Good news, we will continue to sleep into the future, but the nature of sleep, how, where, when and why may change. In a 3 month Australia wide research project I’ve just completed for Sealy, I investigated the future of sleep and beds through to 2055. David Dowsett and I chatted about some of the results in our regular radio segment including: My research revealed an increasing interest in ‘sleep gadgets’ as Australians turn to technology for a better night’s rest, with 18% currently using sleep-promoting smart phone apps, 16% using sleep-cycle monitoring alarm clocks, 8% using ambient noise devices and 5% using ‘wake up’ UV lights and sleep tracking tools. And with the vast majority of people – 69% – claiming these techniques have helped significantly improve their overall sleep wellness, it appears they may be having a positive impact. and some of the top line research results were: Beds are Alive Beds in 2055 will be the conductor of our orchestrated wellness, constantly monitoring our vital signs, checking our sleep patterns and adjusting our sleeping environment (lights, temperature, humidity, and atmospherics) to best suit our changing nightly needs. Bed as Messenger In 2055 we will have 1 trillion connected digital devices and objects seamlessly whispering to each other on our behalf, sharing our movements, organising our next steps and preempting our daily needs and desires, long before we undertake them. The bed’s place in this is pivotal, its role is to manage 1/3 of our lives and notify our army of digital assistants of our state of sleep or awakeness and provide this real time information to assist the ongoing real-time planning of our upcoming activities. Having learnt our preferred routines, the bed, with our permission, will signal next steps to bathrooms, kitchens, living environment, transportation and others ensuring that each is appropriately aware of our requirements of them, what we will need, when we will need it. Beds as Guardian For the elderly and infirmed bed ridden is not isolation in 2055. Our bedrooms with their digital walls and surfaces are able to replicate any environment, just like the holodeck in Star Trek almost 100 years ago in the 1960’s. Our medical and allied health professionals are constantly monitoring our inbuilt bed sensors for our vital health signs, sending digital instructions back to the bed including requests for patient movements, gentle exercise and massage of limbs. Beds as Life Long Companions By 2055 there will be 72,000 Australian centenarians who have spent 255,500 hours / 10,646 days or 29.16 years in their beds in their 100 year plus lifetime (up from 4,500 in 2013). Bed as Oasis In 2055 our life and work styles will be less routine; we will work to project and task rather than a set 9-5 work day and work globally reaching out digitally across time zones and cultures. We will commute less and spend more time in our homes working, recreating and living and this will change our sleep patterns and bed use. Bed as Informer In 2055 every Sealy bed we sleep in whether at home, in a hotel, or at friends will recognise us, know our sleep patterns, preferred mattress firmness, pillow preference, linen requirements and sleep preferences and use this to automatically reconfigure that “new” bed to feel just like our bed at home. Have a listen to the segment now: [audio mp3="http://www.morrisfuturist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Future-of-Sleep-2-Dec-13.mp3"][/audio] and click here to download an executive summary of the report. ]]>