Our Story
Hi, I'm Jessica. Founder of SoleHaven.
For three years, I lived with a secret that was slowly breaking me down.
Every night, I'd lie in bed—exhausted, desperate for sleep—and just... couldn't fall asleep.
30 minutes would pass. Then 45. Sometimes over an hour.
I'd watch the clock, calculating how many hours I'd get if I fell asleep right now. Then I'd watch that number get smaller and smaller.
The worst part? I was doing everything "right":
- ❌ No caffeine after 2pm
- ❌ Perfect sleep hygiene routine
- ❌ Blue light glasses
- ❌ Meditation apps
- ❌ Weighted blanket ($300 that made me too hot)
- ❌ Blackout curtains
- ❌ Magnesium supplements
- ❌ Melatonin (which left me groggy and miserable)
Nothing worked consistently. And I was exhausted—not just physically, but emotionally. I started to believe this was just... who I was now. A bad sleeper.
Then everything changed at age 32.
I Became Obsessed With Finding an Answer
I'm a researcher by nature. (Okay, fine—I'm also stubborn and wasn't ready to accept "bad sleeper" as my identity.)
I started reading everything I could find about sleep science. Not wellness blogs or "5 tricks to sleep better" articles. Actual published research. Peer-reviewed studies. The real science behind sleep initiation.
That's when I found it.
A 1999 study published in Nature journal.
The title: "Warm feet promote the rapid onset of sleep."
I almost scrolled past it. Warm feet? That seemed too simple. Too... obvious.
But I read it anyway.
The Study That Changed Everything
Here's what the researchers found:
Your body can't initiate sleep until your core temperature drops. To make that happen, it sends warm blood to your extremities—your hands and feet—which act as radiators to release heat.
Warm feet = vasodilation = core cooling = sleep onset.
Cold feet = vasoconstriction = heat trapped = no sleep.
The correlation was clear: for every degree your foot temperature increased, you fell asleep faster.
It wasn't about comfort. It wasn't about relaxation. It was about physiology.
I sat there staring at my laptop, feeling both validated and angry.
Validated because I wasn't broken—there was an actual physiological reason I couldn't fall asleep.
Angry because I'd spent three years and hundreds of dollars on solutions that didn't address this mechanism at all.
That Night, I Tried It
I didn't have anything fancy. Just a heating pad on my feet before bed.
Twenty minutes later, I was asleep.
Twenty. Minutes.
I hadn't fallen asleep that quickly in three years.
The next night, I tried it again. Same result.
For the first time in years, I felt hope.
But There Was a Problem
Heating pads require electricity. Cords. Setup. They're bulky, they overheat, and you can't move.
Bed socks fall off. They're not optimized for sustained warmth. And let's be honest—they feel restrictive.
Generic foot warmers are designed for skiing, not sleep. They're either too hot or not warm enough.
There was no product designed specifically for the foot-warming mechanism that triggers sleep onset.
So I decided to create one.
Building SoleHaven: The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done
I'm not a product developer. I'm not a chemist. I'd never manufactured anything in my life.
But I knew what I needed:
- Sustained, gentle foot warming optimized for 6-8 hours
- Comfortable enough to forget you're wearing it
- Simple—no electricity, no setup, no complicated routine
- Based on the actual research, not wellness myths
I spent six months testing ingredients. Bamboo vinegar, wood vinegar, tourmaline—natural components that generate gentle, far-infrared warmth when activated by body heat.
I tested dozens of formulations on myself. Too hot. Not warm enough. Uncomfortable. Back to the drawing board.
I partnered with a thermal engineer who helped me optimize the exact temperature range and duration that research showed mattered most for sleep onset.
Eight months later, I had the first version of SoleHaven Sleep.
The First Night I Used It
I applied the patches, got into bed with my book, and waited.
Fifteen minutes later, I realized I'd read the same paragraph three times because I was too drowsy to focus.
I turned off the light.
And I fell asleep.
No hour of lying awake. No frustration. No desperate clock-watching.
Just... sleep.
I woke up the next morning and actually felt rested. Not groggy like with melatonin. Not tired from only getting 5 hours. Actually rested.
I cried in my kitchen over coffee. (Yes, really.)
Three years of exhaustion and frustration, solved by targeting the one mechanism nothing else addressed.
Why I'm Telling You All of This
Because if you're reading this, you're probably where I was three years ago.
You've tried everything. You're exhausted but can't fall asleep. You're frustrated that nothing works consistently.
And you're wondering if you're just destined to be a bad sleeper.
You're not.
There's a physiological reason you can't fall asleep quickly. And there's a science-backed solution that addresses it.
Not another pill. Not another supplement that might work sometimes. Not another "sleep hack" that requires you to change your entire routine.
Just a simple nighttime ritual that works with your body's natural sleep trigger—the same mechanism validated in published research.
What SoleHaven Stands For
I created SoleHaven because I was tired of:
- Wellness products that overpromise and underdeliver
- "Solutions" based on pseudoscience or marketing hype
- Being told to "just relax" or "try harder" to sleep
- Expensive products that don't address the actual problem
SoleHaven is different because:
- We're based on published research - Not blog posts or "ancient wisdom." Peer-reviewed studies from Nature journal.
- We explain HOW it works - No mystery ingredients or vague claims. Just physiology.
- We're not a detox product - We explicitly distance ourselves from that discredited category. This is about thermoregulation, not toxins.
- We're honest about what we don't know - If something hasn't been studied, we say so. If results vary, we tell you.
- We put science over sales - Even if it means losing customers who want the "detox" story.
My Promise to You
If you're lying awake right now, exhausted but unable to sleep, I see you.
I was you.
And I created SoleHaven for you.
Not to get rich. Not to build a wellness empire. But because I genuinely believe that faster sleep onset through foot warming could change your life the way it changed mine.
If it doesn't work for you, I want to know. If it does work, I want to hear about it.
This isn't just a product to me. It's the solution I desperately needed and couldn't find anywhere else.
Welcome to SoleHaven. Let's get you sleeping.
Jessica
Founder, SoleHaven
Former bad sleeper, current sleep science advocate