Back away, Sleepy Hollow. (We mean both the town of literary fame and those hollows under your eyes.)
Whether you’re a night owl in a morning person’s world, stumbling bleary-eyed to the coffee maker, or a morning person who just can’t get your spouse to go to bed at a decent hour, we may have the perfect getaway for you…and your spouse.
A spa destination in Germany is experimenting with a new goal: becoming a sleeper’s paradise that accommodates individuals’ snooze patterns and needs.
The town of Bad Kissingen (never fear the name—“bad” means “bath” or “spa” in German) is known for medical tourism, catering to people who want to travel and get healthy at the same time. But it’s not the only quaint European town doing the spa thing, by far.
So to set their town apart, Bad Kissingen’s leaders decided more than a year ago to try to improve sleep for the whole town. They hired a guy who specializes in sleep patterns and circadian rhythms—called a chronobiologist—to develop sophisticated research and methods to tackle what appears to be a very tricky problem.
Everyone has a preferred sleep pattern, called a chronotype. (What an awesome word! We’re going to use it more.) For example, teenagers almost all have later-rising chronotypes than children or adults.
Some people love mornings; other people come alive when the sun goes down. Some people function happily on 6 hours of sleep; others need 9. Chronotypes are measured by finding the midpoint between falling asleep and waking up.
Clearly, it’s a bit difficult to change the behavior of an entire town to accommodate everyone’s chronotypes, schedules and jobs. But Bad Kissingen believes it’s up for the challenge. It hopes someday even to abolish Daylight Savings Time!
After all, there’s evidence to suggest that societal changes based around sleep are effective: In 1997 Minneapolis public schools pushed its start time from 7:15 to 8:40 a.m. and a study found that students performed better, showed up on time more, and were better rested and less depressed than before. Hmm.
Bad Kissingen’s project is just getting started, with steps that include asking all town citizens to log their chronotypes in a database. The town also plans to experiment with lighting changes in public buildings, since artificial light impacts chronotypes.
Can a town overcome the logistical challenges of building life around sleep in an age when sleep is not often a priority? (Although it should be…) We’ll just have to stay tuned.
We certainly applaud the effort! And we suggest that if every bed in town was as delightful as the Vi-Spring or Tempur-Pedic mattresses we love, it might be a whole lot easier.
Sleep on, Urbanites! (Whatever your chronotype…)
For more about Bad Kissingen’s sleep project, check out this recent article in The Atlantic.