Introducing our sleep experts
Let's take a closer look at our team of international sleep experts.
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Walter Braun [1]
Mattress Expert
Walter Braun is a mattress and ergonomics expert.
Originally from Munich, Walter shares his tips on ergonomic alignment and healthy sleeping with partners from across the globe, training mattress consultants and offering courses for doctors and physiotherapists.
He's also owned his own mattress shop for decades and has hands-on experience recommending the best sleep products for a wide variety of people.
Walter swears that healthy sleep is the most important thing for our physical and mental well-being, with every part of our sleep setup - from mattress to frame, pillow, and blanket - playing a vital role.
Working with doctors, he knows that many aches and pains are actually related to misaligned sleep. The trick is to find the perfect combination of mattress and frame (and everything in-between) to ensure the ideal sleeping conditions.
Björn Steinbrink [2]
Sleep Coach
Björn Steinbrink is a certified sleep coach.
Based in Germany, Björn works predominantly with athletes to teach them how healthy sleep affects performance, personally and professionally.
Together with Dr Michael T. Coll Barroso, he's also launched the Fit For Sleep programme.
This online course is aimed at people from all walks of life and targets multiple facets of sleep, including overall sleep improvement and eliminating sleep disorders.
Good sleep is associated with a range of positive benefits, including health and fitness, improved performance, and an overall higher quality of life.
Caroline Rolland [3]
Physiotherapist
Caroline Rolland is a physiotherapist and osteopath with over a decade of experience.
Based in France, she works intensively with patients suffering from rheumatism and neurological conditions and those with respiratory problems.
Caroline is also closely involved with breast cancer patients, assisting women with everything from preoperative care to breast reconstruction.
Her experience includes working with both adults and children.
More recently, Caroline has begun working more with athletes to prepare them for all aspects of the competitive field.
Andrew Green [4]
Sleep Therapist
Andrew Green is an occupational therapist who has specialised in adult sleep and sleep problems since 1999; he remained attached to a sleep clinic until 2016.
Based in Bristol in the UK, he now has a private practice working with people with insomnia through cognitive behaviour therapy for insomnia (CBT-I).
Since 2020 he has also been providing sleep coaching to clients all around the world.
His practice is based on the following premises: First, that sleep is an essential natural process and one for which we should allocate sufficient time, and, second, that intervention to improve it should be based on scientific evidence.
You can read more about Andrew on his Sleep Therapy website [4].
Susanne Willekes [5]
Sleep Coach for Children
Susanne Willekes is the first certified Dutch sleep coach for children.
Based in Holland, she trained as a Gentle Sleep coach in America and started her practice, The Sleep Agency, in 2015. She has already helped thousands of families and children through her coaching - both at home and abroad.
Susanne is also the author of two successful books.
In addition, Susanne and her husband developed a sleep and feeding app for babies in 2021 called Sleepeez.
The mission?
"To support families with young children to enjoy a healthy, happy, and well-rested life."
Because of her unique expertise, Susanne is a frequent guest on radio and television shows. She also writes for Ouders van Nu's online platform.
How do our sleep experts help us test?
We have started working with several sleep experts to better understand the mattress testing process and provide in-depth information to our readers.
From the beginning, our sleep experts have helped us identify the most important aspects to consider when testing products.
These aspects include the sinking depth, firmness level, and sleeping positions.
We've used the knowledge of our experts as a basis to structure our entire testing process.
However, our experts not only advised us on our testing process but also played an essential role in shaping our knowledge base by sharing their experiences with us.
They've repeatedly reminded us that there's no one-size-fits-all mattress and that different body sizes and types have different requirements, continuously highlighting the importance of posture, mattress ergonomics, and optimal spinal alignment.
Their knowledge and experience of different mattress materials and the best mattress constructions, optimal alignment, and the human body were essential to us in figuring out how comfortable a particular mattress is for a specific person.
But they didn't just help us with the mattress test.
Their expertise has helped our content writing team in shaping the understanding of a variety of sleep accessories such as duvets, mattress protectors, pillows, duvets, and more.
They've shared their knowledge and understanding of how different mattresses and sleeping positions require using different pillows and how other sleep accessories can positively impact the quality of your sleep.
Over the past few years, Sleep Hero has grown beyond just being a product review site, and we're also interested in other sleep-related topics.
We ask ourselves and our experts' questions on some important topics, such as.
- How does diet affect your sleep quality?
- How do you deal with sleep disorders?
- What modern sleep gadgets can help you sleep better?
- How can mattresses help with back pain?
- How much sleep do you actually need?
We try to keep up with the latest research and trends in the world of sleep, and our sleep experts have always been just a phone call away to provide us with the proper medical and scientific background knowledge we need to give our readers the most helpful advice.
Would you like to join our team of sleep experts?
We always look forward to working with more sleep experts from around the world!
Our teams publish content in a variety of languages - German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Dutch and more - and we'd love to work with different experts.
If you're interested in joining our team, please email us at [email protected].
We can then give you all the details about this fantastic opportunity.
