Art of relaxation: Holidays for the sleep deprived

On-call hypnotherapists. AI-assisted beds. Smart goggles that use warmth, therapeutic massage and vibration to decrease the coronary heart charge. Bedtime tea blends. Electro magnetic and infrared remedy. Sequestered visitor rooms — with one in London even housed inside a three-storey chrome steel sculpture, to advertise meditative stillness. These are just a few of the issues travellers are signing up for on vacation. All for one easy cause: to sleep.

There’s been an enormous shift from the earlier normal of a trip, the place catching Zzzs was the most boring factor you would probably do. Now, sleep tourism is the 12 months’s hottest journey pattern. It’s no shock — India (and the world) is drained. According to a 2025 survey by LocalCircles, a citizen engagement platform, forward of World Sleep Day (March 14), almost 60% of Indians sleep for lower than six hours each day. For many, even these valuable few hours should not uninterrupted. This is trigger for concern when research hyperlink poor sleep to psychological well being points, together with melancholy and anxiousness. It may clarify why ‘napcations’ are getting in style as an idea and why vacation programmes are being designed to enhance well being and well-being via curated sleep experiences.

Pegged at over USD $800 billion, based on a 2022 report by Grand View Research, the world sleep tourism market is poised to punch via the USD $1 trillion ceiling in the subsequent three years. Meanwhile, in India, the Skyscanner Travel Trends 2025 report on the rise of wellness tourism — of which sleep tourism is a serious vertical — has revealed that prioritising well being throughout vacationing is being sought by 57% of Indian travellers. And 20% plan their holidays solely round sleep.

‘Why am I so tired all the time?’

“The growth of sleep tourism can be attributed to rising stress levels and a growing recognition of sleep’s crucial role in maintaining health. Individuals are now actively looking for ways to prioritise rest,” says Rajesh Srinivas, basic supervisor at Swastik Luxury Wellbeing Sanctuary. Opened final November, this wellness retreat in Khadakwasla on the outskirts of Pune has made sleep tourism one of its main calling playing cards with a programme known as ‘The art of restorative sleep’.

“Designed to help individuals combat sleep disorders, it includes personalised sleep assessments, mind-body practices like yoga nidra and meditation, customised dietary plans [with L-tryptophan-rich foods that boost serotonin production, such as legumes], alongside modern therapies, including sound baths,” says Srinivas, who ensures friends depart adequately outfitted to take care of this sleep hygiene again at residence. “We suggest ways for them to set up a sleep-conducive environment, be it via lighting, audio-visual aids and even recipes for pre-sleep elixirs like kaadhas.”

Rajesh Srinivas

Sayali Sancheti, 37, has been battling insomnia for some time. The Pune resident not too long ago underwent the five-day sleep remedy programme at Swastik. One that she says has made a distinction. “I had read a lot about the body’s circadian rhythm, and thought of addressing it for a more long-term solution for my insomnia,” she says. “The mind-sound resonance technique, aerial yoga, and diet have all worked in my favour.”

Back residence, the branding specialist has integrated loads of what she learnt on vacation, equivalent to going to sleep whereas specializing in her respiratory. “While the information is available online, seeing it doled out in a practical, problem-solving way made all the difference,” she says, including that she does miss Swastik’s distinctive ‘tuck-in’ routine — the place an attendant administered a mini foot therapeutic massage and anointed her temples and brow with sleep-inducing lavender oil.

Swastik Luxury Wellbeing Sanctuary
| Photo Credit:
Hemant Patil

Another Pune resident, Natasha Sharma, 45, doesn’t have an issue getting sleep however continues to be contemplating a sleep vacation. The author and novelist finds it powerful to get again to sleep if interrupted throughout the night time. “Ever since becoming a mum, I’ve noticed that I’m quick to snap out of a deep sleep with the slightest of disturbances. It could be my daughter’s voice or even a whimper from my dog,” says Sharma. “I feel that an itinerary-bereft, pure sleep vacation, where I’m on my own and equipped with the techniques to fall back into a deep sleep is something I desperately need. [I’ll pick a place depending on] the bundled-up activities related to sleep on offer, and what they have when one is not sleeping. A nice pool, perhaps!”

Natasha Sharma

The situationship of acutely aware uncoupling

Unsurprisingly, sleep, or on this case, the lack thereof, is having a serious influence on interpersonal relationships. Although they’ve been married for seven years, the proverbial ‘itch’ for Mumbai couple Mina and Louis Noronha (names modified on request) had begun to fester just some months into residing collectively. Unable to bear her husband’s loud night breathing, which has since been identified as scientific sleep apnea, introduced on by his borderline weight problems, Mina has made a spare bed room her refuge. A “sleep sanctuary”, as the 34-year-old administration advisor calls it.

Louis, a 37-year-old fintech specialist, is attempting to get a deal with on his drawback via intensive sleep remedy periods that embrace gentle remedy to control his circadian rhythm, and cognitive behavioural remedy for insomnia. He says this, coupled with remedy (based on IKEA’s Sleep Report 2025, 37% of Indians use sleep remedy — the highest in the world) and personalised sleep holidays, helps him cope.

Sleep remedy periods (consultant photograph)
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy SAANS

So far, he’s been on 4 sleep holidays; his first at a wellness retreat in Austria in 2019 and three in India. With a much less intense method compared to his sleep remedy periods, these napcations have helped him be taught to take care of a constant sleep schedule and set up a calming bedtime routine, equivalent to listening to soothing sounds on his sound machine.

There is now a time period for this fairly unconventional however efficient conjugal compromise. A sleep divorce. Where {couples} or companions sleep in numerous rooms or in numerous beds, or go on sleep-oriented holidays individually. (A 2025 Global Sleep Survey by ResMed, a medical gear firm, discovered 78% of {couples} in India have adopted the apply at a while.)

Minnu Bhonsle, a consulting psychotherapist at Mumbai’s Heart to Heart Counselling Centre, nonetheless is optimistic of its efficacy — regardless of any social stigma it’d entice. “If the overall health of the relationship is good, then there is nothing wrong with sleeping in separate rooms or seeking out a tailor-made sleep vacation independent of a partner,” she says. “I very often recommend this seemingly simple solution to an otherwise impossible situation that can be detrimental to a marriage or romantic partnership.”

But it’s not all the time simply lack of sleep that’s pushing married folks to contemplate a sleep trip. For Chennai-based HR skilled Averyl D’sa-Saldanha, 46, it’s work stress. “I’d really like to explore the possibility of spending a few days in a stress-free environment where the focus is on me and what my body and mind is craving. Rest!” she says. D’sa-Saldanh is pondering of close by locations in South India equivalent to Coorg for her debut solo tryst with a napcation.

Averyl D’sa-Saldanha

“Sleep is both qualitative and quantitative. Inculcating good sleeping habits that we now term as sleep hygiene is very crucial. “This entails blocking out blue light from one’s phones which doesn’t allow melatonin [a sleep hormone produced by the pineal gland in response to darkness] to release, taking a warm bath before bedtime, aromatherapy with sleep-inducing lavender oil, and breathing exercises.”Dr. Partha Pratim BoseSenior advisor pulmonologist and founder of the SAANS Foundation for Sleep

Staycations flip snoozecations

Taking a barely totally different method, and selling sleep as a shared “we” exercise are a quantity of properties throughout the nation. Ever because it opened its gates in India in 2021, the Six Senses Fort Barwara resort in Rajasthan has been aligning with the model’s decade-old ‘Sleep with Six Senses’ world programme. The complete bundle (for stays of three, 5 or seven nights) encompasses every part from personalised sleep assessments and yoga therapies to a nifty sleep equipment with important oils and sleep balms. “We offer personalised tips based on sleep data to help guests improve sleep quality,” says Mark Sands, vp of wellness, Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas. “We also offer sleep-enhancing touches, including sound healing, and magnesium-rich foods, and teas [potassium and magnesium rich dried banana peel tea is a favourite recipe].”

Mark Sands
| Photo Credit:
Chumpol Chaikanarakkul

Of course, as The New York Times acknowledged not too long ago, sleep tourism will be known as an previous canine with new tips. Before the pattern acquired a reputation, resorts had been providing pillow menus, blackout curtains, and white noise machines for staycationers. Today, they’re upping the sport with tech equivalent to Therabody SmartGoggles (which makes use of warmth and vibration to decrease coronary heart charge), sensory deprivation tanks, and Brain Gauge Pro (a program that exams cognitive efficiency and displays mind circumstances to supply customised sleep options).

The Westin Hotels and Resorts, one of the first resort chains to introduce a sleep programme in India, for occasion has its Heavenly Bed. Launched in 1999 with temperature regulating gel-infused reminiscence foam, since upgraded with an A.I.-assisted, smartphone-pairable mattress with an energetic pressure-relief system that adjusts as you progress to optimise deep sleep, it has a loyal following. Building on it, final month, the hospitality model held ‘The 90-Hour Rest Week’ contest — a nationwide search for the particular person most deserving of relaxation — providing them a three-night wellness retreat at a Westin resort in India.

The Westin’s Heavenly Bed

Ayurveda can be at the forefront of many sleep programmes. Think Ananda in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand, Blue Hill Lotus Holistic Wellness Village in Tamil Nadu, and Atmantan Wellness Retreat in Maharashtra, which prioritise yoga, pranayama and meditation.

A success or a miss?

Kumaar Bagrodia is a neuroscientist and founder of NeuroLeap. The eight-year-old Mumbai-based firm affords superior neurotechnology-based mind evaluation and enchancment. Post COVID-19, Bagrodia says he’s seen a rise in points equivalent to anxiousness and mind fog. “[Lack of] sleep is one of the most visible symptoms. In fact, in India, there’s been a rise in [the use of] prescription drugs for these issues.”

So, are journey corporations on the proper path with sleep tourism? Can napcations be efficient in the future? “I believe sleep is one of the many facets of why people go to such places.” Bagrodia believes it’s naive to imagine that any individual will spend lakhs of rupees to go someplace simply to sleep. “I think it is all the factors that lead up to it [sleep]: the environment, the experience, your routine, the food, and the amount of meditation, yoga or physical therapies that you will have access to, among other aids [at such sleep programmes].”

The Mumbai-based author is keen about meals, journey and luxurious, not essentially in that order.