In 2024 (and the trend will undoubtedly continue in 2025), we are increasingly talking about wellness managers or wellness therapists instead of spa managers or spa practitioners. From now on, spa teams are asked, in addition to providing treatments, to be able to offer real lifestyle advice to customers for topics like: sleep, recovery, nutrition, physical activity, etc.
Beyond expertise in care, this is what will make the difference between a quality service and a quality AND high-end service. And this can also generate rebooking and customer loyalty.
The problem? None of this is taught in the spa manager or spa practitioner course. So unless you have followed additional training in one of these subjects, it is difficult to provide quality advice.
To help you get to grips with these topics, starting this month we are offering lifestyle fact sheets on different themes. The goal is not to make you a wellness specialist but to give you a solid enough foundation to make you wellness professionals who can provide quality advice. You can even, if necessary, direct your clients to the specialists (dietetics, nutrition, sports coaching, etc.) best suited to their needs. An additional opportunity to elevate your spa team members to help them embrace the world of wellness and enrich the customer experience offered at your spa.
In case you missed it, click here to read our first Winter Wellness Series Blog covering Lifestyle Tips for Winter Months.
In this article, we will answer the following question:
“What wellness tips can I use to improve my sleep?”
The situation: Your client explains to you that she exercises, that she watches what she eats, that she takes time for herself… but that she has a lot of trouble going to bed early. Or she goes to bed early but scrolls on her phone or watches TV in her bed… She often feels tired and asks you if you can help her. What lifestyle advice can you give her?
First point of vigilance: be very clear. Getting back to a good night’s sleep is not done in two or three days if you want to do it naturally, without resorting to sleeping pills or other medicinal solutions.
In any case, before being able to respond in a relevant way on this subject, you must understand how sleep works. . .
Sleep is not continuous. Indeed, we now know that every night, we wake up on average 3 or 4 times without realizing it. We start with a very light sleep phase, like when we doze off in front of a movie and wake up 15 minutes later feeling like we had an “absence” of a few seconds. Then we enter a light sleep phase, where we can still be easily woken up by excessive noise or brightness. We then enter a deep sleep. The latter is the most restorative for the immune system, the most important for consolidating our learning and the most regenerative for our cells. Finally, REM sleep is our phase of dreams and expression of our emotions.
So waking up is normal, what is abnormal is “Why can’t I fall back asleep?” » This can be linked to rumination, anxiety, poor sleep hygiene (physical activity in the evening, nutrition, etc.)
Here are the wellness lifestyle tips that can help your clients achieve better sleep:
Tip #1 – Do physical activity outdoors.
Daylight sets the pace for our day. We talked about it in fact sheet #1 dedicated to well-being tips for having a good winter. Spending time outdoors tells our brain that we have understood that it is daytime and that it is no longer and/or not yet time to sleep. Walking, cycling, running or simply moving around circulates energy in our body, oxygenates our cells and creates physical activity that will then justify a well-deserved rest. In a lifestyle where, due to the almost continuous light from our screens, we can make our brain believe that it is still daytime at 10 p.m., this clear awareness of day and night is essential to restore quality sleep.
Tip #2 – Take care of the time and the composition of your evening meal.
Deep sleep being the most restorative, we will try to create the conditions to reach it as quickly as possible after going to bed. For this, the body must be at rest. Digestion must therefore be complete. Tell your clients to try to eat 3 hours before going to bed.
Tip #3 – Take care of your hydration.
Drinking enough water, between 1.5 and 2 liters per day, has become the ultimate wellness routine. In addition to the benefits we know for healthy skin and muscles and to limit the desire to eat, it contributes to quality sleep. The simplest: always have your bottle of water or flask with you to be able to drink regularly.
Tip #4 – Wake up every day at the same time, avoiding letting the alarm go off several times in a row.
Even if you went to bed later the night before, it is better to get up at the same time the next morning and take a restorative nap in the afternoon. It can last from 15 minutes for a one-off “boost” to an hour in case of great fatigue.
Tip #5 – Remove as many screens as possible 1 hour before bedtime…especially those on which you are most active.
We are well aware of the “exciting” effect of screens on the body at bedtime. The ideal would be to succeed in removing them all. But if “all” is a little too radical, prioritize those on which you are used to scrolling because they keep the brain alert and prevent the sleep cycle from setting in. Small additional tip: invest in a basic alarm clock to avoid having to use your mobile phone to wake up. Ideal for allowing yourself to turn on your phone or two hours later!
Tip #6 – Do not make your bed a workplace.
Confinement for the pandemic led to a change in our work habits and many people have gotten into the habit of working in their bed for comfort or lack of available space. However, to maintain quality sleep, it is important that the brain understands that when you are in bed, it is to sleep.
Tip #7 – If you work from home in your bedroom during the day, do not leave the computer screen in sight.
If the bedroom also has a desk, be sure not to leave the computer on or the screen on standby. For a laptop, closing the screen will be a sign that the workday is over and that the brain can go into “rest” mode. If you use books or paper files, everything will be put away to be reopened the next day at the start of the workday.
Tip #8 – Create a simple evening routine that matches your personal functioning.
We read a lot about start or end of day routines. There are no good or bad ones. The important thing is that everyone can identify what helps them calm down: reading, listening to podcasts, having an infusion, journaling, etc.
Tip #9 – Remember to “empty your head” before going to bed so as not to be woken up by constant mental ruminations.
Write down everything you have to do the next day, what you must not forget, what you did not finish during the day… This “brain-emptying” operation before going to bed allows you to fall asleep more quickly and above all not to be woken up by these concerns in the middle of the night.
You now have simple but quality well-being tips to give to your clients to help them act in favor of their sleep. One more opportunity to position yourself as a true well-being expert!