Hey, Sleepy, Want to Buy a Good Nap?

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Hey, Sleepy, Want to Buy a Good Nap?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/fashion/01skin.html?

By NATASHA SINGER

ALEXIUS OTTO, a junior at Hunter College in Manhattan, has a

perfectly good bed in his apartment in the East Village. But twice

over the last month he has paid to take short snoozes at Yelo, a new

salon on West 57th Street that sells anxious New Yorkers the promise

of a brief but cocooning sleep.

There are now so many products dedicated to inducing sleep that an

insomniac might try counting them instead of sheep, including body

washes, balms, mists and aromatic roll-ons to apply to pulse points.

Yelo consists of seven private chambers that can be rented for 20-

to 40-minute naps. Each hexagonal pod has a beige leather recliner,

dimmed lighting, a soporific soundtrack and a blanket of Nepalese

cashmere. Clients may also book reflexology treatments, designed to

lull the body to sleep, for their hands or feet starting at $65.

On a recent Thursday, Mr. Otto lounged on a bench in Yelo's lobby,

waiting for a sleeping pod to become available. He was hoping that a

nap in a cubicle far from the distractions of home would help

balance his chaotic college life. He often forgoes sleep in favor of

studying, meeting friends and looking for part-time work, he said.

" I'm going out tonight to meet someone about a job, " said Mr. Otto,

who was visiting a friend nearby and had dropped in for a 20-minute

nap. Cost: $12. " The nap will help refocus me. "

Sleep is the new bottled water. Although it can be had free, it is

increasingly being marketed as an upscale amenity. Nationwide, sales

of prescription sleeping medications reached about $3 billion in the

first nine months of last year, according to IMS Health, a

healthcare research firm. That does not include the more than $20

billion spent on nocturnal accouterments like pillowtop mattresses,

adjustable beds, hypoallergenic pillows, white-noise machines and

monogrammed cashmere pajamas.

And now, at a time when spas are treating everything from acne to

smoking addiction, sleep is becoming a province of the wellness

industry. Spa Finder, a company that compiles spa directories and

publishes Luxury Spa Finder magazine, is forecasting sleep as a top

spa trend for 2007.

" More clients are talking about it and more spas are offering

treatments, " said Susie Ellis, the president of Spa Finder. " We are

starting to see some spas doing sleep medicine or sleep education

programs while others are creating sleep environments with enhanced

bedding and wake-up systems that don't involve loud alarm clocks. "

But do Americans truly need more sleep? An often-quoted estimate

from the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research of the National

Institutes of Health said that up to 70 million Americans — almost

one out of three adults — have some kind of sleep problem.

But the Center for the Advancement of Health, a nonprofit group in

Washington that advocates using science as a basis for making health

decisions, has criticized the statistic in its newsletter, saying

that it is based more on extrapolation than on hard epidemiological

data.

Jessie Gruman, the president of the center, likened the occasional

sleepless night to adolescence, menopause and balding, calling them

all " normal human conditions that have become medicalized. "

" Now when people can't sleep for a couple of nights, they think they

are part of a national sleep epidemic and there should be something

to fix it, " Ms. Gruman said. " You can buy sexual arousal, a new

shape for your face, a skinnier silhouette, so why shouldn't you be

able to buy sleep? "

According to TNS Media Intelligence, pharmaceutical companies spent

almost $362 million in the first nine months of last year on

advertisements for the most popular sleeping pills, marketing the

idea that interrupted sleep or the lack of instantaneous sleep are

alarming conditions that require intervention.

Sleep is the top concern among her clientele of hypercompetitive

stockbrokers, time-pressed mothers and overworked students, said

Abby Fazio, the chief pharmacist and an owner of New London Pharmacy

on Eighth Avenue in Chelsea.

" The No. 1 question I get is: `How can I fall asleep without a

prescription?' " said Ms. Fazio, who counsels clients in a small

frosted-glass room behind shelves stocked with homeopathic

remedies. " Back when I started working here as a student in the

1970s, only the elderly were on sleeping aids, but now it's

everybody ages 25 to 40. "

There are no end of products to treat self-diagnosed sleep problems.

Ms. Fazio recommends nonprescription melatonin pills as well as

herbal items that contain lavender or chamomile and are meant to

induce calm before bedtime, leading to a more restful sleep, she

said.

Well-known cosmetics and toiletry brands have also starting selling

sleep. Dove has introduced Calming Night, a line of honey-infused

products like soap and body wash. And Boots, the brand from the

British chemist that Target sells, has created Sleep, an

aromatherapy line that includes a lavender bath milk and a balm to

be rubbed on the hands or temples.

But such products may provide more of a Proustian experience than

quantifiably improved sleep.

" If your grandmother used lavender and you associate it with feeling

safe, calm, loved and ready to go to sleep, then a lavender product

will be fantastic for you, " said , a formulation scientist

at Boots. " But proving how the essential oils work on the brain is

very difficult to do in clinical studies. "

Spas, too, have found a growing market.

Canyon Ranch was a pioneer in the field, introducing a sleep program

in 1995. The company's spas in Tucson and Lenox, Mass., offer work-

ups with a doctor to determine the cause of sleep disturbances.

Treatments include therapy to change sleep patterns, and breathing,

meditation or visualization exercises to help reduce anxiety. The

spas also offer treatments like aromatherapy massages.

" Counting sheep works for some people, lavender works for other

people, and other people respond to breathing techniques, " said Dr.

Koffler, a specialist in integrative medicine who is the

medical director at Canyon Ranch Living, Miami Beach, a residential

property scheduled to open later this year. " The thing is to find

the method that works for you. "

Other spas concentrate on nighttime pampering.

Lake Austin Spa Resort, for example, offers a " Texas Starry Night "

treatment, an evening massage using lavender oil. York, the

general manager, said the spa is developing a facial to be

called " Night Night " and is considering issuing clients chamomile

teabags to put over their eyes before sleep or aromatherapy " sleep

patches " for the skin.

And now, for urbanites unable to travel to a remote lakeside spa for

beauty sleep, there is the Yelo salon in Midtown where a reflexology

treatment for the hands followed by a 20-minute nap costs $77.

Just don't call it a sleep spa.

" It's a corporate wellness center, " said Nicolas Ronco, the

entrepreneur who opened Yelo in early January. " For people who are

overstressed and overworked, for lawyers or brokers who abuse

themselves, a power nap is a way to recharge naturally without

caffeine. "

Yelo is designed for the harried, BlackBerry-toting, Bluetooth-

connected executive in search of high-tech hibernation. It is not

the first place where an urban animal can cuddle up and doze off. In

Manhattan, a sleep salon called MetroNaps, with chairs encased in

spherical hoods, opened in the Empire State Building in 2004,

followed by a second location downtown. Some offices also provide

places for employees to doze off.

On Yelo's Web site, heloyelo.com, and in its salon window, a display

charts the minutes until the next " YeloCab " (napping booth) is

available. Clients pay for a time slot and are then escorted to a

private pod for a relaxation treatment or a quick nap.

Inside the pods, clients can electronically adjust the angle of the

leather recliners; Mr. Ronco recommended raising the leg rest above

the head to slow one's heart rate. When time runs out, ceiling

lights gradually brighten, an awakening prompt meant to mimic dawn.

Mr. Ronco predicted that Yelo would appeal to commuters who want to

stay in Manhattan for a late dinner and to club-goers seeking

respite before a night out.

" I see 25 Yelo centers in New York, and then in every crazy low-

quality-of-life city where people lack space, " Mr. Ronco said. " I

see this in airports, malls, corporate offices and train stations. "

But are naps the best way for the sleep-challenged to catch up?

Dr. C. Dement, the founder of the Stanford University sleep

research center, thinks so, recommending them as a way to treat

sleep deprivation, according to his book " The Promise of Sleep. "

Dr. Gerard T. Lombardo, the director of the sleep center at New York

Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, however, counsels against naps

because they may disrupt the normal nighttime sleep cycle. Daytime

exercise would be a better way to improve sleep, he said.

Dr. Koffler of Canyon Ranch cautioned that people beset by chronic

sleep problems should see a doctor. For those who have the

occasional sleepless night and are seeking relaxation, though, a

salon nap or a massage could be soothing, she said.

" If it allows someone to move from a busy outer life to a calm inner

one, I'm all for it, " Dr. Koffler said.

Ms. Gruman of the Center for the Advancement of Health said the idea

of paying for a nap amounts to " cognitive dissonance. "

" I can't believe people think there is magic in the pods or the

cashmere blanket, " Ms. Gruman said. " But maybe they think they are

going to get better sleep if they spend a lot of money. "