November 22, 2015
Helpful context
From the Herald
A study by sleep experts at Sealy UK found that those who kip on the right-hand side of the mattress are far more pessimistic than those who doze on the left.
…
Neil Robinson, Sealy’s top snooze analyst, said: “The research certainly highlights an interesting trend ” could it be possible that the left side of bed is the ‘right’ side?
If you’re trying to decide whether there was anything to this research, these might be helpful
- The Sealy UK press release site doesn’t yet have this story, but the last couple of ‘research’ releases it has are a joint one with the British Chiropractic Association (saying you need expert advice to buy a bed), and a joint one with a psychic and dream interpreter (about common dreams). Both were surveys of 1000 people; no further detail about how they were done. It looks as though this is probably a “study by sleep experts” only in a very liberal sense.
- In 2011, the same question was studied in another survey (again, not much detail) by a hotel chain, with basically the same results.
- There are other things that tend, on average, to be different between people sleeping in the same bed and that might affect the answers. For example, the surveys didn’t ask about gender, or at least didn’t mention it in the results
- And, of course, even if there is cause and effect it could go the other way about as plausibly.
- Finally, “Neil Robinson, Sealy’s top snooze analyst” appears in other stories as “Neil Robinson, marketing director of Sealy UK”.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
Maybe this is a silly question, but which side is which? Is it the right side when you are lying on your back in the bed or the right side when you are looking at the bed from the foot of the bed (or when you are lying on your stomach)? It is not obvious to me which one it should be.
9 years ago
Ah, I see the 2012 article (http://www.ergoflex.co.uk/blog/category/sleep-research/People-who-Sleep-on-Left-Side-of-Bed-are-More-Cheerful-Study) specified that it’s standing at the foot of the bed. I had kind of convinced myself that the other way was more canonical.
9 years ago
Yes, I would have said the other way, too.
9 years ago