I went on a $5000 sleep retreat. This is what I took home to bed

We’re brighter, better, smarter, healthier versions of ourselves when we’re well-slept. And when we’ve known the true suffering of bad sleep and the joy of waking refreshed, we’re willing to shell out for the good stuff (sleep, that is).

About half of Australian adults experience poor sleep, while one in five globally complain of fatigue.

Alongside our desire for a decent kip, the knowledge that sleep is not only vital but important for every aspect of our health has led to an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Dreamy: Chiva Som resort in Thailand.Credit:

You can sleep like a king on a million-dollar bed ($950,000 actually, but let’s not quibble), you can buy a $6500 mattress topper, which tackles snoring and keeps you cool. You can buy an Apple Watch for $650 (or more) to track your sleep and tell you how bad it was. There are also smart alarms and sleep-mode air-conditioners, earbuds and rings, weighted blankets and goggles.

Or you can go on a sleep retreat at one of the world’s best destination spa resorts, Thailand’s Chiva Som, for a cool $5252 a person for a three-night sleep enhancement retreat in the June to September off-season (or about $6376 in the March to May and October peaks).

It’s a place dreams are made of. Palms sway in the warm air, and exquisite Thai banquets are served, featuring produce harvested from organic farms. Personal butlers bring your favourite fruits to your room, run you a bubble bath with rose petals and prepare lavender tea to sip before bed.

At the resort, it’s hard not to be lulled into a serene state.

But, what else does someone actually do on a sleep retreat besides, you know, sleep?

A typical meal at Chiva Som.Credit:

Getting uncomfortable to get comfortable

Before I make it sound too relaxing, it’s not only about being soothed by the gentle shush of the ocean, enjoying a daily massage, choosing from 17 options available on the pillow menu and canon-balling onto the king-sized bed inside the traditional Thai-style sleeping pavilion.

The writer taking part in a sleep apnoea test.Credit:

First, the retreat involves checking whether anything might be inhibiting me from having the kind of sleep most of us fantasise about.

One morning, it’s not the simulated sunrise and gentle birdsong from the smart sleep-alarm clock waking me up, but the plastic nasal tubes sticking into my nose, along with the sensors attached to my finger and chest that capture breathing, oxygenation and heart rate. I’m having a sleep apnoea test, as one in five of us suffer from it.

Urine tests the following day measure my sleep hormones – cortisol and melatonin – to see if they spike or dip at the wrong times. For instance, high cortisol at night, instead of in the morning, or low melatonin at night can cause insomnia and other sleep issues.

I don’t have apnoea or any hormonal imbalance. However, I am mildly disturbed to learn that I snored several times during the night. During the follow-up consultation with the in-house doctor, he assures me that some snoring is normal as our throat tissues relax during sleep. While most people with sleep apnoea snore, not everyone who snores has sleep apnoea.

My sleep problems turn out to be mechanical in nature, presenting in the form of a four-year-old co-sleeper who routinely corners me to a postage-sized stamp of the bed and a bung lower back from an old injury.

The health and wellness consultant I see, to personalise my retreat, can’t kick my four-year-old out of bed, but she does book me in for in-house physiotherapy and acupuncture sessions for my back as well as deep tissue massage.

Addressing these aches turns out to be excellent sleep therapy.

Bung back and fidgety co-sleepers aside, when we are in physical or emotional discomfort – if you have anxiety about sleep (worrying you won’t be able to fall or stay asleep), or somniphobia (an intense fear about sleep and the possibility of nightmares, sleep paralysis or even dying) – lavender tea and a pillow menu won’t cut it.

What does a person do at a Chiva Som sleep retreat, besides sleep?

For good sleep, we need to deal with any physical health issues and underlying anxieties while we’re awake.

This also means managing stress levels. I hazard a guess that mine sit around six or seven out of 10, so my consultant also books me into meditation classes and a one-on-one breathwork session, both of which give me a glimpse of a zen, relaxed version of myself that I’d long forgotten.

Supercharging this state are the daily sauna, steam and cold plunges (both of which may enhance relaxation and sleep quality), yoga classes and a session in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber (which, the doctor and some research tells me, activates the parasympathetic nervous system and stimulates mitochondrial function for enhanced shut-eye).

The hyperbaric chamber.Credit:

Clean up your sleep (hygiene)

The days on the retreat are a jam-packed schedule of highly relaxing activities, starting with yoga or meditation, stretching, then Thai massage, facials, various health consultations, reflexology and optional activities such as Thai paper art or aqua boxing. I have to wake early to get in a beach walk or run at the in-house gym.

A break from activities after lunch (perhaps banana blossom with kingfish and young coconut salad with a turmeric virgin piña colada sorbet for dessert) is a chance to read by the pool and enjoy the facilities at the extensive spa (there are only 54 rooms in the resort versus more than 70 treatment rooms).

Screens are allowed only in the rooms, and while wine and champagne are theoretically available in the restaurant, which overlooks the Gulf of Thailand, I don’t spot any guests drinking. They are, however, doing shots – of wheatgrass, celery juice and apple cider vinegar.

By the time I retire to my room about 8pm for my evening ritual, I’m not far from bed.

The room itself is high-ceiling minimalism, which is not just an aesthetic but aids sleep. Research suggests that cluttered bedrooms may interfere with sleep quality, perhaps by contributing to rumination or anxiety.

Clean sheets don’t hurt either, and while a small sign in the room suggests fresh sheets every three days, most experts say once a week does the trick of keeping your bed feeling clean.

Winding down in the warm bath, one to two hours before bed, helps by lowering your core temperature (a circadian sleep signal) when you get out. The ideal temperature to get out into is between 15.6 and 20 degrees. And if you really want to let your body know it’s sleep time, dimming the lights several hours before bed and using black-out blinds keeps your body’s circadian clock in time.

The sleeping pavillions at Chiva Som.Credit:

I sip lavender tea before bed and breathe in the scent from the oil burner: safe and simple ways to improve the quality of sleep, the resident naturopath tells me, adding that many herbal infusions will do: chamomile, green tea, valerian, and hawthorn all contain high levels of melatonin.

The sleep question that we all must answer

We can throw money at all the bells and whistles of sleep and sip our bedtime tea. We can say we want good sleep and complain about poor sleep, but it is nothing without behaviour change.

Are you willing to put down your devices several hours before bed (as they interfere with our production of melatonin); to stop eating when the sun goes down (to support our circadian rhythm to wind down); and to avoid alcohol completely, or at least within a few hours of bed (it disrupts sleep as we metabolise it, and can be dangerous for those with sleep apnoea as it further relaxes tissues around the airways, causing further obstruction); to be in bed for long enough to get the sleep you need; and to deal with whatever stresses, health issues or four-year-olds that are impeding your sleep?

As I board the red-eye home and the lemongrass and jasmine-scented bliss of five days swaddled in the glorious bosom of Chiva Som drifts away, the question I ask myself is: how much do you really want to sleep?

The writer travelled to Thailand as a guest of Chiva Som.

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