Turn Your Next Trip Into a Sleep Retreat: The Latest Trend in Health and Wellness

If you’re craving a getaway that involves some serious snooze time, a sleep retreat may be the indulgence you’re searching for. One of the latest trends in health and wellness, sleep retreats are sanctuaries that focus on guiding guests on improving their sleep quality. These package deals are hosted by upscale spas and hotels and come with doctor-designed sleep and lifestyle itineraries. They’re created to invigorate extra-fatigued patrons by teaching them the delicate art of sleep in order to repair poor slumber habits. The Stats on Sleep According to the American Sleep Association, approximately 50 to 70 million adults in the U.S. have a sleep disorder. Insomnia tops the list affecting roughly 30% of adults on a short-term basis while 10% suffer from chronic insomnia. As a whole, 35% of American adults report getting less than seven hours of shut-eye on a typical night. This is considered insufficient sleep. Too many consistent nights of reduced quality of sleep can lead to sleep deprivation. This results in numerous health complications, including hormonal imbalances, cardiovascular conditions and a weakened immune system. In fact, a paper published in the scientific, peer-reviewed journal Healthcare reports that insufficient sleep is a global public health epidemic. The Sleep Foundation recommends that adults up to the age of 64 get anywhere between seven to nine hours of sleep each night while those 65 and older are advised to keep their head on the pillow for seven to eight hours. Why Sleep Retreats Are on the Rise “Sleep is a big deal these days,” says Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., “The Sleep Doctor” who is a clinical psychologist and both a Diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine and a Fellow of The American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “Since COVID began, everyone wants to learn how to sleep better.” While Dr. Breus thinks that a sleep retreat is “a perfect place for education, due to less distractions, less stress and more interest in health,” you should keep in mind that some destinations that claim to be sleep retreats are not quite “legitimate.” “The experience will vary from place to place and really depends upon if the resort or property is involving a sleep doctor,” says Dr. Breus. “There are many people calling themselves ‘sleep specialists’ who have no advanced degrees and give ‘guidelines’ that have little to no value.” Furthermore, some packages labeled as “sleep programs” are simply offering relaxation services, such as massage and reflexology. “To be clear, the objective is better sleep,” he states. “In fact, the data would suggest that doing a massage before bed is not particularly sleep-inducing, but more relaxing. Again, not really sleep-focused.” Top Sleep Retreats If following a Dr. Breus-approved sleep-enhancement program in a blissful environment sounds like paradise, then check out these four luxurious destinations: Six Senses in Ibiza (Image: Senses Ibiza) The Sleep Wellness Program on this small Spanish island in the western Mediterranean combines advice from a sleep physician with yoga, meditation, cryotherapy and other treatments. Over the course of three, five or seven nights, guests can expect a personal consultation, wellness screening and gift bag of sleep amenities. Their sleep will also be tracked throughout the stay. Plus, this exotic resort accommodates only 137 guests and serves locally-grown, farm-fresh food and beverages. “This is an excellent program created by a world-renowned sleep specialist,” says Dr. Breus. “It has multiple aspects, including room amenities, specific mattresses, education and a sleep ambassador who has been trained by a sleep doctor to help educate guests. This is the best of the bunch by far.” Average Price Per Person: $510 for 3 nights, $730 for 5 nights, $1,070 for 7 nights Anantara Peace Haven Tangalle Resort in Sri Lanka (Image: Anantara) The Deep Sleep Ayurveda Program begins with a technology blackout. This is followed by an evaluation with an ayurvedic doctor and a personal dosha record. The lush resort promises deep sleep with the aid of an in-person “Slumber Guru” ritual and other soothing treatments. These include acupuncture and a shirodhara treatment (which involves warm oil drizzled on the forehead and massaged in specific patterns from the right to left temple, followed by a scalp manipulation). The schedule also includes calming activities such as visiting a pottery village, kayaking in a lagoon, spending time in a Buddhist temple and dining while overlooking a large coconut plantation by the Indian Ocean. “This program offers a visit with an ayurvedic doctor and a night with a Slumber Guru experience,” says Dr. Breus. “While I have no idea what this means, this plan seems to fall within the basic ideas of ayurveda sleep practices. Therefore, it feels a bit more authentic for that cultural experience.” Average Price Per Person: $820 for 5 nights Longevity Health & Wellness Hotel in Portugal (Image: Alvor) The Longevity Sleep Optimization program is a seven-night experience that aims to help guests regain sleep quality. It does this by offering a sleep apnea check-up and multiple integrative health exams. These include things like a physical, plus nutritional, fitness, heavy metal and cardiovascular evaluations. Tranquil therapies include a personal training session, yoga, massage therapy, guided meditation, energetic healing therapy and craniosacral therapy. The icing on the cake is the panoramic views of the bay of Alvor from this secluded hotel in Portimão. “This one actually has some sleep-related activities and there appears to be a sleep apnea screening,” says Dr. Breus. “It’s also very expensive!” Average Price Per Person: $3,780 for the 7-night program only (price does not include resort accommodations) Preidlhof Luxury DolceVita Resort in Italy (Image: Preidlhof) A seven-day journey at the spa hotel in the South Tyrol province in northeast Italy starts with a sleep analysis and heart health session. It continues with a heated quartz and sound treatment and a body therapy treatment (which releases emotional blocks, anxiety, and imbalances). Finally, guests are treated to a sleep ritual that incorporates a face and front body massage. The five-star hotel—complete with 10 pools and a six-floor “sauna

Here’s How to Sleep Great and Stay Energized–According to The Sleep Doctor

NOTE: This post was written by our friend Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., a double board-certified Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Sleep Specialist also known as The Sleep Doctor. He’s the author of four books, including his most recent, “Energize! Go From Dragging Ass to Kicking It in 30 Days.” We asked him to share a post about his new book, which was released last month. The holidays can bring substantial changes to our routines. Amid all the festivities, the routine-busting nature of the holiday season can disrupt our sleep and drain our energy—even well after they’re over. Busy schedules translate into late bedtimes and crowd out time for physical activity. Parties present us with sugary foods and lots of alcohol. Time with friends and family brings up complicated emotions and sometimes puts us in close quarters with people who are toxic to our emotional health. The cram-it-all-in pressure of the holidays can leave us stressed, drained, and dragging—physically and emotionally—and way short on the sleep we need to stay healthy and feeling our best. Even with the holidays in our rearview mirror, we need strategies for keeping our batteries charged and our nightly rest protected. A Recipe For Keeping Your Batteries Charged Maximizing your body’s natural energy stores and elevating your sleep is the subject of my new book, “Energize!: Go From Dragging Ass to Kicking It in 30 Days.” I wrote Energize with Stacey Griffith, a founding instructor of SoulCycle. Stacey and I have known each other for years. Bringing together my expertise in sleep and chronotype and Stacey’s expertise in metabolism and movement was a fascinating journey for both of us and resulted in a book I’m excited to share with you. Energize! brings together the latest scientific understanding of chronotype and metabolic type (aka body type). Our chronotype and our metabolic type are both determined by our genes. And just as every chronotype has an optimal routine for the “when” of daily life—the timing of sleeping, eating, exercising, working hard, taking it easy—our individual metabolic types have different genetically-driven needs for movement, rest, and recovery. This is all in order to build strength, stamina, flexibility, and maximize physical and mental energy. Establishing daily routines and habits based on chronotype and body type is the remedy for the stress, fatigue, weight gain, low mood and restless sleep that affect so many of us. Don’t know your chronotype? Take this quiz: www.chronoquiz.com. “Energize! is a step-by-step guide to creating individualized routines and habits that help you shed fatigue, stress, sleeplessness, and low mood, and reclaim abundant energy and vitality in your daily life, using your body’s unique circadian and metabolic biology as a roadmap.” Together, Stacey and I dug deep into the scientific research (and conducted research of our own) to develop personalized daily protocols for sleeping, eating and activity for every chronotype and metabolic type. Energize! is a step-by-step guide to creating individualized routines and habits that help you shed fatigue, stress, sleeplessness, and low mood, and reclaim abundant energy and vitality in your daily life, using your body’s unique circadian and metabolic biology as a roadmap. Let’s talk about how you can navigate these times without depleting your energy and losing sleep. Protect Your Resting Energy Protect Your Resting Energy: Get ahead of jet lag to minimize its impact (and stick to your regular sleep routine if you’re staying at home). A lot of us are traveling for the first time in a couple of years. Remember jet lag? Jet lag can drain the fun right out of a journey. It leaves you feeling fatigued, irritable, foggy-headed, sleepless and out of sync with your circadian rhythms. Jet lag gets more severe the farther we travel from our home time zone. A guideline is that it takes a full day to recover from every time zone you cross. And traveling eastbound will have a bigger impact on your sleep and circadian rhythms than traveling west. For all chronotypes and body types, the best way to minimize the impact of jet lag is to adjust your schedule to your destination time as soon as possible. You can start this process before you leave home. The week before your departure, adjust your sleep times, wake times, and meal times closer to the times you’ll be sleeping, eating, and active at your destination. If you’re traveling through a single time zone, you can adjust over a couple of nights to be fully on your destination schedule before you set out. For two or more time zones, adjust your schedule incrementally over a few days, to get closer to your destination time. If you can, sleep during the trip so that you’re less tempted to take a nap before your destination bedtime. Do your best to nap during the times you’d otherwise be asleep according to your destination time zone. When you arrive at your final destination, be sure to follow your new schedule accordingly and don’t turn in for the night until it is bedtime in the current time zone. Don’t go to bed early! Here’s a pro tip that can make adjusting your schedule during travel so much easier: I travel constantly, and I use the Timeshifter app (www.timeshifter.com) to help shift my routine when I’m traveling long distances. Timeshifter takes information about your chronotype, your home base and destination locations, and your flight times and does the work for you to create a personalized schedule for when to eat, when to get light exposure, when to sleep (and nap), when to consume caffeine, and when to take melatonin. What else can you do to minimize the effects of jet lag while you’re on the road this season? Limit alcohol and caffeine. Both alcohol and caffeine will dehydrate you, which intensifies fatigue, exacerbates concentration issues, and can lead to overeating and/or eating at the wrong times for your new schedule. Dehydration also interferes with sleep. To help your body maintain energy, keep alcohol and caffeine consumption to a minimum, and

Sleep Procrastination: What It Is and How to Stop Doing It, Pronto!

Sleep procrastination. Have you ever heard of it? Even if you haven’t, chances are you’re doing it, at least some of the time. Let’s dive into sleep procrastination so you can spot this snooze-wrecking habit—and bust it for good! What Is Sleep Procrastination? According to this Instagram post by our friend Dr. Michael J. Breus, AKA The Sleep Doctor, sleep procrastination is when you put off bedtime to reclaim personal time.  You might find yourself: Scrolling social media Watching Netflix (or an endless loop of cat videos) Reading Online shopping Engaging in an abundance of other non-productive, time-sucking activities Not that all of these things are non-productive, of course. But if you’re not careful, before you know it, you’ve lost track of time and you’ve cut into your precious sleeping hours. As we know from the Sleep Deep pillar of the 8 Pillars of a Nutritious Life, poor sleep quality and quantity trickle down into our daily lives. No bueno! So what is one to do? How to Avoid Sleep Procrastination Your first step should be to calculate your bedtime, then work backward from there. This article shares with you the exact process that Dr. Breus advises, based on REM sleep cycles. Once you have your ideal bedtime, use these tips to create a plan for avoiding sleep procrastination: Make time for yourself throughout the day—and earlier in the day!—so you’re not trying to squeeze in “me time” late at night Set an alarm to turn off your TV or electronics Have an accountability partner who will make sure you’re sticking to your plan Try a “power-down” hour before you go to bed More from our founder Keri Glassman, RD, and Dr. Michael Breus Want even more sleep procrastination tips? Check out this discussion between Nutritious Life founder Keri Glassman, who is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN), and Dr. Michael Breus:   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by NUTRITIOUS LIFE (@nutritiouslifeofficial)   (Image: Shutterstock)

7 Items You Need for Better Sleep

How do you sleep? If you’re one of the rare unicorns that can sleep soundly every night, we applaud you. However, you’re definitely the exception, not the rule. Studies have found that 70 percent of adults report struggling to sleep at least one night a month, and 11 percent report insufficient sleep every night. Sleep issues affect 50 to 70 million Americans. No wonder those late night infomercials do so well…we’re all awake!  A study published by the app Sleep Cycle showed that February is the worst month for getting quality sleep. “This may be because the hormone melatonin is important for sleep and you need sun exposure to produce melatonin,” says  Seema Sarin, MD, Director of Lifestyle Medicine, EHE Health. “So, you have less melatonin during the dark winter months and this affects your sleep.” And, we all know how important sleep is to our physical and mental wellbeing.  The good news is that there are tools to help you not only fall asleep faster, but stay asleep. We spoke to sleep experts to share their favorite items that we can all try.  A Proper Mattress “A good mattress is probably one of the most important tools in a good night’s sleep. You need a mattress that is both firm, for maximum spinal alignment and soft, for optimal pressure relief on your hips and shoulders. The problem is that every choice you have out there requires you to compromise. You have to choose either a firm mattress or a soft one.  Intellibed uses the Gel Matrix technology that gives you both firm and soft at the same time.  It is an engineering phenomenon and truly does provide you with both. While a mattress supports your body, technology like Sleep Genius prepares your mind for optimal sleep.” —Collin House, sleep expert for Intellibed  Try: Birch Natural Mattress, starting at $1,299; and Sleep Genius Smart Base, $2,400 Upgrade Your Linens “I recommend getting allergy covers for your mattress and pillows even if you don’t have allergies just to keep dust and other particles out of your bedding. If that’s not in your budget, at least aim to wash your sheets once a week!  Is there anything better than getting into a freshly made bed with clean sheets?” —Lauri Leadley of Valley Sleep Center TRY: Luxome Bamboo Sheets, $129  Diffuser, Air Purifier and White Noise Machine “Ideally, your bedroom should be comfortable and be reserved for sleep and intimacy so that you associate the space with sleep. The temperature should not be too hot or cold. Make sure that the room is dark and there aren’t any shining or flashing lights. I recommend you invest in a great white noise machine, air purifier and diffuser.” —Seema Sarin, MD, Director of Lifestyle Medicine, EHE Health  TRY: CHI Egyptian Aromatherapy Ultrasonic Essential Oil Diffuser, $25; Guru Nanda Essential Oil Diffuser and Humidifier, $80; and Pure Enrichment Wave Sleep Therapy sound machine, $30 Blackout Shades & Orange Light Bulbs “Get the lighting right. I use a combination of black out shades and a bedside lamp with orange tinted light bulbs.  I love this combination because I get a warm candlelight glow in my room at bedtime but can open the blinds first thing in the morning to bring in the daylight.”   —Lauri Leadley of Valley Sleep Center TRY: Redi Paper Shade, $45 and Amber Lightbulb, $20   

Are Your Sleep Habits Messing with Your Mental Health?

Think getting enough sleep is just about making it through the workday with energy? In this excerpt from “The Sleep Revolution,” Arianna Huffington explains the research-backed connection between sleep and mental health. The title of the chapter says it all: If You Value Your Brain, Get More Sleep One of the most important recent findings is that sleep is essentially like bringing in the overnight cleaning crew to clear the toxic waste proteins that accumulate between brain cells during the day. Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, a codirector of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester, has studied the mechanism underlying these cleaning functions. “It’s like a dishwasher,” she said. Just as we wouldn’t eat off dirty dishes, why should we settle for going through the day with anything less than the full power and potential of our brains? What Nedergaard’s research on mice revealed is that the glymphatic system, essentially the brain’s plumbing system, functions at a much higher rate during sleep and plays a critical role in brain maintenance. As the mice slept, their brain cells actually shrank in size, creating more space for the spinal cord and brain fluid to flow throughout the brain and literally sweep away the toxic buildup associated with Alzheimer’s. Initial studies have shown that a similar process may occur in the human brain, a fact that could provide a major step forward in the prevention and treatment of dementia. This washing-away of waste chemicals and toxins happens only when we sleep— when we’re awake, the brain is too busy handling our body’s many functions. RELATED: How Many Hours of Sleep Do You Really Need? As Nedergaard put it, “The brain only has limited energy at its disposal, and it appears that it must choose between two different functional states— awake and aware or asleep and cleaning up. You can think of it like having a house party. You can either entertain the guests or clean up the house, but you can’t really do both at the same time.” The consequences of not giving your brain this needed time to wash away toxins and waste chemicals go far beyond simple maintenance. According to Claire Sexton at the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, a lack of sleep over time is associated with a decline in the size of the brain itself. “We found,” she told me, “that poor sleep quality was associated with an increased rate of decline in brain volumes over three to five years. The question is whether poor sleep quality is a cause or an effect of changes in brain structure, or if the relationship is bidirectional.” RELATED: 6 Smart Tips for Better Sleep Beyond Toxins One thing is clear: sleep is profoundly intertwined with virtually every aspect of brain health. Lack of sleep over time can lead to an irreversible loss of brain cells— yet another debunking of the myth that sleep debt can be made up. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Peking University found in a joint study that sleep-deprived mice lost 25 percent of their LC neurons, which are involved in mental alertness, cognitive function, and attention span. “In general, we’ve always assumed full recovery of cognition following short- and long- term sleep loss,” Dr. Sigrid Veasey, one of the study authors, said. “But some of the research in humans has shown that attention span and several other aspects of cognition may not normalize even with three days of recovery sleep, raising the question of lasting injury in the brain.” Up until recently, she added, “no one really thought that the brain could be irreversibly injured from sleep loss.” RELATED: 5 Foods for Brain Health A 2014 study from Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School found that the less we sleep as we grow older, the faster our brains age. In Alzheimer’s patients, the brain ventricles— chambers that hold cerebrospinal fluid—widen as the brain shrinks, and the grooves and folds of the brain become more pronounced, creating gaps. Researchers found that lack of sleep in older adults increased the pace of brain-ventricle enlargement and decreased cognitive performance, the very markers of brain aging associated with the onset of Alzheimer’s. Two studies from Uppsala University in Sweden highlighted this further. One study showed that men who self-reported a sleep problem were one and a half times more likely to contract Alzheimer’s. The other revealed that just one night of sleep deprivation leads to an increase in two rare molecules in the brain (NSE and S-100B) that are signs of brain damage. (If you want to go to sleep now, feel free to put the book down!) Sleep is also intricately connected with our general mental health. Researchers from Canada and France found that consistent early bedtimes may reduce the risk of mental illness. The underlying mechanism involves our ultradian rhythms—cycles within our body’s twenty-four- hour circadian day— which govern body temperature, hormone regulation, and appetite. These rhythms are regulated by dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with the reward and pleasure parts of our brain. Sleep disturbances interfere with our dopamine levels, leading to an imbalance associated with bipolar and schizophrenic disorders. Then there’s the matter of longevity. As of this writing, “Miss Susie,” Susannah Mushatt Jones of Brooklyn, New York, is the world’s oldest person at 116 years old. When asked for her secret by a reporter from the New York Daily News, she replied, “I sleep.” She then proceeded to demonstrate her nap style. Reprinted from The Sleep Revolution. Copyright © 2017 by Arianna Huffington. Published by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.