Is a $1,000 pillow really better? The expensive pursuit of comfortable sleep

From ergonomic memory foam to luxury goose down, Australia’s options for where to lay your head are enough to make it spin. So how do you choose the perfect pillow? The room inside Hästens’s “sleep spa” is calming. Lights dimmed low, soft piano music and a subtle lavender scent linger in the air as I sink into the Swedish bedmaker’s signature blue-and-white checked mattress. It feels less like shopping and more like checking into a boutique hotel. The luxury brand, which has showrooms in Sydney and Melbourne, has celebrity fans, too. Emily Blunt loves her Hästens pillow so much she gave one to Oppenheimer co-star Cillian Murphy. But what, exactly, makes a pillow worthy of such devotion? After years hunched over a laptop, plus occasional insomnia and many pillows of my own, I’m hoping to find out. Emilia Axelsson, a sleep specialist, watches as I roll on to my side before sliding one pillow from beneath my head and replacing it with another. “This one’s too high,” she says, noticing my chin tip towards my chest. “When a pillow is the wrong height, your muscles work all night to hold your neck in position. The right pillow lets them switch off.” Based on my fitting, Axelsson recommen