Here's the Snooze
Spas are waking up to the fact that sleep, not a mango wrap, is the key to holistic happiness! In fact, sleep has become the bottled water of the hospitality industry. It might be readily available for free, but hotels have been investing millions as they compete to provide guests with the dreamiest night’s rest ever.
Many scientific studies have linked lack of sleep to poor health, increased stress levels and obesity. American spas were the first to identify that a good night’s sleep is one sure way to a spa-goer’s wallet; some of the best even employ directors of sleep! Luxury SpaFinder magazine recently declared sleep the new wellness frontier.
You can now slip between cashmere sheets costing thousands of pounds at the Principe di Savoia, in Milan; or choose from a 20-strong pillow menu at Frégate Island, in the Seychelles (including an antiageing one infused with vitamin E, and an eco-friendly version made from buckwheat spelt). It’s possible to engage the services of a sleep concierge at the Benjamin, in New York, and snuggle up on a mattress costing £14,000 at Cotswold House, in Gloucestershire.
Canyon Ranch, one of the USA’s most influential wellness companies, was a pioneer. The sleep-enhancement programme at its Arizona base comes with reassuring amounts of medical paraphernalia. Guests can spend the night in a sleep lab, where qualified doctors attach monitors to the guinea pig for a polysomnography test that will reveal brainwave patterns and establish possible causes for poor sleep. Based on these findings, the guest has consultations with behavioural therapists, exercise physiologists and nutritionists – surely enough to make even a committed insomniac ready for bed.
Other spas take a more holistic, chimes’n’chants approach. The award-winning Red Mountain Spa, in Utah, holds regular sellout Sweet Art of Sleep Seduction workshops, which involve “fun and experiential” discussions on various ways to create the correct environment for sleep, such as prebed stretches, organic “zzzzzmersion” massages and a zMusic CD (“the gold standard of sleep music”, apparently).
A professor from the University of Arizona works with the Miraval Resort, in Tucson: his “body, mind, spirit” perspective covers everything from eating habits to how you decorate your bedroom. The Mayflower, in Connecticut, advocates hypnotherapy and acupuncture. And, before you knock new-age methods, bear in mind that the World Health Organisation has approved acupuncture as a treatment for insomnia.
While New York might revel in its reputation as the city that never sleeps, some of its residents really wouldn’t mind a bit more shuteye. Yelo and MetroNaps both offer a refuge for a quick snooze, selling 20-to 40-minute slots in a “nod pod”, where customers are tucked in with cashmere blankets, a soporific soundtrack and a side order of reflexology!
Europe's been caught napping, but things are changing. The glitzy Fortina Spa Resort, on Malta, where Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe and the health secretary, Alan Johnson, have holidayed, is an early European innovator. It has just launched the first of 47 Wellness Rejuvenation Rooms, each fitted with £4,500 worth of sleep-inducing equipment, including a magnetic mattress, pillows and duvet. “They magnetise your entire body, relieving it of all aches, pains and stress,” the hotel says. “The proven benefits cover everything from encouraging deep-healing sleep to aiding the lymphatic system to release toxins.” The rooms also feature far-infrared technology that “detoxifies” the body, as well as an air purifier to recreate fresh mountain air.
The dynamic new six-star Capella Hotels company, created by Horst Schulze, who is widely regarded as one of the canniest hoteliers in the world, is also in the vanguard. Schulze is convinced that sleep education will play an important role at spas in the future, so Capella’s new flagship property, Schloss Velden, in Austria, will run a Sleep Health-Life Balance programme from September to March each year. Guests will be evaluated by professional trainers, nutritional coaches and medical experts, then given a customised week-long schedule, including spa treatments based on the moon’s phases, lectures, yoga classes and autogenic training – a relaxation technique designed to get you snoozing. They will also use pillows and duvets filled with Swiss stone pine strands, which, according to research by the University of Graz, induce better sleep.
It makes sense that these highly recognized resorts are putting so much emphasis into this new wave of sleep therapy... after all isn't that the idea of a vacation; to get away from stressful the stress and get some R&R? Everyone has experienced being more tired upon returning from the trip than before going but now we are all being given a chance to REALLY rejuvenate. Here's to the future of health and wellness in the vacation timeshare world!
Larry Hayden
Free Guide for Timeshare Buyers
Free Guide for Timeshare Sellers
posted : 3:46 PM
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