Unlock the Secrets Behind the 2025 Esquire Sleep Awards—Which Game-Changing Sleep Hack Took the Crown?

The perfect down pillow isn’t easy to find. Some start off too fluffy, only to lose their fluff within weeks. Some smell weird. Some down isn’t sourced responsibly or isn’t organic. Coyuchi is here to solve all these problems. We’re longtime customers because of the brand’s commitment to sustainability and organic materials of the highest quality. Simply, few companies do it better. This year, we couldn’t deny that its down pillow is absolutely perfect. It’s soft but not too soft. Supportive in just the right way. The organic, nontoxic cotton shell is better than what other brands use for sheets. If you want the pure luxury of an incredible down pillow, you can’t go wrong here.

If down pillows aren’t your thing or you’re looking for a little more support, one of our editors was pleasantly surprised by Purple’s newest launch, the GridCloud. The core is made of a supportive, always-plush down-alternative fill, and it’s wrapped in the brand’s signature GelFlex grid. It’s engineered to offer structure and support with a top layer that’s soft and cool. This way your head sinks into the pillow for a little cushion, with long-lasting neck support that flatter pillows don’t offer. Our tester prefers down pillows but was shocked at how soft and cozy this one was. You can finally get solid support with a cushy feel.

Every bedding brand on earth offers cotton percale sheets. It’s a tough category to win. We’ve tried them all—trust us. Simply put, we have never loved anything more than these new organic cotton percale sheets from L.L. Bean. You’ll know L.L. Bean for the boots and boat and totes, but the heritage brand has so much more to offer. This set is organic and comes in sizes all the way down to twin, so you can rest easy about the quality of your kid’s or guest’s bedding situation. And the actual quality of cotton is second to none. Once our staff members slid into these, we knew. Crispy, cool, cozy—all the c’s you need for the perfect cotton sheets on a (somewhat tight) budget.

One tester claimed they were done with linen sheets, ready for a slightly less crumpled, relaxed-looking bed. Ready for something crisp. They ordered a cotton set as well as a bamboo set at the beginning of summer and felt good good. Then we had them test Cultiver’s linen sheet set, and it upended everything. Made with 100 percent European flax, these are softer and smoother than any other linen set they’ve ever slept on, our tester said. (The list of brands tried before that initial linen breakup is loooong.) Cultiver’s linen is woven tightly enough, somehow, to resist creasing or wrinkles but keep the softness and airiness of linen. The sheets manage to be both elegant and downright irresistible.

How can you tell you found a great comforter? When you stop thinking about it at all, that’s how. When you don’t curse its heft as you shove it into your duvet cover or wake up drenched in sweat just after midnight. When you can toss it into the machine to wash and when its plush remains evenly spread after it dries. That’s what Brooklinen offers here—plus an eco-advantage. The brand’s down alternative is fully biodegradable, which is something you’ll feel good about when you make your purchase and, perhaps, years from now, when it’s time to move on, but you won’t consider it for a blink in between. Unlike other down alternatives, which often fall flat early in their life cycle, Brooklinen’s PrimaLoft Bio feels identical to its down counterpart, without the risk of agitating any allergies.

We have waxed poetic about Thuma’s easy-to-build furniture and its classic bed frame, but we loved this year’s addition to the ever-evolving lineup. The Essential bed frame is another minimal, low-to-the-ground design, exactly what we’d expect from Thuma. But this one is more of a centerpiece. That signature, top-quality Thuma wood frame comes all the way to the floor for something monolithic. The headboard addition really ties it all together and makes this look like an heirloom piece you’ll have in the family for decades to come. It’s timeless and simple, and don’t forget: You don’t even need tools to put it together.

You’ll rarely (if ever) see the words custom, luxury, and sleeper sofa assembled next to one another, but here we are. Sabai’s Elevate 96-inch sofa, which easily converts to a queen-size bed, is a total unicorn. Each model is made to order, with fabric options ranging from cactus leather to a hemp blend. We tested the recycled velvet, and it not only looks beautiful but also feels luxe. Most important? You’d only know it was a sleeper sofa if you ripped the cushions off. Whether the sleeper is a friend crashing at your place or you crashing after watching seven straight hours of RedZone on a Sunday, it’s more comfortable than most mattresses. Like we said, a unicorn.

Engineered wood priced like real wood is a plague on this world. Home brands, because of a preestablished “pedigree” or customer trust, can charge thousands for upcycled wood. In short, you are buying plywood that’s made to look like hardwood, marked up in price to match the latter. Nectar is one of the only companies that tells it like it is. This Japanese-joinery bed frame is made of bamboo made to look like walnut. (And Nectar says that!) At $500 for a queen, it’s not pretending to be luxury, but it’s as good as bed frames that cost three times as much. Our tester is coming up on 365 days with this bed frame and is still in love. It’s solid and sturdy, and it looks more handsome than the price would ever indicate. If you’re interested in a value, no one is going to surpass what Nectar is making.

The wing-back headboard and upholstered frame make this piece feel as though your dad’s favorite easy chair got promoted to a bed. You can get it in velvet or linen or leather. Our tester went for a woolen vibe with the “Charles River” cover, and the report back was: “Feels like we’re sleeping in a cozy tweed jacket.” The big plus, besides customizing your look, is that BenchMade Modern makes the whole process ridiculously easy. Design it, order it, and the result is on its way back to you in four weeks. And it’s all made in the U.S.A. Our dreams have never been sweeter.

If you’re willing to hunt online or scout out estate sales, you can find a weird vintage side table for under $500 per piece. But if you’re furnishing a new home or apartment, you might not have the luxury of time. You need a reasonably priced bedside table, and you don’t want it to look like something from a Holiday Inn. CB2 makes the only option. The Colosseo side table looks good and sells for a fair price. Use it with the guts facing out if you want to show off your nighttime reading stack and skin-care routine. Turn it around to show the fluted back—inspired by classical architecture—if you don’t want to bother curating your nightstand before your date comes over.

The Sleep Number mattress is graduate-level rest. Only buy this bed if you want to experience restorative slumber—and trust us, you do want to experience this. Using your mattress’s smartphone app—your bed doesn’t have an app?—you determine your Sleep Number, which is the firmness of your side of the bed. If you’ve got a sleeping partner, they choose their own. For our tester, he’s a 70; his wife’s a 75. (Don’t worry, you can still spoon.) The app can also elevate your feet and your head. Even better: The app controls a built-in cooling system. And it tracks your daily Sleep Score, a combination of various biometrics it compiles to tell you how well you’ve slept. You can pay close attention to it, but we found the rest became so good that Sleep Score didn’t matter. Every night felt like a 99. This is graduate-level sleeping, after all, and with the Sleep Number Bed, you’re going to ace it.

Up until very recently, luxury and organic were very different categories in the mattress world. Avocado has changed that. The brand is all about nontoxic, organic, ethically sourced materials so you can feel good about what you’re sleeping on. This year, though, it entered the luxury space. The brand’s new Grand Luxe mattress is jaw-dropping. It’s handcrafted in Los Angeles and features layers and layers of cozy natural fibers with more than 14,000 springs to perfectly form to your body. Yes, it’s big. Yes, it’s pricey. But it’s made for the luxury consumer, and it’s up to snuff when compared with mattress peers in this price range. Our tester had tried organic mattresses in the past and was skeptical of how this one would stand up in the support category, and they were surprised to report that it’s everything they ever wanted in a mattress: cozy, supportive, and clean. Sleeping on this cloud, you’ll, perhaps literally, feel like a million bucks.

When you sleep hot, a mattress that stays cool is an oxymoron. For our tester, who tends to overheat in the night, the Casper Snow Max finally delivered exactly what they had always wanted. This mattress really stood out for how well it maintains both temperature control and structure, offering support. It runs cool, borderline cold, at night. It’s a medium-soft mattress with a premium plush feel, far too luxe for something that ships to you rolled up in a box. It’s soft enough to cradle your body but stable enough to feel like a real-deal mattress. Even with a sleeper tossing and turning, the bed never has that feeling like it’s shifting. It’s subtle, well designed, and clearly built with longevity in mind. It’s on the more expensive side for mattresses that come in a box, but it’s a forever choice for the hot and sweaty sleeper.

Why is it that we always sleep better in luxury hotels? Is it the mattress or just the environment? Honestly, it’s probably both, but Four Seasons’ new mattress makes the case that the brand really knows what it’s doing in the world of sleep. Our tester is a frequent guest at the hotel and had no doubt that this was the mattress for them. Not only does it offer that plush, soft feel that hotel mattresses are famous for, but it’s also specifically manufactured to have tons of support. In fact, our tester’s partner has scoliosis and back pain, so going into this they were both skeptical of the support it would offer. Half a year later, we’re happy to report it’s been a huge help at providing relief and comfort, all while letting them feel as if they’re lounging in the lap of luxury. The couple was even shocked that they found it to be more cooling and that the brand’s DualCool technology did make a difference on their sleep temperatures.

Ostermoor has something that every DTC mattress brand would kill for: history. Founded in 1853, and recently rebranded, it designs and manufactures all its beds in the U.S.A. The mattresses are impeccable; we were tempted to tell you to buy a mattress and this mattress topper. But our testers really wanted to focus on the topper. The category seems easy enough to win—make a bed-sized pillow—but Ostermoor has gone deep on the details. A healthy mix of 90 percent white feather and 10 percent down feather gives you sink-down without compromising the long-term shape. The tightly woven cotton, double-stitched piping, and two-inch gusset give you durability. If you want to extend the life of a dying mattress, this is the product. If you want to take your new mattress to greater heights, this is the product. If we owned a large-scale hotel chain, we’d order these toppers to liven up every bulk-bought mattress we put in a room. It’s that good.

We know our reader, and we know the tech landscape. Chances you have an iPhone? Extremely high. That makes the Apple Watch the best and easiest way to track your sleep and send a ton of data straight to your Health app. But even if we weren’t selling the simplicity of an Apple iPhone connecting to an Apple Watch, the Series 10 would be our go-to sleep-tracking pick. It’s the lightest and most comfortable Apple Watch to sleep in yet, and if you get a more luxe band, it’s the best smartwatch to wear out into the world. With the latest WatchOS11, it can monitor overnight vitals like heart and respiratory rates and body temp, and it can even detect early signs of sleep apnea. Set bedtime alerts and tomorrow morning’s alarms all from your wrist. This is the easiest way to start upgrading your sleep.

If you want to enter the Matrix that is your waking mind and say “time to shut off,” this is the gadget for you. The Somnee smart headband is made to be slipped on 15 minutes before you go to sleep. It does more than just take vitals—any old sleep tracker can do that. It’s adapting to your specific brain patterns. More than any of the secondary body readouts, your brain waves give an immediate picture of how well you’re sleeping. Somnee sees that, and it adjusts electrical stimulation to give you longer-lasting and deeper sleep. If you’ve tried medications and sleep hacks galore and still struggle to fall asleep, this is the one sci-fi-sounding solution we really, truly believe in. Beyond that, it’s difficult to describe. You simply have to experience it.

Okay, you want something certified but aren’t sure about sending waves into your brain or chamomile into your sinuses. We are Therabody evangelists and were early adopters of its LED light mask. Our main tester is a huge fan of the brand’s massage goggles, but funny enough, the SleepMask has been the product we use most. That’s because it’s fool-proof simple. First, it blocks out 100 percent of light, which is better than any beauty-focused sleep mask. Second, the rhythmic vibrations lull us to sleep better than white noise ever could. For sleeping in strenuous circumstances—on a plane, in a weird time zone, or during the day after a night shift full of PEDs—nothing gets us there like a Therabody SleepMask. It’s just the right amount of tech to sleep with.

This little gadget helps you relax by stimulating your vagus nerve. Not sure what that is? It’s in your neck and one of the most important nerves for maintaining your involuntary organ functions—think heart, lungs, and other major organs. Truvaga is clinically studied tech and uses vibrations to relieve stress and help you fall asleep. With a simple two-minute session—add it on top of your tooth brushing and skin care—you can take your mind from chaotic to calm and your body from activated to loose. It works incredibly well, like you’re tricking your own body. It’s also been useful for re-centering throughout the day. Whenever you need to maximize your relaxation, have a go at your vagus nerve.

Dominating in one category is a big deal, but here Dyson takes the cake for two major products. Sleeping with both an air purifier and a humidifier is something we highly recommend, but having two separate machines running every night feels a bit extreme … even for us. Dyson’s combo machine solves the problem. From the outside, this design isn’t new. But looking at the inside, the brand just rereleased it in the new PH2 De-NOx version. There are many things about Dyson that make us fanatics, but here we love that this kills 99.9 percent of bacteria in the water it uses to hydrate the air. (If you’re also a nerd about this stuff, you know that’s not typical.) Here, mold isn’t a worry. You’ll breathe easier with more humidity while the Dyson removes odors and gases while you snooze.

We are staunchly pro-pj’s here at Esquire. If you cast them off in your youth as kid stuff, restart your jammies journey with Petite Plume, founded by CIA-officer-turned-sleep-entrepreneur Emily Hikade. Our tester opted for the Pima set in navy with white piping for a kind of “William Powell in The Thin Man” effect. They started soft and cozy and have only gotten more so with each wash, and now that the warmer months have arrived, you can transition into the shorts set in the same color. They’re timeless, they’re classic, and once they are on, you have officially told your body that your workday is over. That can be at 5:00 p.m. or 12:00 a.m. Whenever you want to mentally check out of this chaotic world.

We have a Sabah obsession. Several Esquire editors have multiple pairs. From the classic slip-on to the new loafer to leopard slippers, it’s rare that someone isn’t wearing a pair in the office. The crown jewels of the lineup, however, are these Fort Worth Babas with shearling lining. The brand’s most popular leather upper is done in a backless slipper with 100 percent natural shearling on the inside. They’re cozy, moisture wicking, and made to last an actual lifetime. Yes, they’re more expensive than stolen hotel slippers, but if you want to buy slippers for life, this is the one model we would recommend.

There’s something so decadent about a Missoni robe. Technically, it’s just terry cloth. Functionally, it’s terry cloth taken to its luxurious apex. It’s softer, more absorbent, and more beautiful than anything else you could ever buy. In its eighth decade, the brand is still owned by the Missoni family and still dedicated to high-end in-house textiles. If you have the panache to wear a Missoni sweater or scarf outside the home, please do so, by all means. If you, like some of our testers, are a bit sheepish with color and pattern, home is the perfect place to indulge in a Missoni robe. Mix a Negroni, light a Toscano, and live your Italian truth in the confines of your own home.

We take loungewear seriously here at Esquire. Sure, there are pajamas that you sleep and sweat in, but there’s also comfortable loungewear that we wear around the house, sometimes outside of the house, and okay, fine, we do actually sleep in them too. The point is, we don’t like to feel run down scooting around in some old T-shirt. When it came to choosing our favorite brand in this category, it didn’t take long for our entire staff to vote on Tekla. The crisp and cool cotton, signature patterns, and soft pastels form the perfect way to feel damn cool and comfortable at all times. In fact, you can catch us at the office in a Tekla shirt every now and then. Don’t forget to snag the matching pants too.

We have some self-awareness, yes. We know $100 boxers are silly, but hear us out. Some of our testers are decidedly anti–Big Tech in the bedroom. If they’re not tracking a “Sleep Score,” how do they guarantee a good night’s sleep? With a stable of shorts meant only for sleeping. These Turnbull & Asser boxers are handmade in the brand’s iconic Gloucester factory of a sumptuous Italian cotton. (Even more sumptuous is the Egyptian cotton.) They’re every bit as beautiful as its bespoke shirting. Slipping on a pair of Turnbull & Asser boxers does infinitely more than not drinking before bed or tracking your optimal bedtime. Make bedtime more luxurious and you’re bound to get better sleep.

Tom Dixon is a favorite for conceptual sofas, modernist light fixtures, and other design-magazine favorites. We, however, have found ourselves really bewitched by this little portable lamp. First, it’s handsome—simple but just design forward enough to warrant a closer look. It’s the perfect size for a bedside reading light, and the diffused LED light is actually quite soothing. The real magic, though, is when you treat it like an old-fashioned candle. Pick it up and carry it from room to room, lighting your way. If treating a $300 lamp in this way scares you, don’t worry. Our mirrored polished-steel sample took a serious tumble once (okay, twice…) and never looked worse for wear. As with all good design, it’s not made only to look pretty but to live hard just as well.

Hopefully the last thing you put down at the end of the night is a book. Realistically, though, we know it’s your phone. For the sake of your subconscious there should be a designated place where your phone lives at night. Our preferred vessel is this Ghurka snap tray, which stays on one tester’s bedside 24/7/365. It can be where you keep your phone, keys, wallet. It can be where you keep a pre-bed hand cream and meditation book. Or it can hold whatever it is you touch last before bed. High-quality leather and Ghurka’s classic cotton-twill lining make for a great gift, be it for yourself or someone else.

Lucchese is our preferred cowboy-boot maker, but the brand is moving from luxury hide into luxury textiles. Along with building out ready-to-wear men’s and women’s categories, it’s also dipping into the world of lifestyle. The general look is “home goods for your multimillion-dollar escape in Jackson Hole.” The perfect example is this cashmere-merino bed blanket. It’s done in a chic grayscale, and the design is a play on the brand’s “LL” logo. Fold it on the foot of the bed to pull over on cold nights, or toss it over the back of the couch for evenings spent watching football. The expansion out of footwear is setting the brand up as the pinnacle of full lifestyle American luxury.

We had to ask ourselves, What really makes a good bedroom rug? A lot of qualities—style, size, material—are all important, but our testers unanimously agreed that it has to be soft and plush for that first step out of bed, though it can’t shed and has to be easy to vacuum. In the rug world, that’s a Goldilocks scenario. We turned to another one of our favorite brands, the Citizenry, known for its handmade designs from artisans around the world. This rug, the source of much deliberation, is perfectly soft but doesn’t shed, easy to care for but looks phenomenal. It also comes in large sizes that can encompass a bedroom. In short, it’s one of the best rugs you can buy.

Blackout curtains will change your life. Whether or not light affects the way you sleep, a pitch-black room will let you really, truly check out. Most blackout curtains feel made for a college dorm: cheap, dreary, and unattractive. Nordic Knots, our Home Award 2025 winner for Best Rug, also makes stunning drapes. When we saw these launch, we knew they would be good without even seeing them. We were right. These curtains are thick, have incredible quality, and do the damn job. Plus, the color choices are exactly what we want at this moment in time; no one else is doing it nearly as well.