how-important-is-the-quality-of-sleep-to-guests | Pebble Design

How important is the quality of sleep to guests?

It is scientifically proven that one of the biggest contributing factors towards our health is the quality of our sleep.

Fifty-five percent of travellers said they look for reviews that specifically address sleep quality in a TripAdvisor survey and a good night’s rest impacts everyone. Although you can’t cater to everyone’s sleeping quirks, all hotels can work toward providing a restful stay.

Here are a few areas to address:

  • Bedding
  • Air Quality
  • Light
  • Time Travel

Bedding

Bedding has become such a selling point for brands that some chains go as far as to sell mattress and linens for home use. That speaks volumes about how much the actual bed impacts a guest’s stay.

Noise

For light sleepers, noise pollution is a common hotel complaint. It isn’t sensible to expect complete silence in a property with hundreds of guests, but travellers should and do expect a reasonable amount of quiet throughout their stay.

Light

According to the National Sleep Foundation, 73% of Americans say a dark room is important for good sleep. Luckily, it’s also one of the easiest ways for a hotel to improve sleeping conditions. Black-out curtains and/or darkening shades are only modestly more expensive than standard drapes, making them a great investment for hotels.

What time is it anyway?

Unfortunately, travel is stressful and disruptive to normal routines, whether from jet lag, packed schedules, travel delays, or navigating new environments. Internal body clocks don’t always coincide with local daytime hours, so it’s important to provide a sleep-conducive environment, regardless of what time the clock displays. When in doubt, treat all travellers like they have a “do not disturb” sign up and make it easy for them to provide feedback at a time convenient for them, rather than the other way around.

13 Sleep Fact from the renowned sleep expert, author, health and nutrition expert – Shawn Stevenson

  1. Know the value of sleep. This one is a little unordinary, but it’s probably the most important.
    Many people are negligent about getting enough sleep because they truly don’t understand the benefits they’re getting from it.
  2. Get more sunlight during the day. One of the most vital things that induces great sleep is your body’s natural secretion of a hormone called melatonin.
    Melatonin is produced by the pineal gland in your brain and sends a signal to regulate the sleep-wake cycle in your body.
  3. Avoid the screen. This is likely the #1 thing you can do to improve your sleep quality immediately.
    The artificial “blue” light emitted by electronic screens trigger your body to produce more daytime hormones (like cortisol) and disorient your body’s natural preparation for sleep.
  4. Have a caffeine curfew. Caffeine is a powerful nervous system stimulant.
    If your nervous system is lit up, you can forget about getting high quality sleep. For most people, it’s generally going to be before 4pm.
  5. Be cool. Something called thermoregulation strongly influences your body’s sleep cycles. When it’s time for your body to rest, there is an automatic drop in your core body temperature to help initiate sleep. If the temperature in your environment stays too high, then it can be a bit of a physiological challenge for your body to get into the ideal state for restful sleep.
  6. Get to bed at the right time. This is key! You can literally get amplified benefits of sleep by sleeping at the right hours.
    It’s been shown that humans get the most significant hormonal secretions and recovery by sleeping during the hours of 10 pm and 2 am.
  7. Use high quality magnesium. Magnesium is a bonafide anti-stress mineral. It helps optimize circulation and blood pressure, balance blood sugar, relax tense muscles, reduce pain, and calm the nervous system.
    Yet, because it has so many functions, it tends to get depleted from our bodies rather fast.
  8. Get it blacked out. It’s a well established fact that we sleep better in a dark environment. Did you know that your skin actually has receptors that can pick up light?
    If there’s light in your bedroom, your body is picking it up and sending messages to your brain and organs that can interfere with your sleep.
  9. Get your “friends” out of your room. Have you heard of EMFs before? This means Electromagnetic Fields or Electromagnetic Noise.
    Numerous studies have confirmed that the EMFs coming from our everyday electronic devices can cause disruption of communication between the cells in our body.
  10. No eating in bed. If you want to get truly restful sleep, one of the worst things you can do is eat right before bed.
    Give your body a solid 90 minutes (more is better) before heading off to bed after eating.
  11. You booze, you lose. Did you know that you actually get smarter while you sleep? One of the most valuable, and overlooked aspects of sleep is a process called memory processing.
    This is basically where short-term memories and experiences get converted into long-term memories.
    You won’t be able to fall into deeper levels of sleep, and your brain and body won’t be able to fully rejuvenate.
    This is why people generally don’t feel that great after waking up from an alcohol-laced sleep.
  12. Calm inner-chatter. There is a great quote that says, “My bed is a magical place where I suddenly remember everything I was supposed to do.”
    Now more than ever with the constant flow of information coming at you, it’s important to have a practice to help you (eliminate) that stress. That important practice is meditation.
  13. Be early to rise. Ironically, one of the best things you can do to improve your sleep is to get up early. This goes back to the fact that humans have had certain patterns of sleep and wakefulness that we’ve only (within the last hundred years) found a way to override.

Inspired by – Shawn Stevenson and this article

Pebble Design Guest Well-being


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