Maybe you find yourself dreading that next business trip, where you’ll get a hotel that’s much better than a Motel 6! It could be that you know, subconsciously, that you won’t sleep well there. And here’s why:
You can find lots of articles online on how wonderful hotel bedding is. Like this:
Which bedding do luxury hotels use?
Hoteliers share their secrets for a five-star bedspreadAs H&G's resident sleep writer, I'm often asked: 'which bedding do luxury hotels use?' The questions continue: how do they get their sheets so soft? How do they plump their pillows just so? How do they tuck the blanket so tight?
If you really want to know how to bring home that five-star feeling, then you've come to the right place. I asked top hoteliers to share their secrets, pick out the best products, and show us how to create a hotel-worthy at home.
Or this:
Well, allow me to voice a contrary opinion: the hotel sleep experience sucks. Their entire effort in choosing their bedding (and I do appreciate it’s a very serious effort) has only two goals:
Convenience and cost-savings for the hotel
Pleasing women customers (the wife or partner in a couple)
If you’re a guy, this paragraph probably leaves you unimpressed:
I don't know about you, but the first thing I notice about a hotel bed is the sheets. Back home, I tend to sleep on a flat sheet with a comforter thrown on top, so it feels like a real treat to slip between silky sheets. I asked Alex Ekbatani, CEO of ette hotels, what makes the best hotel bed sheets.
According to Alex, it's all in the details. That's why he partners with Frette, luxury linen makers since 1860, to get total creative control over his bed and bath linens. He believes that 'the meticulous selection of cotton sateen linens, adorned with an elegant saddle white rim of embroidery and featuring the distinctive ette logo on the pillowcase, speaks to our commitment to excellence'.
No, the first thing I notice is, “does it look sleepy?” Not “does it look like a fancy B&B?”
“It feels like a real treat to slip between silky sheets” ?? No. No, it doesn’t. It feels unnatural. “Unnatural” means insomnia.
Duvets
You can read both of those articles carefully from front to back, and the “duvet” assumption is never even questioned! Of course, the bed must have a duvet; the only questions are:
Down or down alternative? Wool? Synthetic?
What kind of cover (Top sheet? No sheet? Silk?)
Here’s a revolutionary thought they don’t seem to consider:
What about no duvet at all?
Instead of a duvet, I prefer having a bunch of different blankets, and the number of them varies with the season, and even the time of night (more on this later).
Here’s what’s wrong with duvets:
Heat
All duvets get too hot to sleep under, unless the room temperature is under 60F. All of them. So I struggle to get it half-on and half-off to achieve some kind of reasonable temperature under it.
Weight
This is one thing that has gotten some attention in recent years. Having weight on top of you is a proven sleep-aid for some people (not everyone), especially in the summer.
There are health surveys, like this:
Weighted blankets, also known as gravity blankets, have been used for years by mental health professionals as a form of pressure therapy, often to relieve anxiety. Today, these blankets have become popular in the mainstream, made with or without their traditional pellet weighting.
The blankets, weighing anywhere from 5 to 30 pounds, are touted as offering benefits for adults who hope to relieve stress or improve sleep. They also calm children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as well as seniors living in residential care homes.
and this:
Researchers have studied the effectiveness of weighted blankets in the alleviation of physical and emotional symptoms. Although more research is needed, results have so far indicated there may be benefits for a number of conditions.
One of the primary uses of a weighted blanket is for the treatment of anxiety. Deep pressure stimulation can help reduce autonomic arousal. This arousal is responsible for many of the physical symptoms of anxiety, such as increased heart rate.
In the winter you might use a bunch of regular blankets, which has the same effect: you feel enclosed. That effect is lacking in summer. It’s also lacking with a duvet!
Room temperature and body temperature
Your body temperature usually drops when you go to sleep, and rises as morning approaches. This is well explained here:
The body’s temperature rises and falls over 24 hours and in synchrony with the body’s sleep-wake cycle. Our core body temperature stays around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) but fluctuates by about 2 degrees while sleeping.
As bedtime approaches, your body temperature drops, coinciding with the release of melatonin. Melatonin is a sleep-promoting hormone that prepares you for a good night’s rest. During sleep, your body temperature continues to drop, then gradually warms up as the morning progresses. This temperature spike stimulates your alertness and wakes you up each morning.
While you are sleeping, keep your room at a comfortable temperature to avoid disruptions. Sleeping in a too-hot room causes discomfort and restlessness for many, and it can even lead to sleep deprivation if you struggle to fall back asleep in a stiflingly hot room.
Researchers say a higher core body temperature is typically associated with decreased restorative slow-wave sleep. On the other hand, sleeping too cold makes it difficult to relax and get comfortable in bed.
“Researchers say a higher core body temperature is typically associated with decreased restorative slow-wave sleep.”
Bingo! If you’re too hot, you don’t sleep as well.
Changing Room Temps
Left completely unexplored is this:
The temp in your bedroom usually falls during the night. At least it does outside.
(Unless you have heat or air-conditioning preventing that.) Notice what the temp is doing while you’re asleep, in a random set of cities:
It’s always falling during the night, up to 6:00 am - 7:00 am. So if you’re warm enough when you go to sleep, and wake up once or twice to go to the bathroom (pretty common), it’s likely to be colder in the room.
Except in a hotel, where the fact that you’re in a very large building with temperature controls in most of it means that your room probably doesn’t change that much.
The key fact here is, at home when you go back to bed, you probably need more warmth than when you woke up. So I, at least, pull on another blanket, which has the added benefit of more weight on me.
What Does the Survey Say?
sleepjunkie.com did a survey of 2,700 Americans in big cities, asking what they put on their beds. The results surprised even me:
So duvets are way down there at 10.7%. Yet, as far as I can tell, every hotel 3-Star and up uses them. Blankets are at 54.8%. You can’t even find a blanket in most “good” hotel rooms.
Conclusion
Hotels think they’re catering to all kinds of sleepers, but they’re not. They’re catering to their own maintenance needs, and maybe a population of people who like duvets.
Now, it could be that some people like them who don’t actually own one, and that’s one of things they enjoy about hotels. I don’t know.
It’s important to note that what you like, or what I like, isn’t all that relevant. What’s relevant to a hotel manager is: am I being reasonably good at pleasing most of my customers?
Hotels go to enormous lengths to give you control over the room temperature, and it’s also usually possible nowadays to keep the room dark when the sun comes up. What they don’t do is give you any choice of bedding. I can yearn for a hotel that hands you a sheet when you check in, or just has one on the bedside table, saying something like:
Would you prefer different bedding than our award-winning duvets? We’ll be happy to send up blankets, weighted blankets, a comforter, or whatever else you would like for sleeping.
Maybe there already are such hotels! I have a feeling that if I tried that at a Marriott, they’d say, “Blankets? No, we don’t have any of those. Do you need another duvet?”
A boy can dream.
I have many annoyances about sleeping in hotels. 1) it seems impossible in many to turn off the fan, I hate the sound and the cold air coming in on me. I know all that is said about temperature in bedrooms, but I still think it is individual. I like rooms whether asleep or awake warmer than most people. I still remember a Chemistry teacher in high school who opened the windows to try to keep us awake. 2) And I hate weight on my feet. Ok I have peripherial neuropathy, which quite a few older people have due to diabetics, cancer treatment or other things. Nothing is quite so annoying as trying to fight your way out from under anything heavy, or even a top sheet when you need to get up in the middle of the night. 3) Pillows, are always huge, very puffy and hurt my neck when they are. How exciting, next week one night in a hotel. Not even a second night to work out what didn't work the first night.