Lights Out: How Hotel Room Amenities Can Make or Break Your Sleep Quality
Stop making hotel lighting systems "too cool for school"!
Last week’s mention of hotel room lighting generated a lot of feedback via text, DM and social media. A LOT. As documented in previous Go Long posts, I have spent my fair share of traveling for work plus I have been fortunate to be able to travel a great deal for personal travel.
Overcoming the paywall
In addition to people violently agreeing with me on the premise of the article, the 2nd most consistent piece of feedback was that the WSJ paywall impeded reading the piece. My apologies as I thought I included a free link. So here’s the mention:
Seattle wellness coach Jill Consor Beck counsels her clients on the importance of a good night’s sleep. That’s a challenge for her and other business travelers in rooms with lighting issues.
At a Westin in New York City last week she wanted a dimmer switch in the bathroom. The only option was on or off.
“You don’t want a bright light at 3 o’clock in the morning,” she says. “That’s totally going to screw up your sleep.”
In terms of what prompted the author of the feature to reach out to me, she had previously written an article on how hotel showers are also famously difficult to operate. I had emailed her directly and told her about my experience at The London EDITION. My specific quote was “I’m sick and tired of hotel room lighting trying to be too cool for school instead of functional.”
What amenities matter most in a hotel room?
Having a room that was conducive to good sleep has been elusive after all of these years. Here are the characteristics that make a room optimized for sleep (for me):
Black out curtains
Dimmer or night light in the bathroom
Accurate thermostat that lets me cool off the room
Outlets/charging station on nightstand since I use my phone for both meditation to go to sleep and an alarm to wake up
Easy on/off lighting for room
Easy on/off TV remote
Bed and pillow with right amount of firmness (I realize this differs for everyone; as I’ve hit midlife, I have moved to more firm on both)
Other than the firmness, the other 6 bullets seem to be pretty easy to satisfy.
Yeah, no. So I threw out my 1st IG poll. Based on the responses I have received via IG, text and DM, I know this is not the case.
Here are some of the responses I received:
“I am at a resort and probably slept a total of 1 hour.”
“Bathrooms need a dimmer.”
“A bad mattress makes it impossible to get any rest.”
“I had a lighting moment in San Francisco last week. Very bright bathroom lights.”
“I have to travel w my stupid pillow in order to have any chance of good sleep.”
“At the our house that we rent out, we have switches labeled and get lots of compliments.”
“Oh this is easy Jill. When hotels think they trick you into believing you have actual control of the temperature of the room. It’s always BOILING. The thermostat is completely fake and is there to keep the charade up.”
OK, you get the idea. Guess the author of the article struck a nerve?
How my relationship with hotel rooms has evolved
I’d say that it probably wasn’t until I fell into the ‘women over 40’ bucket that I started really paying attention to how hotel rooms worked. When I was younger and traveling for work, I cared about other amenities such as:
The bar
The concierge and their ability to snag rezzies
The hotel’s proximity to, you guessed it, more bars
And my health showed those were my priorities, especially the last one.
But as I approached midlife and traveled for work way more, the amenities in the room started to matter more. Why? I started to care more about my downtime on the road. I couldn’t burn the candle at both ends like I did in my 20s and early 30s.
Outside of the hotel room amenities above, I now prioritize:
The ability to get a good night’s sleep
The hotel gym or proximity to a CrossFit (I was bigly into CrossFit from 2010 to 2018). I wanted to be able to get up early to exercise, even if I was flying to the east coast. Yes, having an alarm clock go off at the equivalent of 3am does feel like you got hit over the head with a baseball bat.
The concierge and their ability to snag rezzies - I’m always going to want this whether I am traveling for personal or professional reasons.
Once women in midlife start experiencing perimenopause symptoms, the struggle is real. Your sleep is way more likely to be disrupted because your hormones are all over the place.
A lack of sleep can lead to putting your body under more stress.
Sustained and prolonged stress can lead to burnout.
You get the idea.
On the other hand, a good night’s sleep can set the stage for everything. You sleep well and you’re in a better position to enjoy your vacation. Or be more productive for work.
What are your hacks for a good night’s sleep when you’re on the road?
Drop in the comments or DM me!
What’s the set-up for sleep at home?
During COVID, the hubs and I decided to redecorate the master bedroom suite. Removed the TV from the bedroom, darker color palette, blackout shades on timers, and new furniture that just changed the vibe from just a room to a place where electronics are minimized. We keep the house pretty cool at night plus we have had a Chilipad since 2018, which has been game changing for the both of us.
The redecoration has definitely helped with sleep quality. I also track my sleep quality with my watch. I don’t live and die by my sleep score, but it does correlate with how I feel on most days.
I covered sleep on the road here. When I was talking about this with one of my friends after last summer’s exploration to Norway, she aptly noted that many of us try to create the most optimal sleep environments at home. So when we go on the road, the likelihood of replicating that ‘sleep oasis’ is slim to none, even at a high-end hotel.
How’s your sleep?
Do you tend to sleep through the night? Do you wake up rested or more exhausted?
Do you sleep better on the road or at home, or is there no difference?
If you sleep well, do you have any tips for what you do to make that happen?
As always, thanks for reading Go Long.
The above Chilipad link is an affiliate link (our 1st one!) so while you get a discount, I also receive a commission. As I said above, the hubs and I have had one for 6+ years. We love it for a variety of reasons. I’ll cover more about why we love it in a separate post!