February, 2007
Dear SpaFinder Insiders,
Last month I shared with you (and the media) the Top 10 Spa Trends we are predicting for 2007. The trend of Sleep Health in spa curriculums has garnered a great deal of interest from spas and media. I even heard from the executive director of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, who thought we were really on to something.
So this month's SpaFinder Insider's primary focus is to bring you up to speed on sleep health. It provides a bit of background information on the trend, a few statistics which will make you a believer, several examples of what some spas are already doing, and some practical tips on how you might be able to incorporate healthy sleep as part of your spa curriculum—or your personal life.
The issue of sleep health first caught my attention about six years ago, after picking up a book, The Promise of Sleep, written by Stanford University's sleep laboratory founder and director Dr. William Dement. The words on the jacket cover immediately captured my interest:
"Healthful sleep has been empirically proven to be the single most important factor in predicting longevity, more influential than diet, exercise, or heredity."
Wow! At the time, I had been in the spa industry for over 25 years where we regularly encourage habits of exercise, good nutrition, and healthy lifestyles; I had rarelyif everheard anyone mention the topic of sleep.
In fact, I thought back to my early Golden Door days when I used to knock on guests' doors at o'dark thirty in the morning to rouse them for their early morning hikes. Sleepy guests would roll out of bed, dawn their hiking garb and head out the door. Although at the end of the week most of the guests felt like a million dollars, (close to what they paid for their one week stay) there were some who mentioned being tired. Later more morning and afternoon hiking options were added which gave guests the chance to sleep in.
Since reading Dr. Dement's book, I have been waiting for sleep health to become an area of interest to spa goers and professionals. The tipping point happened, I believe, late last year, when several sleep-medicine scientists shared research showing healthy sleep can help us lose weight, look more beautiful and have better sex. Let's face it, that's pretty much the Triple Crown when it comes to spa-goer goals!
In addition, I began to notice that sleep audio tapes were hot sellers at many spa retail centers, consumers on Spafinder.com were beginning to ask questions such as "What spas can help me with my sleep problems?", and a company called Sleep Garden founded by two natural sleep therapists emerged and became exhibitors at ISPA last year. They sell audio/video products that are natural sleep aids.
Some stats:
- 50 to 70 million Americans experience chronic sleep disorders, and millions more are sleep-deprived, according to the report by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. Other countries are showing similar trends.
- Global sales for sleeping pills will top $5 billion in the next several years. Drug companies spent $300 million marketing sleeping pills last year. (IMS health)
- The number of adults aged 20-44 using sleeping pills doubled from 2000 to 2004 according to Medco Health Solutions, a managed-care company.
- Lack of sleep has been linked with reduced ability to concentrate, trouble learning, decreased attention to detail, and increased risk of motor vehicle accidents. More recent studies have tied chronic partial sleep deprivation to medical problems, including obesity, diabetes and hypertension.
