Living in a world so deeply obsessed with work and productivity, it's no wonder some of us struggle to unwind and get the recommended 8 hours of deep sleep cycle on a consistent basis. So other than supplements and the bedtime story, what else might we turn to for sleep advice.

Cue the World Sleep Society- yes an international society dedicated to sleep! The World Sleep Society is a non-profit organisation with the aim of raising awareness for a good night’s rest, collecting data and sharing findings. Their ‘Medical Sleep Congress’, which sees 3000 specialist researchers from all over the world convene to discuss all things sleep - it was at one of these where they created World Sleep day (March 18th, in case it passed you by!)

But in order to bring their goals from theory to reality, the World Sleep society have partnered with the Langham Hotel to deliver the best snooze of your life. Now that's a heady promise.  The siesta experience includes CBD treatments and a menu of all sorts of bedding and pillow options, all with the aim of getting you fully rested. 

We became very intrigued, so we had a sit down with Allan O’Bryan, a senior member at the World Sleep Society - a very knowledgeable napper. His first role at the Society was working within the Medical Sleep Congress, as well as educating beyond the society walls.

Our first question was, ‘What makes a good Sleep?’ According to Allan, there is a false notion of ‘quantity over quality. Many people will ask ‘how long did you sleep’ and sometimes they’re even judged for that. If you slept 9, 10, 11 hours, you feel like you’re not productive.’ For Allan, ‘its not the length of sleep but the time of sleep, duration is just one aspect.’ This debunks a lot about how we talk about getting a good shut eye-, which strays from our quantity-obsessed outlook. ‘I like to ask, ‘what is my sleep quality?’’

On top of this, Allan recommends a guideline for how get just the right environment for the best beauty sleep. ‘Sleep Hygiene’ (which is available to view on the WSS website) is a list of 10 recommendations for better sleep, but Allan also offered us the rundown- ‘A lot of them are common sense answers… such as don’t smoke, don’t exercise too much right before bed, don’t have caffeine right before bed. As adults we need to put away our phones, turn off the TV and basically... relax.’ It really is all about consistency, just as a lot of other health habits, rest is also a skill that needs practice.

Now, we get talking about the Langham Hotel. This is not the first time the Society has worked with hotels, in fact they’ve been pairing with many internationally, but Allan points out that ‘the Langham is [a more significant partnership] because they truly have a long-term goal of helping their guests sleep better.’ The services that the Langham ‘provides a baseline experience’ for guests, becoming essentially r&d to see what methods and combinations ultimately work best for them. We imagine as a guest you'd get hooked to the hotel that provides the best rest!

Still, how much attention does sleep really need? At what point can we put the whole mission of the World Sleep Society to rest? ‘I might be biased," Allan shares, "but this [r&d] will continue for the rest of our lives. Though if there is one certain thing: we will live and we will sleep’. 
Text by Bismah Naqui
Pillow Art and Photo by Maryam Ashkanian