Alexandra Dubakova, a travel expert with FreeTour who has visited more than 30 countries, is always on the move. She has come up with a neat trick to ensure she gets a good night’s sleep
A travel expert has mastered the art of getting a good night’s sleep in a hotel using a simple trick.
Alexandra Dubakova, a travel expert with FreeTour who has visited more than 30 countries, is always on the move.
While jet-setting has a reputation for glitz and glamour, as anyone who has been sent away to a far-flung town in a small central European nation will know, it comes with its challenges. One of them, particularly for those who enjoy their home comforts, is sleeping in a hotel.
Different bedding, the strange whir of a lift mechanism, and a room that is either too hot or too cold can all knock the sensitive sleeper off kilter. Luckily, Alexandra has a trick that can help you sleep through the night.
“Changing time zones, dealing with jet lag and the annoying strip of light between hotel curtains is a nightmare. I always grab the hangers from the hotel room closet and use them to pinch the curtains shut. It creates a blackout room and I get proper rest irrespective of the time zone,” she told the Mirror.
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Sherry Martin Peters, a veteran flight attendant, has similar advice. She told the Mirror: “Some flight attendants travel with rolls of black electrical tape, not to fix anything, but to smother light sources that feel microscopic until you’re sleep-deprived.
“The green dot of a TV on standby. The piercing blue glow of a USB charger. One by one, the light sources disappear until the room looks lifeless. Towels get stuffed under the crack of the door to block out hallway light, because even a sliver of brightness can convince a jet-lagged brain it’s still daytime somewhere, which it usually is.”
The curse of a bad night’s sleep is something that many hotel guests suffer from. In a 2020 paper published in Tourism and Hospitality Research, it was found that only one in three travelers reported being satisfied with their sleep while on the road.
Dr. Rebecca Robbins, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate scientist at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has been hired by Hilton as a sleep expert. Recently, she shared her tips for getting a good night’s kip with National Geographic.
Dr Robbins argues that “finding the familiar in the unfamiliar” is key. “The truth is that when we are in an unfamiliar environment, we fundamentally have a harder time unwinding,” she said,
When we’re at home, our bodies are able to relax more easily. When staying somewhere new, our brains are put on higher alert by the different sounds, smells and other sensory factors. One way to trick your brain into calming down is to spray smells with a positive or homely association. There is proof in the process. In 2024, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center published a study that showed familiar scents helped to break negative thought-cycles and overcome depression.
Another cause of bad sleep is a restless mind. While whirring cogs is an ailment that can strike anywhere, the stresses of travel mean you’re more likely to have things on your mind when away. Dr. Robbins suggests writing all of these worries down on a piece of paper as a way of relieving your mind of too many things to think about.
Recreating your routine at home is another top tip for entering the land of nod. “Being religious about these things is actually really important because your brain starts to understand that what comes next is sleep,” the sleep doctor said.