www.bedtimenetwork.com The “we” is Cindy Bressler and Lisa Mercurio. We’re business partners, both former senior executives at PolyGram Records, now partnered in an entertainment development business. We were managing a country music act, among other things, yet still defining our company profile and on our way to a flurry of meetings in San Francisco, always on the lookout for the “next big thing
.” We bring different skillsets and backgrounds to table, to be sure, Lisa a trained concert pianist who gravitates towards books or The New York Times’ crossword puzzle to busy herself with on a five-hour plane trip; Cindy a voracious reader of magazines, routinely scanning stacks of general interest, shelter, fashion and news mags with a keen business eye. This particular habit served us well on this trip. A few pages into the latest issue of MORE Magazine (written expressly for women like us: 40-plus but still in the fight to feel s*xy and glam), Cindy read something that clicked. She couldn’t have been ten pages into the magazine when she landed on an editorial by then-editor Peggy Northrop, tore out the page and handed it to Lisa. “There’s something in this,” she said exuberantly. “Read it!”
Northrop had written about her readership’s bedtime habits and things that cropped up in their lives to prevent a good night’s sleep. Some had partners who snored, robbing them of their nightly slumber. Many, Northrop reported, found themselves confused by their lack of sleep time, but had decided that if sleep remained elusive, the waking time could be put to good use. We could not shake the notion underlying it all, of a restless (literally!) community out there somewhere, whether its members fell into the categories of “sleep-deprived,” “bedtime-challenged” or just plain insomniac. Some weeks later, back in New York, Lisa was trolling the internet when an item about a new health study caught her eye. Something clicked again. According to a report in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, a team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University had discovered a “secret to sleep”: music. But not just drifting off with your favorite tunes playing — rather, they had discovered a distinctive formula of music that synched up with the rhythm of the body: peaceful classical or soft jazz music, pulsing at the rate of 60 to 80 beats per minute (bpm). It had to be music, in other words, that complimented nighttime silence instead of disturbing it, and that fell into rhythm with the resting human heart. Quite simply, the researchers proposed a prescription for sleep. Just use nightly for a minimum of 15 minutes. Frankly, it sounded too simple to be true. Then again, maybe Mother Nature didn’t intend for sleep to be that challenging. As babies, most of us had no trouble falling into the “land of nod,” following the ritualistic reading of “Goodnight, Moon,” followed by a warm glass of milk and a cookie. We met on Madison Avenue the next morning, a cold, damp New York February morning. We tucked under an awning, and Lisa held out the printout from her browser. “Here it is,” she said. “Here’s the solution for MORE’s readers and everyone else. We can make this music. We can put it together in a way so that everyone has it whenever they need it or want it.”
We started by calling Peggy Northrop. A few weeks later, we’d secured a meeting in Northrop’s office, and the MORE editor immediately “got” it. In fact, she loved it. Northrop said she would be more than eager to help spread the word about a tonic to the phenomenon she found amongst so many of her readers: a drug-free, all-natural, side-effect-free, inexpensive and, frankly, rather beautiful sonic sleep Rx. We decided to create compilations of just such music, and together with Rhino Entertainment market it under the imprint Bedtime Beats. These Bedtime Beats compilations are available in the United States and Japan. But that, it turned out, was only the beginning. Our sleep project led us to study a number of other dynamics of nighttime habits, everything from dreams and bedtime nutrition to s*x and late night exercise. If sleep is the goal, it turns out “Bedtime” is more than just a fixed point, but a journey. From the moment we come home and slip into something more comfortable to the choices we make in the hours leading up to it, in diet, relationships, to have s*x or not to have s*x, to sleep on cotton or silk, drink chamomile tea, milk with honey or a glass of wine — there are so many choices, and so much potential in creating our own distinct ritual. That in mind, we began thinking how we might make Bedtime Beats into something more. Marshalling the many experts we’ve gotten to know in our journey, we set out to create the Bedtime Network, the first interactive site featuring a team of coaches and experts specializing in all things bedtime. Our coaches will address issues many of us have. Their guidance will help you enhance your bedtime experience and enjoy a good night’s sleep.
