Sleeping in a hotel room can be torture! When we are on a business trip OR on a holiday we simply want to feel great, powerful and rested and then this: bad sleep! A new environment can easily cause a temporary sleep disorder.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the two fundamental reasons for this and also through a bunch of hotel sleep tips that will help you to minimize the effects on your sleep easily. Surely you will find a sleeping gem for your next hotel visit.

Got interested? Want to find out how you can improve your sleep quality the next time you visit a hotel? Then let’s have a look at the two fundamental forces that drive our sleep behavior when we are about to sleep in a hotel room.

THE (HOTEL) SLEEP FORCES

#1 evolutionary alert system

Not that long ago, changing our sleeping environment also used to be a potential life threat for us. The reason is straightforward. When we fall asleep we give away our conscious control leaving us unprotected. Not knowing what potential threats were waiting for us in a new environment it was necessary to let our brains be just a little bit more alert during sleep. That way we could wake up faster and respond to a potential life threat.

#2 rhythmic confusion

You might have heard about the circadian rhythm before. Our bodies are all hooked into this day / nighttime cycle. It constantly synchronizes with the outside – mostly with light – and adapts its inner clocks accordingly. Then our inner clocks start working, telling us when to be hungry, relax and sleep (and lot’s more as you can probably imagine). And these things are highly interconnected. So not only the time the sun rises has an effect on our bodies, but also when we have our meals, move our bodies and also what general sleep type you are.

What’s great about knowing all of this? It will support you in memorizing the hotel sleep tips that we will walk through in just a second and create a more general awareness to let you come up with your own ideas that will specifically fit your personal needs.

THE HOTEL SLEEP GEMS

So let’s walk through the hotel sleep gems together right now. No pros – pure hotel sleep tips.

Stick to your daily rhythms

We’ve all got them. Our daily rhythms/routines. This is all about when we
• get up
• eat breakfast, lunch, dinner
• have a shower
• nap
• watch tv
• go to bed

Just to give you a basic idea. Sleeping in a hotel often (mis)leads us to changes in our daily routines, leading to poor sleep. So – stick to your daily rhythms and keep your body in sync with its used sleep rhythm.

Light

The complete circadian rhythm is connected to light. This is the reason why light plays a huge role when it comes to sleep. When we are in our hotel room we want to take care that we reduce light at nighttime as much as possible. A couple of gems are:
• ask the hotel for a room that can be completely darkened (e.g. heavy curtains)
• avoid watching TV in bed
• set smartphone to flight mode and turn notifications off
• use dark tape to darken LED’s in TV’s, alarm clocks, air conditioning or any others
• bring a sleeping mask

Noise

Sleeping in an unfamiliar environment makes our alert system be cautious. Noises that we are not used to can trigger this system and keep us awake or let us wake up often during the course of a night but, there are things that you can do to minimize this effect:
• ensure that your room is not near an elevator, main street, pool, bar or any other source of noise
• shut down the fan or air conditioning if you find it to be disturbing
• play a white noise app on your smartphone (ironically a fan may also be used to do the job)
• meditate to integrate the new noises of your hotel room before falling asleep
• use earbuds

Air

The next hotel sleep tips that we can implement to improve our sleep is air quality. We want to have good air quality before we fall asleep, so get fresh air into your room before you fall asleep whenever possible. If you use a home deodorant at home it is a great idea to use this in your hotel room too. That way you will have something that will let you feel familiar right away

Feel Safe and Comfy

As we know that evolution makes us feel more aware when we sleep outhouse this is a thing that we want to have a special look at. Often feeling cozy and the feeling of safety go hand in hand with each other. So here are a couple of hotel sleep gems that you can use to optimize your safety and coziness feelings
• check hotel reviews to ensure friendly staff, good location and so on
• lock the door & shut windows before you go to sleep
• bring your own pillow (take this from home – hidden gem)
• utilize do not disturb sign on the door
• adjust room temperature if necessary
• use your own smartphone as an alarm clock (that way you can trust that it will work)
• take one or two items from home with you (picture, decoration,… )

YOUR BEST HOTEL VISIT

If you are like me you are looking forward to your next trip. To close this article I want to share with you how I personally prepare my hotel visits.

Most importantly I do an intense check of the hotel on the major platforms before I hit the “book now” button. Since I do this, my sleep quality is mostly the same as at home. Looking at the pictures, the location and the customer reviews will help you to find out if the hotel rooms are clean, quiet, have comfortable beds, friendly staff and so on. I lock my door and close my windows before I go to sleep and I usually don’t watch TV in my bed. That’s it.

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