up to 75% off. So you can have a rested child at an affordable price.

Even better, tell us where you are moving to, and we’ll deliver it to your new household for free.

Your kids will thank you, but probably not until they’re 35.

Studies have shown that those who do not get enough sleep tend to snack more often. As we all know, unnecessary eating, especially midnight snacking, will add some unwanted padding to the midsection.

So when your friends call you fat on Facebook, don’t blame the camera, blame your bed.

The best way to cut down on the cravings, researchers suggest, is to get a proper rest. Subjects who slept a peaceful seven to eight hours a day had less of a desire to raid the cookie jar between meals, or make Dagwood-worthy sandwiches in the middle of the night.

There are a few reasons for this finding. The most obvious is that you simply can’t eat while you are sleeping. More time in dreamland means less time stuffing your face – so there’s that. Other reasons are more scientific:.

Kenneth Wright, director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado, Boulder monitored 16 healthy male and female adults at the school’s sleep labs over a two-week period.

The findings were rather shocking – the once-healthy students that were sleep deprived tended to gravitate towards high carb snacks.

Losing sleep for a week can lead to immediate weight gain. Sleeping less than five hours a night has been linked with putting on pounds and even children who sleep less than ten hours a night have been shown to gain weight. The findings suggest that when people are tired and sleep deprived they tend to reach for the chips and sodas to stabilize themselves. It’s a psychological issue. We use junk to patch gaps in our mind space when the synapses are lagging a little.

So, if you’re watching your figure, maybe the first place to start your new diet is in the bedroom. The easiest way to drop pounds is by simply closing your eyes on a comfortable bed.

When sleeping in the ‘spooning’ position, is there a winner and a loser or just a small and a big? Are men delegated to the ‘big spoon’ position? And, is there an alternative for those nights when you want to sleep as close as possible with your bed buddy?

Let us open the debate on the worthiness of the age-old cuddling practice of spooning.

To start, spooning has been around since early man and probably even before. It was a necessary position for early humans who wanted to conserve heat during the night. Early Neanderthal skeletons have been found in this position to support this claim.

They probably didn’t have the science down, but it doesn’t take a homo sapiens’ brain to know that two bodies pressed together are warmer than one.

So before the utensil was even invented, humans were modeling it’s storage placement.

But is it really the most comfortable sleeping position? It seems like the big spoon gets a raw deal (or at least a numb arm), while the little spoon gets a body cocoon (which can easily turn into an Easy-Bake oven in the warmer months).

Then there’s the head of hair in the face. Not so much a problem these days with the invention of shampoo, but imagine early man sticking his face in a mat of unkempt hair and trying to fall asleep.

Then of course there is the awkward, at times, unintentional, arousal; Jon Snow’s sword in the back. For it is often hard for men to hold back their intentions, or at least the transparency of their desires.

And, from our experience, it would seem that men assume the big spoon position 90% of the time. Some might consider that flawed, but most would claim it’s just natural for the larger body to cradle the smaller one.

So, if spooning does come with a host of flaws, why do we repeatedly go back to it.

The answer is simply there is no other logical position for two people to assume when sharing a mattress Victoria might be far removed from the caves of early man, but the desire for body contact will keep us mimicking their sleeping practices for years to come; or until our evolved brains finally come up with an acceptable alternative.

If you have a suggestion, leave it in the comments below. We would love to share it with our customers and maybe add a little variance to our own sleeping positions.

Random Fact: The most people to ever participate in a public spoon is 529,

according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Gone are the days of frivolous spending (ie. the 80s). We now live in a world where we have to constantly watch what we spend, what we eat and what we say. We bring our lunch to work, use whole wheat bread over white and receive weekly emails about our social media exposure. We live in conservative times.

The luxuries that we may have enjoyed in the past are now unneeded expenditures; the thirty-five dollar bottle of South African wine is passed over for the ten-dollar bottle from a vineyard in Kelowna. Our cars are smaller, our vacations shorter and the number of pets and children fewer. We conserve to survive.

But not all cuts are good. We can afford to spend less on our shoes, but some of life’s pleasures should never be cheapened.

Your mattress is a perfect example.

There are a number of furniture chains selling cheap beds, made with inferior products. Many of these have catchy Swedish sounding names. We buy them when our trusted bed finally becomes obsolete. We figure we can save some money, while giving up very little in comfort.

Wrong.

A cheap bed is a cheap bed. Never settle in the mattress department. A luxury bed is worth every penny (whoops, we got rid of those). Brands that you know and trust like Simmons, Sealy and Serta, do not offer inferior products at reduced prices. They offer reliable beds at prices that are reasonable for the high manufacturing standard they provide.

Mattress Choice deals exclusively with these brands. We love a midrange bottle of wine as well, but when it comes to mattresses, we only want to sell beds that are of a luxury level. Come into our showroom and feel the difference.

In a study done in the UK found that overly tired drivers were more of a danger on the road than drunken motorists. The study recorded blink duration over a 65km stretch of motorway. The worst offenders were the tired subjects. They spent a shocking eight to ten per cent of the drive with their eyes closed, as compared to the one per cent by the sober, well-rested driver. The drunk driver landed somewhere in the middle.

If you are neglecting your sleep hours, you may be endangering your life and the lives of other motorists. You may also be putting your family at risk, if you are the prime transporter.

Getting adequate amounts of rest is often harder than the simple act of avoiding alcohol before driving. Sometimes crying babies or sick teens can keep us up all night, when all we want is a few hours of rest.

Driving after a night of sleep deprivation is a disservice to everyone involved. If you are concerned about your driving ability, don’t take a chance. Call a friend or a relative and reach out for help. Find a fit driver and avoid an accident.

Blood alcohol can be measured and quantified, but fatigue cannot.

To improve your sleep, upgrade your mattress Victoria has the perfect store keeping you alert. Mattress Choice sells the finest beds in the business. With the increased comfort, your chances for a more restful night increase.

Think of it as buckling your seatbelt. Reduce the risk and secure your sleep.

The speed at which technology evolves can be a scary thing. It seems like just yesterday we were using floppy disks in our computers, CDs in our Discmans and rotary phones for our long distance calls. These days it’s all USB drives, MP3 players and iPhones. And don’t even get us started on internet Memes. I think we’re still a little confused about those silly things.

Living in a society where technology changes faster than we can keep up with it produces a number of problems. If we’re not in the loop, so to speak, we can miss out on essential changes. This is especially pertinent to items that we may use everyday.

The mattress world is no exception. Things have come along way since the traditional solid flex coil of the mattresses of old. The pocket coil is the new phenomenon that has completely changed the mattress industry.

Instead of a continuous wire platform, where all the springs were attached to a solid wire frame, we now have single pocket springs, which work independently to provide the best sleep possible.

These pocket coils all but eliminate motion transfer between sleeping partners. If one individual decides to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, the other feels hardly any movement from the opposite side of bed.

The other amazing feature of this technology is that these mattresses do not require flipping. Set it down once and forget about it. Brilliant, we know…

At Mattress Choice, the pocket coil now comes standard on 90% of our beds. From our Simmons Beautyrests, to our Sealy Posturepedics, the pocket coil is key to the comfort levels offered by a luxury mattress Victoria has embraced this new technology with open arms and more and more couples are retiring their old springs for the mattress of the future.

If you’re still sleeping on a bed from the days of floppy discs, come into Mattress Choice and let us bring you up to speed. We guarantee you’ll love the direction mattress technology has taken.

A Step Back

The snowdrops have been out for weeks and its now time to get into full spring gardening mode. It’s a daunting task, but if not handled correctly, you could be missing out on some of your favourite plants this summer.

This week, Mattress Choice is compiling a quick checklist of essential task for the coming months. It is by no means absolute; We’re sure there are a few tasks we may have left out.

Reduce the amount of plant food you feed to your indoor plants

-With the longer days, your house plants are receiving increased light levels for photosynthesis.

Plant seeds for your annuals and tomatoes indoors

-Give your seeds an early start by planting them in containers inside your home or in the greenhouse. Keep a constant temperature and if possible setup a grow light.

 Clear your garden of winter debris

-It’s been awhile since you wandered between your rose stalks. Clear out any branches, twigs or eagle nests that may have fallen during the winter months.

Plant your cold-weather veggies first

-Plant them early and enjoy Spring’s edible rewards

Layer slow release fertilizer on the beds of flowering shrubs and vines.

-This includes roses, rhododendrons and clematis.

Start your weeding

-Pull out any unwanted vegetation as it emerges.

Start your pruning

*See last weeks article

 Keep those thumbs green and your mattress hours plentiful.

Mattress Choice is proud to applaud the accomplishments of a number of outstanding Vancouver Island residents who were formerly acknowledged as B.C.’s top athletes of 2012, at this week’s 47th Sport BC awards.

Taking home one of the most prestigious awards of the night, Ryan Cochrane left the gala event with Male Amateur athlete of the year. Cochrane swam for a silver medal at the London Olympics last summer in the 1,500-metre freestyle event. He beat out fellow Victorian, Ryder Hesjedal, the cycling sensation who was able to claim first in the Giro d’Italia. Hesjedal had already claimed top honours as Canada’s amateur athlete of the year.

Also from the Island, Trevor Hirschfield was awarded top male athlete with a disability for his performance at the London Olympics in the field of rugby.

Rounding out our list of mentions is Peter Lawless, again from Victoria, who took home the prize for top coach of the year. Lawless guided the wheelchair track team to a number of medals in London this past summer.

The amount of awards given to Island residents supports the claim that amateur sport is thriving on Vancouver Island. We don’t want to post any theories on why the Island seems to be dominating the rest of the province in terms of amateur sporting output, but it might be the quality of beds being offered to VI residents. Sleep is a major part of the training regime for amateur athletes, so any move to improve that area of their conditioning is beneficial.

If you’re looking to rise to the top of your own physical and mental potential, consider purchasing a new mattress Victoria has one of the top showrooms in the Province at Mattress Choice. Come it today to view our beds, or as we like to say, ‘our training facility.’

Ryan Cochrane

“No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place.”

– Isaac Babel

Imagine a world without punctuation Can you A world where Sarcasm would be indefinable Credit storytelling and lists would become a swirling tempest of confusion Every receiver of a text message would wonder whether to lol or cry bitterly It would be chaos Literature would be reduced to see spot run The Shakespeare canon would read like the blabbering extracts of a twelve year olds diary A twelve year old with a very large vocabulary Court documents would be useless instruction manuals defunct and history a forgotten footnote The world would assume the staging of a Samuel Beckett novel where thoughts swerve collide and fornicate in a never ending serving of stew Punctuation is the essential spice of every combination of words in the Western Language Remove it and all recognition is lost Sleep is very similar Without it our functioning world would become a mess of work relationships family and entertainment With it we are able to recharge our minds rest our bodies and take a needed break from lifes hectic rhythm Our mattress in this metaphor plays the part of the period It is an instrument designed to separate our days providing a pause between events The structure of our daily language is concluded with the arrival of our mattress Victoria residents are afforded the choice of finishing their conscious hours with either a common mattress period or an instrument of luxury an exclamation point sleeping foundation Mattress Choice sells only exclamation points We carry the three top brands in the industry Simmons Sealy and Serta These companies provide the finest sentence stops in the business Make a trip to Victorias mattress store and experiment with some alternative punctuation

Bonus:

A professor wrote the following statement on the board and asked his class to punctuate it:

Woman without her man is nothing

Half of the class punctuated it as: “Woman: without her, man is nothing.”

The other half presented it as: “Woman, without her man, is nothing.”

Can you believe February is already done? Where did that go…? Time to take a soggy boot step forward into March; hopefully the rain will let up soon.

With the new season approaching, our thoughts return to the green in our gardens. This is the month for planting many of our favourite flowers and veggies. But it is also the month where gardeners start their pruning.

This week Mattress Choice would like to discuss the delicate art of pruning.

Like making your bed in the morning, pruning sets the stage for a colourful spring. It removes the old, fluffs the new and provides the plants in the new beds, enough room to grow.

Before heading out into the rain, it’s always best to check your tools; in this case your pruner or secateur, as it is also known. Test the blade on a houseplant or the small finger of your youngest child (kidding). Is it sharp enough? A dull secateur will tear instead of cut, causing unneeded shock and longer recovery.

If you feel your pruners need sharpening, take them apart using a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench. Make sure you take note of the order of the individual parts. Once apart, clean each piece using a rag and mineral spirits. Take your sharpening stone and flip it over to the course side. If it is a water stone, add a small drop of water; for an oilstone, use a light oil. Then face your blade at a 30 degree angle. Go over the stone in counter-clockwise circles, starting at the base of the blade. Finish with the finer side of the sharpening stone. Make sure to lightly oil the parts of your pruner when putting it back together.

If you’re looking to invest in a new pruner, try the Felco 2. This series is made by a Swiss manufacturer and comes with a lifetime handle guarantee and replaceable steel blades.

Now for the fine cuts.

What to prune in the month of March:

Roses: An age-old sign that it’s time to give your roses a spring cut is the first sign of daffodil bloom. Remove the dead wood and any winter damage. If new buds have begun to form, prune directly above them. Climbing roses should be reduced by one-third.

Clematis: Prune summer blooming clematis. Do not prune the spring variety until after their bloom at the start of summer.

Shrubs: Should be pruned to shape in the spring, especially ones that bloom late in the summer. This will encourage new growth and health.

Perennials: Cut back woody perennials and reduce the stocks of young plants to two. Older perennials can have up to eight stocks.

Vines: Before the leaves arrive, determine where you would like them to travel and how dense you would like the foliage.

Fruit Trees: If you haven’t pruned them already…

Well, that’s a start… Good luck. Looking forward to all the colours in our beautiful Victoria gardens.

How do you know a mattress is perfect for your comfort levels? You sleep on it.

You sleep on it after a heavy late-night cardio session. You sleep on it after a night out on the town. You sleep on it after a weekend on the slopes. You take a nap on it after work. You invite a friend to join you on it. You watch an epic three-hour movie on it. Still satisfied? Excellent!

If you’re not, Mattress Choice in Victoria will take it back.

Mattress Victoria will give you 90 nights to test sleep your newly purchased luxury mattress. That’s our comfort guarantee. That’s also why we spend so much time helping every customer who walks through our doors. We want you to go home with the right bed the first time. That’s why it’s important to gather as much information as you can about your sleeping preferences and those of your partner. Try to remember the most comfortable sleep you’ve ever had and we’ll try to match it with one of the mattresses in our showroom.

Our talented team of professionals will assist you with your mattress needs and even deliver your purchase to your door for free.

If, for some reason the bed doesn’t meet your comfort demands, we will take it back immediately and find you a mattress that does. That’s our promise.

Till Roenneberg, in his book Internal Time, noted that 80 per cent of the world now needs an alarm clock to wake-up in the morning.

This little bit of trivia was part of a longer Globe and Mail article published last week. It got us thinking about the nature of the alarm clock. Were we better off when our bodies woke us up naturally? Probably.

Waking up to blaring music or electronic beeps can be stressful on the system. A gradual, self-induced rise produces far less anxiety.

But not all of us can abandon our morning timepiece, It takes a certain discipline to go au naturale.

Here is a short guide for those interested in trying to kick the morning alarm clock:

1. Determine what time you need to rise

You may want to lose the clock radio, but the rest of your life revolves around the 24-hour cycle. In your mind, choose an exact time that you would like to open your eyes. Picture a timepiece with those numbers showing. Create a picture in your mind of what your room will look like at that time of the morning. What will the light be like? Will their be birds or traffic outside your window.

2. Before you go to bed, note the time

If you don’t want a clock in your bedroom, make sure you check the time in another room.

3. Calculate the number of hours you plan to sleep

Do the math and figure out how many hours of sleep you will get before your intended wake-up time. Have that number in your head. If possible, try to sleep in 90-minute increments; this is amount of time it takes to complete one sleep cycle.

4. Picture yourself rising at your desired time

It might seem silly, but visualize your wake-up routine.  How will you move from the bed to the shower? Will you pause at the side of the bed? Will you try not to disturb a sleeping partner?* Include all these factors and play out the scene in your head.

5. Set a back-up

At least for the first few weeks …

Now, in theory, this sounds doable. But we do not want to be responsible if you miss a major staff meeting because your ‘mental’ alarm clock did not wake you from your mattress Victoria HR reps will be ringing us off the hook. So please, make sure to set that backup.

*Be sensitive to sleeping partners. This program might do wonders for you, but it could also infuriate your partner; especially when you bound out of bed at 7:15 on Saturday morning.

The second workshop in the Godward House series deals with issues of personal safety and identity theft. The Saanich Police Department will again be on hand for this seminar.

Personal safety is a major concern for senior citizens. As our bodies get older, they become more fragile and what once would have been a simple knee scrape, can now escalate into a debilitating fall.

Keeping this in mind, the seminar addresses the need for seniors to be aware of their surroundings in and outside of the home to minimize the possibility for serious accidents. The speakers will also focus on public interactions and how they pertain to confrontations with criminals. Three specific points that will be discussed are avoidance techniques, what street predators look for and avoiding the victim profile.

The second half of this lecture will address online safety. It is now more important then ever to take extra measures to protect you personal and financial information. Scam artists use the Internet to convince citizens to reveal their most private information. Recognizing the signs of a fraudulent company is important for safely navigating the World Wide Web.

A few specific topics that the Police will touch on are password protection and identity theft, for the online portion and home security, door-to-door scams and contract signing for the offline portion.

Remember, times have changed. Where before it may not have been important to lock your door at night, now it should be the first thing you do before heading for your mattress Victoria is still one of the safest cities in the world, but crime happens everywhere. So put the dead bolt on, turn on the alarm if you have one and go to sleep knowing you’ve done all you can.

The Goward House is located at 2495 Arbutus Road

 Their website is www.gowardhouse.com

As members of the Greater Victoria business community, Mattress Choice has witnessed the slow maturation of the current South Island population. With more and more citizens reaching their golden years, social concerns have changed. Safety of our senior population is now high on the list of issues being addressed by the BC Government and private associations.

One of the private, senior orientated charities, operating in the Greater Victoria area is the Goward House Society. This week, the Goward House is offering two workshops specifically designed for citizens over the age of 50.

The first course will run on Friday, February 22nd, from 1-3pm. It will focus on licensing issues for seniors who would like to continue to drive. The workshop will be hosted by Peter Gray and will be attended by members of the Saanich Police Department. The officers will be on hand to answer any specific questions regarding the law.

While mature drivers come with a lifetime of experience behind the wheel, new challenges pertaining to age bring unique safety issues to this demographic. The course will cover fitness examinations, issues around chronic disease, the assessment process and advocacy initiatives.

To register, call: 250-477-4401

Until then, make sure to get enough rest on your mattress Victoria seniors need to stay ahead of their sleep debt. If you are concerned your mattress isn’t providing the ideal platform for your body, come into Mattress Choice to pick out a luxury bed at the lowest prices in Victoria. See you then and enjoy the workshop.

(The second workshop will be discussed in Part 2 of Senior Safety)

Science has moved one step closer to understanding why we dream.

A team of researchers from ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan has been conducting studies to match conscious and dreaming brain activity. Their findings, presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans, show that dreaming and visual perception share similar neural patterns. When these patterns are identified, scientists can predict the dream matter of sleeping subjects.

Lead researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani worked with three test subjects to gather dream and brain wave information. His lab recorded the subjects sleeping brain patterns using electroencephalography.

The subjects were woken minutes after their brain waves showed signs of the onset of sleep. They were then asked to describe their dreams. In total, Kamitani’s team recorded 200 dream reports.

With this data at their fingertips, Kamitani’s team categorized the reports around central images and key description words. His team then presented his subjects with photos of these key images and recorded their conscious brain activity when viewing them. These were compared with their subconscious brain wave patterns reacting to a similar image.

With both sets of data, the scientists found that they could predict with 75-80% accuracy, the content of a subjects dream by viewing their brain activity.

Berkeley neuroscientist Jack Gallant, attended the conference and was excited by the recent findings. “Dreaming involves some of the same higher level visual brain areas that are involved in visual imagery.”

Questions still remain on why our brain recollects specific imagery, but the connections between subconscious and conscious thoughts are widening.

"What is he dreaming about...?"

“I crave the sweet surrender of sleep and my dreams’ uncensored communication: no tiresome small talk, sucking up to impress, or tiptoeing around charged topics. Dreams are the naked truth; get ready for it.” – Judith Orloff

The quote above is an interesting reflection on dreaming. It speaks of society’s social constraints regarding conversation, but it is also a comment on the freedom our unconscious mind is allowed during our sleeping hours.

Our regular day is full of interactions with other people, but these are engagements that are controlled by social customs. We watch our words, censor our topics of conversation, adjust for our audience and avoid confrontation.

A dream has no such parameters; it is free thought. We can tell off a co-worker, express our desires for the trainer at the gym and even admit our distaste for classical music. It is a sandbox world where our true self can construct or deconstruct at will.

But, dear readers, as we know, sometimes our subconscious contains darker sides of our character that we wish were permanently suppressed. When these surface in a dream state, they can enlist feelings of guilt, self-questioning and disgust. Dealing with these themes often requires the help of a trained psychiatrist.

If we were to address these characteristics openly in society, we could face social backlash, job loss or in the worst-case criminal charges.

Dreams are a necessary escape, a departure from convention. They inspire us, scare us and empower us. They help us retain a functioning society, one that ‘craves’ the naked truth, but has enough sense to throw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt before heading out for milk.

Indecent Exposure

Moving, as we all can attest, can be an incredibly stressful time There are a million and one things to coordinate, there is always an unfortunate overlap between your previous residence and the keys to your new home and at least one personal item always seems to get lost. But, even with all the pressure, the benefits of starting fresh invariably outweigh the headache of boxing, tagging and storing.

In some ways, moving is a cathartic process because it forces you to examine everything you own and make a decision: ‘does it stay with me or does it go.’ From your plants in the living room to your 12-year old skis in the basement, judgment must be passed.

And, with each item you ponder over, comes the memories. You remember when you acquired it, how old the kids were, what rooms it has occupied and when it was used last. With those memories fresh in your mind, you envision it in your new residence; ‘does it belong on your fresh new canvas.’

One item that often gets rejected is the mattress Victoria recycling depots are full of discarded beds from people who have decided that their new home deserves a new sleeping surface.

At Mattress Choice, we fully support this decision. Your new bedroom won’t live up to they hype without a luxury mattress to accompany it. Keeping your 10-year old bed and surrounding it with four new walls won’t improve your sleep.

The best part is, when you shop at Mattress Choice, you don’t have to worry about transport. Our company offers free delivery to the south Island. That’s one less headache…

Let your new bed be the focus point of your bedroom and create a design from the mattress out. We guarantee that new memories, full of comfort, rest and play, will follow.

At Mattress Choice, we pride ourselves on creating better dreams by providing better beds. We carry the three top mattress brands in the business: Sealy, Serta and Simmons. These mattresses provide our customers with the kind of sleep that inspires the sweetest dreams.

That being said, not all dreams are sweet. Some of our dreams force us to examine the darker areas of our subconscious. For 99% of the population, these darker dreams or nightmares are a rare occurrence. But for a small 1%, these dreams can be a nightly experience that affects sleep, relationships and anxiety levels.

Within this 1% is another class of negative nocturnal narration: Night Terrors. Night Terrors are a parasomnia disorder that cause the affected individual to physically and sometimes verbally react to subconscious visions. During an episode, sufferers may flail about in bed and in extreme cases may even attack their partners.

Unlike a regular nightmare, night terrors usually occur in between the third and fourth stages of sleep, the non-rapid eye movement period, not in REM where most individuals do their dreaming.

In addition to the limb movements, night terror victims also tend to experience an increased heart rate, sweats and rapid breathing. While in the dream, concerned bed partners find it difficult to awaken the individual. The violent stage can last up to 15 minutes.

Upon waking, most sufferers are unable to describe their visions. A slight amnesia reduces or eliminates their memory of the dream itself.

For the individual experiencing these symptoms, sleep deprivation can be a serious issue. It can affect their workplace activity, relationships with their partners, family and friends and their daily anxiety levels.

Partners of those affected by night terrors, might also experience many of the same side effects.

If you or your partner are having similar symptoms to the ones listed above, talk to your doctor about a referral to a sleep clinic.

A proper retirement gift is often a hard present to shop for. You may have sat beside a co-worker for years, talking daily, but buying a gift to match their years of service can leave you baffled. Don’t worry, Mattress Choice has the perfect answer; and it’s not a watch.

The gift that says ‘enjoy your new freedom, stay young and healthy and thank you for everything’ is, of course, a new mattress.

Sure you could go with a hobby (golf clubs, fishing tackle, bowling ball), but hobbies come and go. Sometimes a spa package is a nice relaxing gift, but it’s one day. Even the go-to, the gold watch, is an accessory that often gets shelved rather than used.

A mattress is a gift that your friend can use for the next decade or more. It will provide the perfect sleep night after night, to replace all those hours lost to early morning staff meetings, next-day reports and evaluation anxiety. After 20, 30 or maybe even 40 years on the job, the gift of sleep is priceless.

Even after the battery in the gold watch packs it in, the mattress coils will be offering the same unwavering support your co-worker provided for years.

Bring the office down to Mattress Choice for a staff outing and pick out the perfect bed together. May we suggest the Beautyrest Black…

Can a Watch Bring Joy Night After Night?

Let’s focus on culture this week and put aside the mattress Victoria has announced the first headline artists for Victoria’s annual summer Jazz Festival. This year’s big draws are pianist Herbie Hancock, veteran soul songstress Bettye LaVette and up-and-coming singer-bassist Esperanza Spalding.

Produced by the Victoria Jazz Society, the ten-day festival will run from June 21st to June 30th. Artists will preform at stages around the city, including The Bay Centre and the Victoria Event Centre, as well as smaller venues like Hermann’s Jazz club.

Hancock is booked to play the Royal Theatre on June 29th. Touring and playing for nearly five decades, Hancoks is both a jazz legend and a modern innovator, working with electronic sounds as well as the piano. Multi-Grammy winner and honorary UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, Hacock is an icon in contemporary music.

On June 21st, Betty LaVette will also play the Royal Theatre. The Detroit singer is experiencing a comeback in popularity, with many comparing her to Aretha Franklin in terms of lifetime contribution to the field of music.

The newcomer, Spalding, will preform on June 22nd at the Royal Theatre.

The rest of the line-up will be filled in closer to the start of the festival. Tickets for the above performances will go on sale on February 7th.

Herbie Hancock

Looking for some new music for your iPod. This week, Mattress Choice is compiling a playlist of songs around one of our favourite subjects – Sleep. Here are the top five tracks and a few random facts about each:

Golden Slumbers – The Beatles

-Based on a poem by Thomas Dekker, “Golden Slumbers” is part of a suite that includes the track “Carry the Weight.” Both songs were recorded together and released on the B side of Abbey Road. John Lennon does not perform on the track and George Harrison plays bass guitar because Paul McCartney is on the piano.

Enter Sandman – Metallica

-Not really a lullaby to doze off to, but a classic none the less. The guitar riff is instantly recognizable. After the US invaded Irag in 2003, the military played this track on repeat during interrogation sessions to break the will of the Saddam Hussein supporters.

Sleepwalkers – The Wallflowers

A song about being the innocent love interest. Interesting lyric: “Sam Cooke didn’t know what I know.” This probably refers to Sam Cooke’s track “Cupid,” a plea for the winged matchmaker to “draw back his bow.”

Wake Up Little Suzie – Everly Brothers

-A song about falling asleep on a date and the consequences from coming home past curfew. Lesson here kids: Try to be home at a reasonable hour so you can enjoy your own mattress. A number of radio stations banned this song when it was released because of the assumption that the young couple spent the night together.

Go To Sleep – Radiohead

-A pain and feelings song about the state of the world. The sardonic title and lyric refers to the ‘head in the sand’ mentality of dealing with life’s problems. The guitar solo at the end of the track was achieved with the help of a radomizing computer program.

Compile your own list of five songs about dreaming and receive two free pillows with your next mattress purchase at Mattress Victoria. Post your list in the comment section below.

One of our favourite dream tracks: After the Goldrush – Neil Young

Mattress Choice would like to answer a few questions we’ve received about dreaming during pregnancy. We are by no means doctors, but after a little bit of research, we fill we can adequately field a portion of the queries we have received at the Mattress Victoria showroom. So, here goes:

1. Why do I dream more than normal during pregnancy?
There are a couple of reasons, but the big one is hormones. Your body receives an extra helping of the hormone progesterone. This is the hormone that, from our limited research, has the most affect on your emotions. The increase of this hormone creates emotional turbulence throughout your nine-month pregnancy. The natural swings during your conscious hours are mirrored in your dream world. This increases the number of vivid dreams your mind experiences. You also may have to get up to use the washroom more at night (See: New Moms Part 2). The more times your sleep is interrupted, the more chance you have of remembering your dreams.

2. I seem to be experiencing more nightmares. Is this normal?
Nothing is normal during pregnancy. Again, the hormones. But, nightmares can signify actual anxieties you may have about motherhood, labour or carrying a child for nine months. If the nightmares persist, it may be worth mentioning them to your doctor.
You may also experience an increased amount of dreams about water. Again, totally natural. You are retaining more and you have a womb full of amniotic liquid. If you already have preexisting fears about water, these may become more vividly expressed in your dreams.

We hope this helped. And if we haven’t said so already, congratulations!

What Dreams May Come

Whatever you do, don’t try this at home.

A recent Sealy mattress commercial features a variety of mattress owners jumping to elevated heights off their Sealy Posturepedic beds. The commercial is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek example of the endless possibilities that a quality ‘spring’ mattress provides.

The jumpers twist, flip and pose in the air, in an acrobatic airborne spectacle that would make even Ang Lee gasp (Crouching Tiger Reference).

Two ‘Swedish twins,’ shown at the end of the commercial, jumping on their bed and reaching minimal heights, provide the zinger. The tag line: It’s Better on Springs.”

The ad is an excellent marketing idea for the youthful spirit in all of us. The spot even features a catchy ‘Jump’ song, available for download at the Sealy Facebook page.

Sealy Posturpedicis are one of the top luxury brand mattresses that Mattress Choice carries in the Victoria showroom. It is a trusted brand that dates back to 1881. Funny enough, a cotton gin manufacturer who produced beds for his friends, created the company. These first prototypes were made entirely of compressed cotton; no springs attached.

Now, the Sealy Posturpedic pocekt coil mattress is one of the best in the business. Come down to our mattress Victoria showroom to try one out. But please, be respectful of our ceilings. The acrobatics can wait till you’re home.

Mattress shopping can be a little confusing if you’re not educated in the terminology. This week, Mattress Victoria thought we could pass on some of our knowledge by creating a glossary of words to help you make an informed decision about your next mattress purchase.

Bed Frame: A metal or wood frame consisting of rails that positions the mattress and foundation off the floor.

Box Spring: An upholstered bedspring composed of moving parts that supports a traditional ‘flip’ mattress.

Foundation: Often confused with the term ‘box spring’, a foundation is something entirely different. Unlike a box spring, a foundation has no moving parts. It is a base on which to place your mattress. It provides support to a one-sided mattress, like the Simmons Beautyrest.

Mattress Coil: a single steel spiral that acts like a compressed spring to cushion your body weight

Memory Foam: A topping layer that sits above the mattress coils. Often called Visco foam, memory foam works with heat and pressure to create a unique mold of your body. The quality of the foam can be gauged in the time it takes to return to its natural state after being compressed.

Pillow Top: A mattress with an additional upholstery layer added to the sleep surface for cushioning; the perfect indulgent for the pampered sleeper.

Tight Top: A tight top mattress has a thinner layer of foam and cushioning above the mattress coils for a firmer sleep surface.

Pillow Top Mattress

One of the issues that will affect your sleep during pregnancy is the need to get up and use the washroom more frequently at night. Your body has an increase in blood levels when you are pregnant. The extra fluid in your body needs to be processed, so your kidneys are working overtime. The excess fluid finds its way to your bladder. As a result, your bladder fills up faster than normal, increasing your need to pee.

To lower your nocturnal bathroom visits, try drinking an increased amount of water before 6 pm and limiting your intake after. Your body will be able to process the majority of your daytime fluids before it’s time to lay your head down for bed.

You can also try leaning forward when you sit on the toilet. This position will help you empty your bladder.

Also, step up your Kegel exercises. Kegel workouts target a lot of the muscles involved in urination; your bladder and urethra. Improving these areas can help you retain liquids longer.

If you still find the need to get up and pee more than five times a night, don’t worry; this is natural. It’s your body’s way of preparing you for all those sleepless nights ahead when your little one needs you.

And, if you do pee the bed, don’t freak out. It happens to almost all women at least once during pregnancy. If you’re worried about your mattress or damaging your sheets, lay down a few towels or wear a Poise pad to bed.

You may still have to wait a few more months for the return of Game of Thrones, but Canada’s Dragons are coming to Victoria.

The Dragons will be arriving on February 2nd to audition Canadian entrepreneurs who think they may have a marketable product or idea. The pitch length is five minutes, so practice being concise. Visuals are always good and try to be as professional as possible; so no hand drawn posters.

Make sure you have a firm figure for the amount of money you require to grow your business. If you have already made sales, make sure those figures are available too.

The producers have thrown out the audition to all ages. They are encouraging young people to audition and hopefully participate in an “All-Student Special.”

The actual filming will take place in Toronto later in the year.

The producers also suggest applying online, in addition to the live audition.

Doors open at 10:00 am at the Victoria Marriott on February 2nd. It is strongly advised to come early. There will be a line. A long one!

Mattress Choice has been receiving a number of questions from moms-to-be about sleep related issues. The amount of interest in this topic has inspired us to run a weekly series on articles for new moms.

Our first foray into pregnancy blogging will be a special on sleep positions.

Many woman wonder what the ideal sleeping position is for the safety of their unborn baby. A good rule is to mirror the fetal position. Always try to sleep on your side. If you’re able to choose a side, go with your left side down. This will improve blood flow to your body, aiding the nutrient levels being passed to your baby through the placenta. This position also favours your kidneys and allows your body to flush the waste from your system.

To increase your comfort level, try slipping a pillow between your knees. You may also want to prop up your upper body with pillows. Your comfort zone may change hourly as your baby changes positions inside you; be ready to adapt.

Sleeping on your back is to be avoided. As your belly grows, so does its weight. When sleeping on your back, your expanded abdomen pushes down on your intestines, increasing the chance of heartburn and lowering blood pressure levels. This position can also affect your breathing and increases the risk of hemorrhoids.

Lying on your stomach may become nearly impossible later in your pregnancy, but it should also be avoided during the initial months.

I hope this answers a few questions.

Next week we will look at specific sleep problems that expecting moms experience.

The debate on whether flowers belong in the bedroom is a mixed one. Most flowers produce a pleasant odour, that can add to the enjoyment of a living space. They are often used in aromatherapy, so why not in the bedroom?

Well, almost all Feng Shui experts will tell you that flowers should not enter the sleeping space of a balanced home. Apparently, flowers drown the energy in a bedroom. They also produce too much male (yang) energy. Even dried flowers, like a potpourri bouquet, are considered poor feng shui choices.

But a calming scent can be the perfect stimulant for relaxation.

In a study by German researchers, women volunteers were presented with different smells during their REM period of sleep. Well the subject of the smells did not permeate the subconscious, a large portion of the sleepers admitted to an emotional reaction to the scents in their dream state. As expected, sweet smells produced positive dreams, while unpleasant odours produced negative subconscious responses.

Both camps would agree that a daily water change would only benefit the aromas in the room.

For those of you who do plan on having flowers close to your Victoria mattress, tea roses, freesias, peonies and lilies are excellent flowers for calming fragrances.

Looking to reduce your costs this year? Start with the social lubricant known as alcohol.

Alcohol can be a huge expenditure for adults who like to eat out, frequent a local pub or enjoy live music. In 2007, the average Canadian spent over $650 a year on booze. With inflation as it is, that number has probably climbed to $750 by 2011.

Not ordering alcoholic beverages is not a rude option. It may be the social norm to have a bottle of wine with your restaurant dinner, but chances are that bottle will cost more than your meal.

Ordering alcohol also limits your transportation options. Add a cab fare to your bill and that one night out a week could be ruining your monthly budget.

Save cash, lose the hangover and arrive home safe.

Less alcohol in your system will also help you sleep more soundly, something we all need.

And, with the money you save, you can finally recycle that ancient mattress you’ve been sleeping on and buy a new one.

Mattress Victoria has the luxury bed you’ve been dreaming about. Come see what your liquid savings can provide.

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

-Dr. Seuss

A profound statement brought to us by the author of “The Cat in the Hat.”

When love’s power reaches a level that it consumes all other thoughts, our ability to invite sleep into our bedroom is often taken from us. Our mind is unable to release our focus on that special someone. Their being, turns our world on its head, enough so, that the simple act of slipping into unconsciousness eludes us.

It should be a joyous occasion, but the fact that love can have such power over our basic needs is slightly unnerving.

Sometimes, all it takes is a little stimulus to remind our bodies that yes, we may be in love, but shut-eye is important.

That stimulus is the perfect mattress. No, not the Niagara Falls special; the heart-shaped bed built for lovers of all things tacky. The perfect mattress is one that can push aside even the strongest of feelings and entice our bodies into eight hours of restful bliss.

These magical beds can be found at Victoria’s premiere mattress store: Mattress Choice.

The finest Simmons, Sealy and Serta mattresses are on sale this month, at prices lower than any other mattress purveyor on the island. They won’t replace your true love, but they will provide the rest your heart so badly needs.

Love Breeds Creativity

Cashmere.

The very word elicits thoughts of luxury levels of comfort. Angel hair, tied together to make a fabric softer than anything cotton could create; Clouds, stolen from the sky, transformed into a material with no challenger; Cloth, spun for royalty, but available in limited forms for privileged patrons.

The truth is, cashmere is a type of wool, created by a fiber obtained from a select classification of goats. Its unique texture, weight and softness are a product of its ultra-fine diameter.

In many countries, the cashmere classification for garments and fabrics is strictly regulated. This standardized protection guarantees that a product, carrying the cashmere label, will provide its owner with a unequaled level of comfort.

The Simmons mattress company uses cashmere to top its finest mattress series: the Beautyrest Black.  The opulence of this mattress is incomparable. It truly is the most luxurious mattress on the market today.

Mattress Victoria sells the entire Beautyrest line, including the Beautyrest Black.

If you are looking for the finest mattress money can buy, stop into our store and test-sleep a one-of-a-kind bed, built for kings. Feel the difference immediately, or your money back.

Cloth Made of Clouds

Hockey is back! With a tentative starting date of either January 19th, the NHL will finally return to arenas around North America. As Canadians, with a fever for the frozen puck, the professional game could not have returned any sooner.

That being said, it has been a joy to watch the juniors play over the Christmas break. The result was regrettable, but the standard of hockey being shown was truly remarkable.

Mattress Victoria has also enjoyed watching our Juniors from the BCHL, Victoria Grizzlies. We were fortunate enough to travel to Nanaimo for the November 17th win against the hard fought Clippers. What a game!

Now, with the Vancouver Canucks prepared to once again take the ice at Rogers Arena, hockey, in all its forms, is being celebrated across the Island.

Let’s hope this short season leads to some spectacular plays and as few injuries as possible. The short season will always contain an asterisk, but what would we have done all spring if there wasn’t a season. Probably spent more time on our victoria mattress.

Unable to sleep in anticipation…? A new mattress will provide the distraction you need until the Sedins are once again dazzling us with their puck control.

Cory 'The Usurper' Schneider

The DeLorean is parked outfront. Let’s go for a ride with Doc and take a look back at some of our favourite blogs from 2012.

10. Duped and Doped

You couldn’t have discussion about the events of the year without mentioning Lance Armstrong. In 2012, Lance was finally found guilty of doping. Even after all the good he has done for cancer, Lance will always be remembered as a cheater who lied to the world.

9. Pro’s and Cons of Having Kids

We’ve all thought about it at one time or another. Here it is written out. Favourite pro: “You are basically creating your favourite people.”

8. The Night Before

A black and white photomontage of famous events in history and the sleep that preceded them. We take a little artistic license with this piece, especially with the line “we wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that the elimination of motion inspired [Einstein's] theory of relativity.”

7. Your Mattress Hunt Itinerary

A checklist of things to do before you purchase a new bed. The first suggestion may seem a little absurd to some: “Start with a competitor… Then, come to us.” We encourage you to compare prices because we offer a Lowest Price Guarantee. Read more for details.

6. Lack of Sleep Can Lead To Temporary Insanity

The true-life tale of a JetBlue pilot who went insane because of a lack of sleep. Luxury mattresses should be standard issue for all commercial pilots. We would happily outfit every last one of them if it would mean safer air travel.

5. Mattress Fails

If you’re a fan of FailBlog (and really, who isn’t?), you’ll love this piece on weird ways people transport their beds. Did we mention Mattress Choice has free delivery?

4. Sleeping Habits in Buenos Aires

Part of our creative team took a trip to South America in 2012. This article concerns the differences in sleeping patterns between Canadians and South Americans, especially those living close to the equator. Our favourite line: “Consider keeping a Beautyrest at the office for just this occasion.”

3. Bullying: A Social Issue

Amanda Todd was the second biggest Canadian news story of 2012. We dipped into the discussion and included some helpful links for parents and kids who are dealing with bullying.

We need to stop bullying as a concerned society. Let Todd’s legacy

be one of change, not sadness and regret.

2. Famous Dreams

From Kekulé to Lincoln, dreams have played a huge part of history. Scientists have claimed to experienced eureka moments while sleeping, Presidents have foreseen their own assassinations and artists, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, have been touched with creative inspiration.

1. Zombie Repellent

The Mayans had it wrong, but there are many that still believe the Zombie Apocalypse is coming. Here’s an article on the top tip for surviving a brain-eater Armageddon.

Fear The Zombie Bride

The holidays are over folks. What a whirlwind! One month of social gatherings, Christmas shopping, family dinners and New Year celebrations. Exhausting.

Now is the time to repay your sleep debt.

Take the rest of the week off from your social obligations and spend some quality time with your mattress. Go to bed early, snuggle up with a book and relax. Your mattress has missed you over the holidays.

More comfortable on the couch? Time to trade in your springs for a state-of-the-art sleeping vessel.

A new mattress will reconnect you with the joy of a good night’s sleep. It will make you forget you ever owned a couch. But most of all, it will help you gain back those hours of sleep you lost over the last month.

Think of it as a preventative medicine. Your body will be better equipped to fight off the bugs being passed around the office. You will have more energy for keeping your New Year resolutions. And you won’t find yourself nodding off around 4:00.

A new Serta, Sealy or Simmons mattress will help you get back to pre-holiday form. Come test sleep a few at Mattress Victoria this week and put the holiday drain behind you.

A New Mattress Is In The Cards.

Yes, yes, yes. It’s the New Year and it’s time to make a list of resolutions. Don’t think you can avoid it! It’s a social custom that must be addressed.

So, where to begin…

The tummy line is always a good place to start. It’s been growing. Fact. You know it, your family knows it and the barista at Starbucks knows it (he’s just too polite to mention it before you inhale that sausage breakfast sandwich).

What to reduce: sweets, fast food, alcohol, baked goods. Don’t try and cut them out completely. That’s torture and it only leads to binging. Horrible, late night, lying on your mattress, box of tissues, whole cookie box, binging. Too much?

Moderation.

Don’t buy a box of cookies, have one a week. They sell them in singles you know…

Drink your wine slightly slower and try to only indulge in the grapes with a weekend meal.

Eliminate McDonalds. Like texting after 2:00 am, nothing ever good came from a meal at McDonalds.

Now, on to the exercise.

We’ve found that using a written schedule helps. It’s a mini-contract between your mind and your body. You write down what days you’re going to workout and you stick to it. That episode of “The Big Bang Theory” will be on again next week (and the week after…and the week after that). No excuses.

Between gym outings, try to walk as much as you can. It’s great for your heart and your body and it lets you take time to contemplate the day’s events. Win-win!

Sleep more. No, we’re not just saying it cause we’re in the business to sell mattresses. Give yourself eight hours a night and your body will be more receptive to the other improvements already discussed. Lose sleep on a consistent basis and your body’s focus turns to surviving instead of improving.

Troubles sleeping? Well, we have a solution for that.

Stop by our Blanshard location on your next walk and we can help you pick out a Victoria mattress.

Good luck and Happy New Years!

There aren’t too many fictional characters that love sleep more than J.R.R. Tolkien’s hobbits. As mattress lovers ourselves, we can relate to the unlikely heros. Accepting a quest is a brave challenge to take on, especially when your bed in the Shire is so comfortable.

This winter, Peter Jackson is releasing the first prequel to the Lord of the Rings series, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Bilbo Baggins, Frodo’s guardian, is the central hobbit character in this narrative. From the trailers, it looks like the dwarves will be adding the comic relief with the sinister antihero role returning to everyones favourite fish-eater, Gollum. No sight of Smog, the gold-loving dragon…

Another film that has caught our interest this winter is Django Unchained. With a killer cast, Tarantino’s signature editing style and a wicked soundtrack, this film has all the makings of Best Picture. Set in the American South, Django tells the story of a freed slave who seeks revenge on his former master. The film takes the form of a western and mixes a pop culture feel with a historical setting. Controversy surrounds the unreleased film over the exorbitant use of the ‘n’ word.

Rounding out our list of must-sees is Les Misérables. Being fans of the musical, it’s only natural that we are excited to see Wolverine take on the part of Valjean. All kidding aside, the visuals in the scenes released thus far look amazing. We just hope Ann Hathaway brought her Oscar-hosting singing voice to set. Ok, no more jokes, promise. It looks awesome.

If you would like to add a review for any of these films, please leave it in the comment box below.

The 21st of December has come and gone and it looks like we all made it through alive. No fire and brimstone. No alien invasion. No zombie apocalypse. Just a regular December day; a bit of rain, still no hockey and Christmas madness everywhere.

And while some of us may have stock piled water and non-perishables in our cellar for the Mayan countdown, a large percentage of the population has neglected their winter prep responsibilities.

We all saw the chaos incited by that drizzle of snow we had last week, so if you don’t have them on already, we suggest you look into swapping your summer tires for some decent winter or at the very least, all-season rubbers. We could get a cold snap in the next couple of weeks and with all the moisture on the ground, summer tires could have your car spinning like Bambi on ice. Book an appointment to make the switch.

While you’re on the phone, it might also be a good idea to book a flu shot with your family doctor. Tis the season to pick up nasty bugs, especially if you have young children enrolled in school (the petri dish of contagious diseases). A quick shot in the arm for a priceless immune system boost.

When you’re putting up or taking down your Christmas litghs, you may want to check your eavestroughs. The fall leaves could have built up and created a damaging blockade of beaver proportions. Clean the troughs and avoid roof and wall saturation.

Finally, prepare yourself for hibernation with a new mattress from the mattress Victoria experts, Mattress Choice. Stay comfortable, experience an undisturbed sleep and earn bonus points with your spouse. Visit us before the New Year and be prepared for January’s bite.

Mattresses make excellent gifts. It’s a fact. They provide more form-fitting comfort than yoga pants, more opportunities for desire than lingerie and more relaxation that a twelve-pack gift certificate to the local spa.

But when you can’t give a mattress, why not buy an item that can be enjoyed on one. Here is our top eight gifts that can be taken to bed:

8. Loose Leaf Tea – A nice pot of tea puts you in the perfect mood for a tranquil night. Loose leaf tea is a step above the grocery store blends and can be found at a number of tea emporiums around the City of Victoria. We suggest the Silk Road in Chinatown. Their organic teas are to die for. Or at the very least, to go to bed for.

7. Bed Linen – We can provide you with the perfect bed, but the linen you need to buy separately. Linens make an excellent practical gift that owners can enjoy for years. If you do plan on buying them for someone else, we suggest you do some reconnaissance first. You’ll need to know the paint colour scheme of the room in which you plan for them to go. Not so much an issue for the bachelor on your list, but very important to the newlywed couple.

6. Luxury Hot Water Bottles – Yes, they do exist. High-end fashion meets practicality. A little warmth in the bed never hurt. Great for those chilly nights and for getting over a cold.

5. Fine Chocolate – We usually don’t suggest eating before bed, but a little piece of chocolate never hurt. Go with the best, Rogers’ Chocolates on Government Street.

4. New Nightwear – Pajamas are the perfect gift. They can be enjoyed by the fire, at the breakfast or at the grocery store (depending on the recipients fashion taste). The Bay has great deals on nightwear for him and her.

3. Bedside Dock – Nothing nautical about this gift – A docking bay can generate ambient music to go to sleep by, work as a morning radio alarm clock  and provide a subtle soundtrack for adult entertainment. It’s also the perfect gift for the tardy techie.

2. Mini-Massager – Don’t laugh. This is the perfect gift for your partner; as long as they’re willing to return the favour. These handheld massage tools can fit easily into the drawer of a bedside table.

1. Literature – Even in this techno age, a powerful book can be the most treasured gift under the tree. Our country is full of great authors who would love to have their works shared with your loved ones. Not up on what’s been published this year? Take a scroll down The Globe and Mail’s list of the top 23 pieces of 2012 Canadian fiction. You’re bound to find titles for the names on your list.

Work Out The Stress

Mattress Victoria is concerned with the amount of sleep you’ve been getting this month.

We know Christmas is coming up faster than any of us would like to acknowledge, but you really do need to make time for your body’s natural need for eight hours of sleep.

We don’t want to turn you into Ebenezer, but we would like to offer a few suggestions for surviving the holidays.

Our first proposal concerns your social calendar. Your Facebook account may be full of invitations to different events around the holidays, but realistically, you can’t attend them all. Choose five that are important to you, preferably with different circles of friends and families. RSVP early to the others and politely explain that you would love to come, but you are already busy on that day. You don’t need to go into a full blown explanation of how your sleep advisor said you had too much on your plate. Just send a thank you, a polite refusal and a Christmas greeting.

Our second suggestion for securing adequeate sleep, is spreading your wrapping responsibilities over a few nights. Start early and don’t plan on finishing it all in one sitting. Wrapping, writing cards and general organization of the gifts you will be distributing always takes more time than you plan for. Finishing at two in the morning might provide an initial surge of Christmas euphoria, but the hours you miss asleep can affect your waking hours for the rest of the month.

Lastly, if you are going to be stealing a few hours here and there, it may be time to improve your mattress. A new bed will help you fall asleep faster and keep you asleep until your sleigh bell alarm chime tells you it’s time to rise.

Mattress Choice has one of the largest selection of mattresses of any store on Vancouver Island. Visit our Victoria location to find the perfect bed for surviving the holidays.

Question: How do I cook a traditional christmas dinner when a number of our guests have dietary restrictions?

Answer: Think outside the holiday box.

So you’re entertaining the entire family this year. You have a total of sixteen people coming for christmas dinner. The stress is already mounting and you just learned that two of your in-laws have dietary restrictions. Ugghh…

Well, this is your chance to shine.

Christmas dinner doesn’t have to be held to be shackled to traditional recipes. Of course the core elements need to be there, but a fresh new spin will make your dinner one to remember.

Here are a few ideas we found in a Huffington Post article.

Let’s start with the mashed potatoes. Lactose intolerance is a common ailment these days. Unfortunately, cream is one of the core ingredients in mash. It makes them fluffy, decadent and when topped with gravy, one of the highlights of the christmas plate.

Mayonnaise is a suitable substitute for cream. Mixed with chicken broth, minced thyme, sage and rosemary, mayo can take your potatoes to new levels of decadence.

Next, the stuffing. Keep the bread out for your gluten-free nephew. Try using rice or quinoa (the super food). Haven’t tried this quinoa stuffing, but it has a number of favourable reviews on Epicurious.com. It also incorporates the traditional christmas ‘cran’ berry.

Now, for the tricky turkey substitute.

Personally, we would stay away from the faux turkey options. Try serving a vegetarian lasagna alongside the turkey as an option for vegetarians. Here’s a gluten and lactose free veggie recipe with christmas colours and plenty of flavour.

Good luck with your meal. Your family will appreciate your efforts and your ingenuity.

Recently, our blog has featured a number of articles on the construction of Simmons, Sealy and Serta mattresses. We have explained the components of these mattresses and how they work together. We have also gone into detail about why these three brands produce superior products. Mattress Victoria only sells these brands because we want every customer to go away with a quality bed that will last them for years.

That being said, we realize that there are other companies on the market that produce mattresses with inferior components, that sell for less. Again, as a business concerned with quality, we have no intention of selling these beds.

This week, as a light alternative, we would like to share a news story about how birds in Mexico are constructing their nests with a discarded product that no human would ever consider using as a liner for their beds; not even the cheap mattress makers.

Scientists at the National Autonomous University of Mexico have been studying the practice of birds using discarded cigarette buts as construction material for their homes. Apparently, used cigarettes ward off unwanted parasites. The researchers at the university are now investigating if the birds choose smoked cigarette buts over unsmoked ones.

In the wild, birds collect vegetation that preforms a similar function.

Guess the city birds have just adapted with the scraps we provide them.

Have you heard the news? Kate is pregnant!

The official statement was released to the world on Tuesday, December 4^th, nearly 20 months after the young royal couple was wed.

Unfortunately, the Duchess of Cambridge is suffering from severe morning sickness and was hospitalized over the weekend. The news of Kate’s hospitalization may have prompted the royals to announce the pregnancy earlier than they anticipated.

The hospitalization seems to be a precautionary step, with concerns of dehydration. The Duchess remains in hospital, but sources say she is feeling much better.

The pregnancy announcement sent the social media world into a twitter, with rampant speculation of possible names. No matter the gender, the baby will probably have a number or first names, with the initial name almost assuredly belonging to a previous royal. Odds are extremely low that the child will receive a creative name. There will be no ‘Apple’ of Cambridge, not if the Queen has anything to say. And yes, her vote still outweighs all others.

The child will automatically become third in line for the English throne, behind Charles and William. This holds true even if the child is a girl. The laws of succession were changed in 2011 to eliminate gender bias.

Unfortunately, that puts Harry in fourth spot. Poor Harry…

This will be only the second time in the last 1,000 years of British history that a monarch will be alive to see three generations of heirs beneath them. The Queen must be very proud.

Royal Bliss

This week, Mattress Choice would like to look a little closer at the environmental practices of one of our key mattress suppliers, Sealy Posturepedic.

Sealy recognizes that companies, like individuals, need to concern themselves with the environmental impact of their actions. To help guide their business model, Sealy has developed a plan for improving the sustainability of their product.

The goal of their environmental plan is “to reach an acceptable balance between sustainability and product quality, performance and durability, based upon the practical application of the most advanced technologies available.”

The plan begins with the raw materials used to build a mattress. Sealy has made a decisive effort to purchase almost all of their raw materials from North American suppliers. This reduces the fuel required to ship the materials, lowering overall emissions.

The materials have also been chosen for their environmental properties. 100% of the steel used in the construction of a Sealy bed is derived from recycled metal. As well, the lumber needed to produce the mattress foundations is supplied by a source that is certified to the guidelines put forth by the Canadian Standard Association.

During production, Sealy has reduced its scrap waste to 64%. A 100% of this material is then recycled for alternate manufacturing.

Mattress Choice is proud to sell Sealy mattresses, a company that is taking environmental responsibility seriously.

A broker is a qualified negotiator who is responsible for finding the best possible terms for the parties involved.

In the insurance world, this individual is responsible for seeking out the best coverage at the cheapest rate. In real estate, a broker is trained to find a buyer that is comfortable with the price being offered by the seller.

Mattress Choice employees fit the definition of a broker. Our trained staff is in the business of helping customers find the best Victoria mattress at the lowest possible price. We have narrowed the field of mattress makers to the three top brands in the business: Simmons, Sealy and Serta. We have access to every mattress produced by these companies and we are able to display them at our mattress Victoria showroom.

Like other brokers, the needs of our customers are our number one priority. We want to match every customer with a mattress that is made specifically for their sleeping preferences. This is our expertise and as mattress brokers, we are not satisfied until this pairing is accomplished.

If you are in the market for a new bed, Mattress Choice can broker the perfect match. Let us, help you; this is what we are trained to do.

Let Us Go To Work For You

Mattress Choice offers free delivery for the simple reason that mattresses are hard to transport. They’re bulky, slightly flexible and they shouldn’t be subjected to the elements. They don’t belong in the back of a pick-up or on the roof of a hatchback. They belong in a proper moving truck.

We want you to be happy with your bed when you get it home. We want you to be able to sleep on it the first night. We don’t want you to be leaving it out to dry in your basement.

That is why we fit the bill for the moving costs.

Now, that being said, we do sometimes giggle at pictures that come across our desk, land in our email or are shared on social networking sites of mattress transport fails.

This week, just for fun, we thought we would share a few epic fail photos.

Hope you enjoy them. And please, don’t try this on your way home. Let us handle the delivery.

No straps. No worries. Bob will gladly ride in the back and keep things secure.

The Four Armed Sedan.

European Innovation.

Johnny Knoxville Special.

And one bonus video:

Lift stacks on stacks at the gym, do hours of cardio, drink protein shakes like they’re water and still you may not see proper muscle development. The element you may have neglected is sleep.

Sleep is one of the most underrated accelerators for muscle growth and enhancement. When you neglect to provide your body with an eight hour rest period, you fail to give your muscles time to recover from your previous workout. Without a rest period, your muscles won’t be able to benefit from increased conditioning. You also increase the likelihood of muscle damage.

During your nightly sleep cycle, your body produces a growth hormone that is essential for muscle development. Natural hormone release is part of the muscle building process.

Another body function that occurs while you sleep is protein synthesis. When this reaction is slowed, your muscle tissue breaks down and takes longer to rebuild. Securing adequate rest helps this process function at a normal to high level.

Even a nutritious diet cannot overcome the paralyzing effects of sleep debt.

So keep you body in top form by doing the easiest training exercise known to man: sleep.

If you’re having trouble maintaining a proper sleeping schedule, it may be time to sell your BoxFlex on Craigslist and invest in a proper mattress. Mattress Victoria has a huge selection for you to choose from. Come in today to try a sampling of the many beds in our showroom.

You’ll see the results in the mirror in no time at all.

When we opened Mattress Choice in 2010, we made a conscious choice to only carry the top three mattress brands in the business. There is always pressure to sell discount brands at a lower price, giving the consumer a budget option, but offering an inferior product is never a wise decision.

Serta, Simmons and Sealy produce quality mattresses that stand the test of time, perform like they claim and are backed by factory warranty.

When we sell one of these beds, we know we will be improving the sleep of the new mattress owner. We know that a brand new Serta mattress will perform at a high level for the next eight years. We know that if Simmons claims their Beautyrest will limit motion disturbances between sleeping partners, this is fact. And we know that if a Sealy mattress is defective in any way at all, the manufacturer will pay for its replacement.

Most importantly, if we sold a no-name mattress at a fraction of the price, we wouldn’t be able to stand behind our company slogan, “Better brands. Better prices. Better dreams.”

We want to improve your sleep – That means selling you a quality mattress. Come into our Victoria location to browse our beds.

Mattress Choice is in the business of supplying Vancouver Island residents with quality mattresses at prices that can’t be beat. We sell only the top mattresses produced by the most trusted mattress companies in the industry: Sealy, Serta and Simmons.

This week, Mattress Choice would like to breakdown the composition of a Serta mattress set. We’ll start from the bottom and make our way up.

Foundation:

Serta mattresses are supported by StabL-Base foundations. The box spring layer compliments the comfort layers above and prolongs the life of the mattress. The Serta StabL-Base is constructed with a V-shaped design that builds support from the ground up.

*Mixing foundations with other mattress brands is not recommended, as most foundations are designed specifically for the mattress they will support.

Innerspring Support System:

Serta uses a unique ‘continuous’ coil system for its mattresses. The springs are made from twice-tempered steel. The spring count varies from mattress to mattress, but the comfort offered is standard.

Upholstery Layers or Comfort Zone:

The upholstery layers are different on each Serta collection. The choices available range from Serta’s patented Advanced Comfort Quilt layer, to their Euro top layer, to their Super Pillow Top option. The comfort layer construction is dependent on the firmness the sleeper desires.

Sampling a variety of Serta mattresses at the mattress Victoria showroom will help you decide which comfort layer you wish to purchase.

Serta Full

Mattress Choice is always looking for creative mattress offerings to include in our blog. We prefer writing submissions or photos that are mattress related, but we can always broaden our scope to include other sleep or dream themed pieces.

This week we came across a poem entitled, To His Coil Mattress. It was submitted to the online poetry collective, “All Poetry,” by the user ‘Dreamcatcher.’ The poem is a tongue in cheek parody of Andrew Marvell’s, To His Coy Mistress.

It attempts to make a case for staying in bed. Dreamcatcher playfully swaps Marvell’s ‘mistress’ for what we can only presume, is a pocket-coil mattress.

One of our favourtite images, used in both poems, is the comparison to vegetables, ripening slowly in a garden.

The poem consists of three stanzas, but we have decided only to include the first; the second and third stanzas take a different direction in subject matter.

Enjoy:

Had we but endless hours of time,

Coil mattresses would be no crime:

We could lie down and dream all day,

And wile eternal time away;

We could recline upon our side,

And yawn like lazing lions wide;

While no one would come shake our beds,

And throw cold water on our heads;

And we should, if we please, refuse

To heed alarms and hit the snooze;

Like vegetables developed slow,

All season long we would lie low;

One hundred years our bones could laze

Like Lotus-Eaters in a daze;

Two hundred years on pillows pressed

Our sleepy heads could plop at rest;

For ages we could play the part

Of bears that slow the beating heart,

All winter long and hibernate,

If death neared at a slower rate.

The original version of Marvell’s poem can be read here.

Andrew Marvell

Video gamers are morel likely to have control of their lucid dreams than non-gamers. This is according to the findings of multiple studies conducted by Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist working at Grant MacEwan University.

Gackenbach has been studying the relationship between gaming and dreaming for over a decade.

In an interview with LiveScience, Gackenbach claims that gamers are more accustomed to controlling a virtual reality setting. “If nothing else it’s a practice (for dreaming),” said Gackenbach.

Her research showed that gamer’s dreams are often more violent than a non-gamer, but she found the protagonist in a gamer’s dream is less likely to run away from a threat and more likely to turn and fight back.

Gackenbach presented a hypothesis concerning the potential for games helping veterans deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. If veterans are allowed to work through their issues in a gaming world, there is a possibility they are less likely to deal with terror situations in their dreaming subconscious, concluded Gackenbach.

Interesting stuff. The military might be interested in moving capital away from the defense budget and towards X-Box consoles. Just a thought…

Dream Preparation

You are having trouble sleeping at night and you can’t find a solution to improve your nightly slumber. What’s to be done?

You’ve tried tea – the sleepytime version with the drowsing bear on the package.

Result: Three extra bathroom breaks to empty your steeped bladder.

You’ve tried ambient noise – a soft jungle humming to fall asleep to.

Result: Dreams of marauding monkeys and John Voight-esque Anacondas.

You’ve tried yoga – cause Madonna does it and look at her body.

Result: Death-grip leg cramps and a broken side lamp.

You’ve tried reading – a Twilight novel, to catch up on this Breaking Dawn phenomenon.

Result: Mind consumed by the trivial problems of teenage vampires.

You’ve tried hypnosis – the guy had a degree from an internet college.

Result: Every time you hear a lawnmower, you quack like a duck.

What you really need is a new mattress. Leave the voodoo and the herb concoctions alone. A new mattress will improve your sleep instantly, giving you a plush surface to spend your nights.

Mattress Choice has plenty to choose from. Come visit us at our Victoria location and sample some of the finest beds on the planet.

*Yoga pants not required. 

This week we came across some interesting research concerning our second favourite topic: dreams.

Deirdre Barrett presented a theory in 2010 at the Association for Psychological Science conference in Boston that proposed that our unconscious minds actually solve the puzzles from our conscious lives as we sleep.

As much as we want to block out our working day, the challenges we struggle with are always at the back of our mind; even when we put our heads down to fall asleep.

At night our unconscious minds return to those issues. Dreams play a part in this process, as they allow the mind to take the problem or puzzle out of one context and examine in it in another.

As we know, many of our dreams are void of spatial, logical and often gravitational parameters. Examining a problem without these barriers sometimes helps us see the issue differently. Seeing an issue from an alternative angle often produces positive results for problem solving.

When we wake, we recall our alternate examination, potentially providing our conscious mind with a working solution.

So the next time you’re stuck puzzling over a problem from work, don’t burn the midnight oil trying desperately to come up with an answer. Take it to bed with you.

Bring the Cube to Bed

Oh… And if you were wondering; our favourite topic is of course…mattresses.

Do you have a preferred side of the bed to sleep on? A British hotel chain put a whole lot of time and money behind this question, surveying 2,000 adults in the UK to find out if couples are adamant about their preferred sleeping positions.

The survey found that 10 percent of couples argue over who gets to sleep on what side. Of the individuals who participated, almost all had a preferred side when sleeping with a partner. Funny enough, the data showed almost an even split between the right and left side of the bed.

Some of the reasons for choosing a side included being closer to the door, a better view of the TV, closer to their kids and nearer to the window or heating vent.

If they were forced to lie on the ‘other’ side of the bed, 50 percent of the people surveyed said they would have trouble sleeping.

How this data helps the hotel chain is beyond us. But it does tell us how important sleeping issues are to couples that share a mattress.

Sleep deprivation should be avoided at all cost, so figuring out a suitable plan for where you sleep with your partner should be a high priority. If compromise can’t be found, you can always look into the separate mattress option. It may not be as romantic as a single bed, but at least you’ll have the energy for the other things that couples do behind their bedroom doors.

Visit Mattress Choice for free mattress counseling.

Mattress Complications

You’ve just bought a new place. Congratulations!

You’ve also decided to start fresh with all your furniture. A big undertaking, but a needed one if you want to own home furnishings that reflect your gorgeous new living space.

The only drawback: your car.

You may have a wonderful new three bedroom home, but your car is still a two-door. Transporting anything bigger than a side table is nearly impossible in your vehicle.

Sure you have friends with trucks and larger cars, but that means calling in a favour or two, favours that were hard to come-by.

You could rent a truck, but after that recent news story on Budget Rentals, you’re a bit apprehensive about putting your credit card down for an oversized vehicle.

Then there’s always IKEA, who offer delivery, but that can be quite expensive.

Thankfully, your mattress comes with free delivery when you shop at Mattress Choice.

They also won’t abandon you with a box of bolts, particleboards and a single hex key. Mattress Choice offers free set-up as well, so you can enjoy your bed instantly, not three days later when you finally get it put together.

And the icing on the cake, (pause for gratuitous icing thoughts…), Mattress Choice will remove your old mattress free of charge.

Save time, money and aggravation. Buy your next mattress at a store that truly takes care of you; from the moment you step in the showroom, to the moment you close your eyes for your first night of undisturbed sleep.

Not Advised.

One thing’s for certain in this spinning world of high-tech gadgetry, extreme storms and ironic hipsters, the Zombie Apocalypse is coming.

Maybe not tomorrow, or the next day or maybe not even on December 21st (psshh… what do the Mayans know), but the day is coming when the undead will position themselves for global Armageddon.

Your iPad won’t save you from the glass eyed brain eaters. Your extended medical plan won’t cover your displaced limbs. And your dog will turn on you faster than a Kardashian marriage.

There is only one defense.

Sleep.

Eight hours a night will keep you alert and ready for the time of reckoning. Your brain is your most important weapon and adequate sleep allows it to function at a level appropriate for zombie killing. A loaded shotgun will take down one or two night-walkers, but a full-nights rest will give you the cognitive skills needed to out maneuver the undead army.

Want to upgrade your zombie preparedness? A new mattress from Mattress Choice is worth more than any chainsaw. Chainsaws run out of gas. A undisturbed night of slumber will give you countless hours of protection against flesh-puppets.

Arm yourself at our Blanshard location in Victoria. Quick! Your brain depends on it.

 Signs your co-worker may be a zombie:

They frequently express their love for Michael Bay movies

and they consider Lady Gaga an ‘artist.’

Window-shopping is a favourite pastime for many Canadians; either in the mall or on a busy commercial street, Canadians love to gaze longingly at potential purchases.

In Victoria, Government Street offers a little taste of English culture with chocolatiers, tea shops, and linen sellers. Johnson and Yates streets offer high art, a skate shop and sweets. Then there’s Fort Street, with its antiques and fine china.

All of these stores make use of their front windows. The shop owners create elaborate displays, enticing customers to enter their establishments.

But what happens once the customers enter? In the case of the antique shops, it’s usually you can keep looking, but you can’t touch. With the tea shops, you can smell, but you can’t taste. Even the skate shop is reluctant to let you try their boards, especially when you tell them about your replaced hip.

But there is a store, just outside of the downtown core, that will let you test, sample and take home, everything in their window. Mattress Choice would love to have you come in for more than just a longing gaze. Feel free to snuggle up on any of the beds in the showroom. Close your eyes, take a nap and lie with your partner. Roll over, hop off, bring a book; the beds are there for you to try.

Just remember to take your shoes off first.

Visit us at our Blanshard location – open seven days a week.

It’s 6:30 on Saturday morning. Coffee is brewing, the fruit plate has been made and the kayaks are already strapped to the rack above your car. The rain is coming down sideways, but like a true West Coaster, you have the proper gear to handle it.

You’re on the water before 9:00. The chop is high and refreshing; it’s been six days since you felt its briny bite against your cheek. Harbour seals pop-up around you, quietly whispering ‘good morning’ through their thin whiskers.

You paddle till noon, taking time to explore the coastline, before stopping for lunch.

You warm homemade soup and sip coffee from the thermos cup.

At around 4:00, your back at the car, exhausted from paddling into the wind.

You arrive home just after 6:00. After a quick shower you make a simple dinner and enjoy a glass of wine. By 8:00, you’re back in your bed, with a book, your partner and a mug of tea. The soft mattress cradles your tired body, offering a plush recharging dock for tomorrow’s adventures. Life is good.

"Good Morning"

Robbie and Katheryn both retired this spring. They had been sleeping on the same tired mattress for the last eleven years. Last Wednesday they visited Mattress Choice.

Katheryn, told us that her and her husband had been planning to buy a mattress for the last five years. “We just kept putting it off because of our busy schedules and the constant renovations at the house,” she said.

Now, with an open week, the kids away at school and the renovations completed, they made the time to come in and browse the mattress showroom.

After an hour and a half of trying different beds, talking about their plans for retirement and two cups of coffee, they decided on a king size Sealy Posturepedic Proback mattress with reflex pocket coils.

The Proback offers unparalleled motion suppression and comes with ProGel Memory foam, the perfect fit.

Retirement has its perks.

Come by the mattress Victoria showroom and browse the many beds on display.

1. Fact: Mattress Choice has a Victoria showroom full of mattress deals.

-The Beautyrest Sale continues into the fall.

2. Fact: Comfort Top Wool Two-Piece Queen Sets are starting at $597, originally $1497.

-That’s a $900 savings. You could buy two new iPads with the money you saved.

3. Fact: Mattress Choice offers a 90-Night Comfort Guarantee.

-90 nights to decide if “this is the perfect mattress.’

4. Fact: Mattress Choice offers free delivery to residents in the Southern Island.

-With 2-3 hour window for drop-off, you can plan your day with ease.

5. Fact: Mattress Choice offers a variety of payment plans.

-Everyone’s budget is different. We want to make your next mattress purchase affordable. Come talk to us about personal financing.

6. Fact: Mattress Choice only carries the top brands.

-The Mattress Choice inventory is made up of Sealy, Serta and Simmons mattresses – the leading mattress makers in North America.

7. Never have a nightmare again. Ever!

-Mattress Choice will improve your dreams, but we can’t offer the moon.

Even Nightmares Can Be Beautiful

 Mattress Choice. Better prices. Better brands. Better dreams. 

You replace a light bulb when it burns out. You change your oil religiously every six months. You throw out your socks when they have holes in them.

But when is it time to replace my mattress?

Great question! We’re glad you asked. Mattresses, like humans, have varying life spans. Cheap mattresses can lose their structure in a matter of years, but a quality mattress will last you close to a decade.

How do I know if I have a quality mattress?

Almost all quality mattresses are made by one of the big three: Serta, Simmons or Sealy. If you have one of these beds, your probably safe for at least seven years since your purchase. If its an IKEA mattress… see if you can still return it. They’re good about that. If it was free from a friend, family member or Craigslist ad, strip it down and give it one last search for bed bugs. Then check the tag. If it’s a name you never heard of, Mattress Choice can guarantee we can improve your sleep.

How do I know a new mattress will improve my sleep?

Take the test. You have a one-month trial period to feel out your new bed.

Come into Mattress Choice and discover long-lasting comfort.

The Big Three

It’s true folks, Disney has purchased Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion dollars.

George Lucas has finally released his grip on the mighty lightsabre he once so skillfully yielded. It is now up to Mickey and the gang to reignite a series that has captured the imagination of three generations of movie-lovers.

Disney has already announced plans for the release of a seventh film in 2015. The film’s narrative will take place in the years after “Return of the Jedi” and will include the popular characters, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia and everyone’s favourtie wookie, Chewie. Lucas will serve merely as a creative consultant for the new films. This is great news for the many fans who hated the most recent trilogy.

Hopefully, in five years time, parents be putting their children to bed on freshly pressed Star Wars sheets, pillowcases and duvet covers. There will be no sign of Jar Jar, Samuel L., or pod racing. The Millennium Falcon will once again adorn the mattresses of the youth of tomorrow.

Don’t screw this up Mickey!

-Sleep well young Skywalker

October is almost over, but it’s important we talk about one defining element of the tenth month. No, it’s not the ghouls and goblins night, or the three week turkey hangover; October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

You may have noticed an abundance of pink products, designs, ribbons and clothing accessories this October. Maybe you saw your neighbour wearing a pink ribbon or athletes on TV, especially the NFL, sporting pink socks or arm covers.

The reason: pink, not traditionally a fall colour, is the symbolic tint of breast cancer awareness.

The objective of wearing pink is to increase the discourse around breast cancer and boost donation money for breast cancer research.

In Victoria, citizens can donate to the BC/Yukon division of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

Here is their website: http://www.cbcf.org/bc/Pages/default.aspx

Some quick facts from the Canadian Cancer Society:

-Breast Cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women

-The CCS estimates that 22,700 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012

-Women over 50 should have a mammogram test AT LEAST every two years

-Most women who develop breast cancer have no risk factors except for getting older

Apply for a mammogram to aid early detection

“This is my body, and I can do whatever I want to it. I can push it, study it, tweak it; listen to it. Everybody wants to know what I am on. What am I on? I am on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”

-Lance Armstrong, 2001

Well that’s not quite accurate, is it Lance? 

Count Them - Seven Stripped Titles

This week, cycling’s biggest star, Lance Armstrong, was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles as the International Cycling Union finally folded to pressure from the United States Anti-Doping Agency. The USADA published a report on Oct 10th that claimed Armstrong was heavily involved in the “most sophisticated professionalized and successful doping program sport has ever seen.”

Where once Armstrong defiantly defended his innocence, the disgraced star is now choosing silence.

It’s sad, that a hero to so many, thought that the only way to win was by using illegal enhancements.

Armstrong should have paid more attention to studies coming out of Stanford University by Cheri Mah, than to his diabolical doctors.

Mah, a sleep researcher, has been working with athletes for years. Her research has proven time-and-again that the more undisturbed sleep an athlete receives, the better they perform.

Sleep provides an edge that even blood transfusions can’t replicate. It increases the brain’s potential for quick cognitive reactions, while aiding the body’s ability to recover from strenuous muscle activity. Simply put, it allows athletes to make quick decisions and train harder; it’s legal HGH.

To answer Armstrong’s question, “What are you on,” well we hope its a comfortable mattress.

Dreams are supposed to be calming reflections of our subconscious mind, but occasionally they offer unneeded anxiety to our slumber. One of the common themes that penetrate our sleeping minds, is the ‘test’ dream.

It may be years since we’ve been at school, but our subconscious holds on to the repressed emotional and physical stress surrounding exams.

“For most people who have them,” cites Dr. Deirdre Barrett, a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, “these dreams continue decades after finishing formal education, but occur at times they’re facing scrutiny or evaluation by others, especially authority figures.”

We might feel unprepared for a meeting and our mind connects this emotion with a feeling we had going into a test. Our waking mind might not illuminate the parallels, but our subconscious will.

Test dreams can be used as metaphoric acknowledgements that aspects in our current life are causing undue stress. Dealing with this stress in our waking hours can help eliminate our nocturnal anxieties.

"Please Put Down Your Pencils"

Common Test Dream Scenarios:

(provided by www.dreamdictionary.org)

Late for the Exam: You might have all the answers, but you can’t seem to get to the test room

No seats left: You arrive to the test hall and every seat is taken

Pencil Issues: Your pencil keeps breaking, providing you with no method of recording your answers

No time left: A time limit permits you from finishing

Foreign Language: You receive the test and the entire exam is written in another language

Hold That Position

Do you wake up feeling like you’ve only properly slept for an hour or two? Do you find yourself being pulled from slumber in the middle of the night? Is your partner overly irritable in the morning?

If you said yes to any of these, your mattress might be the source of your strife.

Couples, who sleep together, often pull each other from deep sleep with their nocturnal movements. A simple repositioning of one’s body can send spring vibrations across the bed. With a cheap mattress, any little movement can alter your partner’s sleeping patterns.

Want to improve your sleep?

A Simmons Beautyrest mattress is made with individual pocket coils that prevent motion transfer. The pocket springs only respond to the pressure above them. A compressed coil on one side of the bed is completely separated from the other springs, only inches away.

This design allows couples the romantic benefits of sharing a bed, with the practicality of a motionless mattress.

We call it the ‘marriage saver.’ And right now, Beautyrest mattresses are on sale at Mattress Choice for up to 65% off. That’s more than half the sticker price!

Shhh… Don’t get too excited. You’ll wake your partner.

“If sleep doesn’t serve an absolutely vital function, it is the greatest mistake evolution ever made.”
-Allan Rechtschaffen

All living creatures on the planet Earth need some form of slumber. Birds and mammals sleep in a form similar to humans, while insects, reptiles and fish have a period of reduced activity and metabolism. Every living creature requires a daily portion of inactivity; a period where the brain is able to recharge.
For most humans, the required amount of daily sleep is close to eight hours. Comparatively, a house cat requires about twelve hours, while a giraffe needs less than two hours a day.
During this period of rest, as our body functions take a breather, our vulnerability to predators increases. For most humans in the Western world, the four walls that surround us while we sleep minimize the potential for danger.
But for animals, sleep is a dangerous necessity. Drowsing animals make easy prey.
Humans are one of the only species on earth that have the freedom to enjoy their sleep. This enjoyment can be heightened with the right mattress. To find the perfect vessel for enjoying your slumber, visit Mattress Choice – sleeping evolved.

This weekend, the world was reminded of the terrible psychological and physical effects of bullying. It took the tragic death of Amanda Todd to remind us how vulnerable our young people are to verbal and physical torment.

Our children do not have to face bullies alone. Be a part of the solution and educate young people about bullying in school, on the web and within their peer groups. If a young person comes to you with a bullying issue – listen. Then connect them with the right resources.

You can also encourage schools and the local government to increase funding to anti-bullying campaigns.

No child should have to go through the anguish that Todd was forced to live with. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. Countless young people are bullied each day and sit silent.

By continuing the discourse that has already begun, more children will get the help they need.

We need to stop bullying as a concerned society. Let Todd’s legacy be one of change, not sadness and regret.

Resources:

http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=24700&tid=108

http://www.stopbullying.gov/respond/be-more-than-a-bystander/

http://kidshelpphone.ca/Teens/InfoBooth/Bullying.aspx

If you are experiencing bullying of any kind and are under twenty, call this toll free hotline to talk a counsellor: 1-800-668-6868

Daredevils are a weird breed of human. They take joy in risking the precious gift that is life, for a moment in the spotlight. When rational thought says, ‘no, this is entirely unsafe and I may die,’ Daredevils say, ‘yes, let’s do this.’ Sometimes it’s for a cause, sometimes it’s for science and sometimes it’s for the pure elation of adrenaline.

This week, Austrian born daredevil, Felix Baumgartner, jumped from a space capsule 38 kms above the earth. He ascended to this height with the help of a helium balloon that was over 55 stories high.

The total free fall distance was 119, 846 feet, over 36 kms, passing Joe Kittinger’s record of 102, 800 feet, set in 1960. Baumgartner also set a new record for highest altitude manned balloon flight.

Baumgartner’s free fall lasted 4 minutes and 19 seconds, just short of Kittinger’s record of 4 minutes, 36 seconds. His team claims that Baumgartner was able to break the sound barrier, as he travelled at speeds of over 1,300 kmph.

The jump and the events leading up to it, were recorded by 30 different cameras located on the ground, on the balloon, in a helicopter and on a toe cam attached to Baumgartner’s suit. The event was streamed live on YouTube, with over 8 million viewers, the largest audience ever for a live YouTube broadcast.

Red Bull sponsored the event, naming it Red Bull Stratos. Their YouTube site has a highlight package of the live stream, where you can hear Baumgartner utter the phrase, “I’m going home now,” just before he leaves the capsule.

Mattress Choice would like to welcome Baumgartner back to Earth; “We missed you too. Thank you for the show.”

Just remember, even Daredevils shouldn’t consume energy drinks before bed. That’s madness!

The Canadian Press reported an interesting story this week about a Canadian teenager struggling with a rare disorder called Kleine-Levine syndrome. The disorder causes the young teen, named Kaitlyn Terrana, to sleep for days at a time.

Coined the ‘sleeping beauty’ disease, Kleine-Levin syndrome develops during adolescence and affects nearly twice as many boys as it does girls. The symptoms are commonly experienced for 10 to 15 years after the initial episode and then abruptly stop.

Kaityln experienced her first attack when she was 15. She is now in a somewhat predictable six-week cycle, retiring to her bed for roughly 10 days each time she is affected. During this period, Kaitlyn can sleep up to 20 hours. Her mother wakes her at certain periods to give her food and water and help her to the bathroom.

At the end of the cycle, when Kaitlyn’s energy returns, her appetite spikes, leaving her mother to monitor her food intake. “it’s like they’re in a starving mode when they wake up. They just eat anything and everything in sight,” her mom claims.

Misdiagnosed for over a year by a number of Ontario doctors, Dr. David Callen finally properly recognized the symptoms of Kleine-Levin syndrome.

As expected, Kaitlyn has missed a large amount of school days since the symptoms started. After each cycle she tries diligently to catch-up to the rest of the class; then it strikes again.

Kaitlyn hopes to work in the health-care field after university.

It’s been a month since classes resumed at the University and midterms are already approaching – fast! Students are looking for any advantage to improve their GPA. But the answer isn’t far from their pillow.

The student regime of early morning classes, coffee by the litre, barely edible cafeteria food and late-night studying can drain the mind’s potential. If Mattress Choice can pass on any advice to the young minds up on Ring Road, it’s get more sleep.

With a refreshed mind, a student’s capacity to retain knowledge greatly increases. It also helps with reasoning. Close the books a few hours early and head to bed. Your

Find you can’t sleep because of stress and or the inability to turn your mind off? Maybe it’s your mattress.

Mattress Choice is continuing with their summer sale prices, so even with a student budget our mattresses are affordable.

Bring up that B+ average to an A. Improve your sleep and improve your potential to learn.

Well folks, the first two weeks of the NHL season have been officially cancelled and it looks like both sides, the NHL Players Association and the owners lead by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, are digging in for a long battle.

Yes, this is siege warfare at its finest; the players are held up in their castle, as the owners sit calmly, waiting for the NHLPA to wave their white flag. And the fans, the peasant folk in the surrounding fields, start to feel the early pangs of hunger – hunger for a sport tied strongly to our national identity.

These are grand metaphors, but for many Canadians, hockey is life. Young people take up the game and idolize the stars of NHL. Twenty-somethings flock to the bars, spending their time and money invested in a team that has a one in thirty chance of hoisting Lord Stanley’s silver grail.  And families across the country come together to share Saturday evenings watching Hockey Night in Canada.

So what can we do to survive this battle of attrition?

Invest some time in our Major Junior team: The Victoria Royals. The next home game is Thursday against the Kelowna Rockets. Let the Professionals slug it out on the battlefield. Hockey will live on without the feudal lords.

Locked Out

Job creation comes in strange shapes and forms, sometimes even in king and queen-sized dimensions. A group of students from Belmont University in Nashville has recently won the the Enactus World Cup for starting up a mattress recycling business. The project is called Spring Back Recycling, and it gives jobs to homeless people and prison inmates who are assigned the task for breaking discarded mattresses into their core components and properly recycled as to not end up in landfills.

Currently 8,000 mattresses a year end up in landfills in America. At approximately 60 lb each, that quickly adds up to 175 million pounds of waste that could be better diverted to recycling plants that can reuse springs, foam and wooden materials for other products. The springs are the highest value. They are melted down and sold to steel companies. A set can usually fetch $3.50.

Surprisingly, there are only 30 recycling centres in the United States. They are often far from cities, so a lot of mattresses unfortunately end up on the street or in landfills.

Canada has even fewer recycling centres, as they are expensive to maintain.

The mattress industry has been supportive of recycling centres for some time, however, in some states, they have been resistant to be forced into absorbing the costs of putting the programs in place. In California, they have successfully defeated a bill requiring them to foot the delivery and maintenance of a recycling program, three times in this year alone.

In Victoria, BC, you can recycle a mattress Victoria mattress store Mattress Choice has a Trade In Trade Up policy, where for a small fee they will take away your old mattress, and bring it to the Delta recycling plant when you buy a new mattress from Simmons.

 Here are some of our favorite blog posts from the Mattress Choice blog.

Did you know John Lenon and Yoko Ono created a revolution without even leaving their bed?

Revolution From Your Bed

Did you hear the one about the pilot who lost his mind because he was so sleep deprived?

Lack Of Sleep Can Lead To Temporary Insanity

Find out why it is so dangerous to work split shifts or graveyard shifts.

Graveyard Sleeping

Why do we keep our vacation homes stocked with second rate stuff? If you are going to splurge on one thing – it should be your bed.

Outfitting Your Vacation Home

And what is cooler than knowing How To Lucid Dream.

We hope you have enjoyed these blogs so far. Which posts were your favouites?

If you live in Saanich, BC and you are looking for a mattress store in Saanich, what are you going to do? It’s not like there’s a ton of mattress stores in Saanich, BC.

Mattress Choice has a special offer for you. Mention that you saw this post and come into our Mattress Choice store. It’s located on 3510 Blanshard Street. In the Saanich Plaza. Near the Save-on-Foods.

Tell us that you read this blog. Give us some proof that you are from Saanich, BC (a driver’s licence will do) and that you are looking for a mattress, and we will give you the deal of a lifetime.

If you are looking to buy a Beautyrest mattress – we will knock up to 60% off the price.

If you mention that you are from Saanich and you saw this post, we will even throw in two free pillows. Just let us know.

We don’t get a lot of people from as far as Saanich, BC, but we would like to think that we are you local Saanich mattress store, even though we are two hours away, based on the fact that we have crazy deals on mattresses and we want you to have the very best.

What is it about getting sleepy that makes us rub our eyes when we are tired? Is it to keep heavy eyelids up and open?

Turns out the issue is a moisture one. When we are tired, our bodies do not produce enough moisture, so our eyes get dry. Rubbing the eyes (usually with the backs of our hands or our knuckles) stimulates the tear ducts (called lachrymal glands).

Dry eyes is just one more ways nature has to remind us that we need to sleep. When the yawning starts, we seek out the nearest pillow, it’s infectious too, encouraging others around you to join you in getting a little shuteye. Same can be said for when our eyes dry up, by rubbing them we send of a cue that we are in need of rest, and that maybe right now is a good time for sleep.

Mattress Choice’s Beautyrest Sale is almost over, so if you want to get the best possible Simmons bed at the best possible price ($899), you’d best hurry. There is less than one week left of the sale.

You can find Mattress Choice at 3510 Blanshard Street in Victoria, BC. It’s in Saanich Plaza, just behind the Save-On-Foods store.

If you live in Chemainus, BC and you need a mattress store in Chemainus, what are you going to do? It’s not like there’s a ton of mattress stores in Chemainus, BC.

Mattress Choice has a special offer for you. Mention that you saw this post and come into our Mattress Choice store. It’s located on 3510 Blanshard Street. In the Saanich Plaza. Near the Save-on-Foods.

Tell us that you read this blog. Give us some proof that you are from Chemainus, BC (a driver’s licence will do) and that you are looking for a mattress, and we will give you the deal of a lifetime.

If you are looking to buy a Beautyrest mattress – we will knock up to 60% off the price.

If you mention that you are from Chemainus and you saw this post, we will even throw in two free pillows. Just let us know.

We don’t get a lot of people from as far as Chemainus, BC, but we would like to think that we are you local Chemainus mattress store, even though we are two hours away, based on the fact that we have crazy deals on mattresses and we want you to have the very best.

The International Sleep Products Association has suppressed a motion to change the way that mattresses are disposed of in California. This is the third time this year that they were able to defeat environmental lobby groups that believe that mattress companies should be responsible for the picking up and proper disposal of old mattresses. If they had their way, the bill would have cost mattress companies hundreds of thousands of dollars, and ultimately affect the cost of mattresses in California, putting a financial strain on the consumer as well as retailers.

We here at Mattress Choice are happy to help you dispose of your old mattress. We offer a Trade In, Trade Up special. For a small fee, we will take your bed to the proper recycling centre for you. That way you don’t have to worry about the hassles of delivery, and you can rest easy knowing that it isn’t going to end up in a landfill somewhere.

Usually when you hear about a couple sleeping in separate beds warning bells go off that their marriage may just be on the rocks. However, recent studies have shown that sleeping apart offers some benefits, such as a better night’s sleep if you live with a snorer, a toss and turner, or a night-talker. Sometimes it’s nice to just have some space.

According to a study by a British website, 13% of British couples sleep in separate beds. However, just because a couple is sleeping in different beds doesn’t mean that they are not having sex. Physical intimacy is a necessary part of a relationship, but that intimacy doesn’t necessarily happen just because a couple is sharing a bed.

Sometimes, as couples get older, they need adjustable beds, and specialized equipment like sleep apnea machines. They may suffer from skin conditions. If this is the case, it is actually advisable for couples to sleep in separate beds to preserve their health.

If the thought of not sleeping in the same bed is terrifying to you, perhaps you should consider upgrading your mattress to a king. Nobody will ever head to the couch when there’s a king-sized Beatyrest Black to enjoy.

Alternatively, if you would like to give the Lucy and Ricky thing a spin, talk to us about matching twin beds. We often have twin beds on sale starting for as low as $147.

If the thought of not sleeping in the same bed is terrifying to you, perhaps you should consider upgrading your mattress to a king. Nobody will ever head to the couch when there’s a king-sized Beatyrest Black to enjoy.

Alternatively, if you would like to give the Lucy and Ricky thing a spin, talk to us about matching twin beds. At Mattress Choice is Victoria, BC, we often have twin beds on sale starting for as low as $147.

There is only one Vancouver Island Mattress Store that stocks exclusively Simmons, Serta and Sealy mattresses. That store is Mattress Choice, located on the southern point of Vancouver Island, Victoria, BC.
Why is it important to stock only the very best of the best brands? Simply put, we want to have the deepest selection of only top quality beds.

Everyone has their personal preference level for what makes a comfortable night’s sleep. No two people are alike. So instead of being forced into an inferior brand just because you like a model that is not a traditional bestseller – Mattress Choice has that model ready for you, in premium brand, no less.

If you live on Vancouver Island and you need a good bed, drop by 3510 Blanshard St. in Victoria today.

Oliver Sacks is a smart man. He is a neuroscientist obsessed with the way our brains work. He wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, which I have no doubt was the inception for Memento – about the insurance investigator who loses his ability to create short-term memories following an accident. It’s a true condition, called retrograde amnesia, and Sacks discusses his patients with that syndrome in his book.

Beyond psychology, he is also fascinated with dreams. He thinks that our nocturnal fantasies and observations, and the way our subconscious mind navigates us through our lives – is incredibly important.

Here is a recent TED talk he gave about dreams, visions and what hallucination reveals about our minds. He brings it into focus with the case of Charles Bonnet syndrome, where the blind can see visually in their minds.

250 years ago they wanted to find the connection between the theatre of the mind and the mechanics of the brain. Watching this, you’ll see that we are closer than ever to unearthing that link.

http://www.ted.com/talks/oliver_sacks_what_hallucination_reveals_about_our_minds.html

Do you have a dream that needs explanation? Were you running down a maze, naked, trying to find your classroom for the final exam of the year. And you know you haven’t studied, and you’re being chased by zombies at the same time?

Whoa, that’s heavy. But who do you tell it to? Your friends are probably as interested in your dreams as you are in theirs. Basically, it’s a polite listen in some cases, waiting for it to be over, or a ‘don’t you start with your dreams again’ kind of response.

When no one else will listen, and help you unfold the mysteries of your mind, Dr. Floyd is the good doctor who will help you.

To visit Dr. Floyd simply click on the Mattress Choice website here. You’ll find Dr. Floyd in the bottom left corner. Click on the red box there and he’ll be right out to help you.

Tell him your dreams. Not your aspirations, but the dream you had last night, the one about the running and being chased, when you’re naked at school and with the zombies. Just type in ‘zombies’ and see what he has to say about that.

You might be surprised at how insightful the good doctor really is. One thing though, no swearing, he’s really opposed to that.

It’s the sale you’ve been waiting for all year. The Midsummer Mattress Sale at Mattress Choice is now on. It’s the one time of year where we have Simmons Beautyrest mattresses on sale at up to 60% off.

There is no bed quite like a Beautyrest. You may have seen the commercials with the bowling ball and pins. How does it work? It’s a patented invention called the pocket coil. Each spring is individually wrapped in its own sheath. The idea is to eliminate motion transfer between partners. If your wife rolls over, or gets up, you won’t feel a thing. It’s an undisturbed rest.

Only Mattress Choice has the Beautyrest you need. And for a limited time, you can visit us at Mattress Choice on 3510 Blanshard to get the very best, for up to 60% off.