More than ever, the travel industry is focusing on sleep. As reported by the New York Times, the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts are allowing guests to choose from one of three mattress toppers (soft to firm) to find the one that feels just right.
According to Stephanie Rosenbloom, Etihad Airways is using research from the American Center for Psychiatry and Neurology in Abu Dhabi to introduce a sleep program that includes all-natural mattresses, mood lighting, noise-canceling headphones, pillow mist, and calming pulse-point oil.
“And at sea, Celebrity Cruises has outfitted some suites with mattresses that can be adjusted at the whim of a passenger,” writes Rosenbloom. “Perhaps you’ve been too bleary-eyed to notice, but sleep is a trendy topic. And no wonder. We’re hardly getting any.”
“Everyone in our country is sleeping an hour and a half less than they did last generation,” said Russell A. Sanna, the executive director of Harvard Medical School’s division of sleep medicine in the Times article. “Sleep is the enemy of capitalism.”
Sanna calls laptops, tablets and smart phones “sleep stealers” because users “cozy up with them at night and blue wavelengths from their screens suppress the secretion of melatonin (a hormone that influences circadian rhythm) more powerfully than other types of light. Mobile devices that enable us to be anywhere and respond to anything at all hours, he said, erase “boundaries and cycles between work, home, sleep, wake.”
