Why Are Hotel Beds So Comfy?

What makes hotel beds so comfy?

The comfort of guests is a top priority for hotels. It can be the deciding factor between a glowing 5-star review or a no-star rant. To ensure guests get the best night’s rest, hotels invest in high-quality mattresses, conduct regular bed inspections, and design their rooms to help promote sleep and relaxation. Fortunately, you can achieve that same level of relaxation in your own master suite. Let’s explore.

1. High-quality mattresses

Hotels spare no expense when it comes to comfort and sleep quality. Often, they invest in premium memory foam, gel, and hybrid mattresses. These mattresses typically have several layers of sleep technology to help you quickly reach a deep and prolonged state of rest by:

regulating temperature
reducing the likelihood of tossing and turning
supporting joints and ensuring spinal alignment
preventing roll-together

The addition of a mattress topper is not uncommon, either. This extra padding provides luxurious comfort, cradles the body throughout the night, and relieves pressure points, helping you drift off to sleep with ease.

You can also get the hotel feel without investing in a new mattress or topper. Firstly, make sure you keep your bedroom tidy and clutter-free. You’ll be surprised at how much better you sleep when your bedroom is tidy! Learn more in our articles on the benefits of a tidy bedroom and how to declutter your bedroom.

It’s also worth thinking about the ambience and mood you create in your bedroom. Most importantly, try to keep your bedroom for sleep only. This will ensure your brain recognises it’s time to rest when you’re in there. If you do have to work from your bedroom or spend time in there doing things other than sleeping, make sure to maximise the relaxing vibes come bedtime with scented candles, mood lighting, and calming music.

However, if you are ready to upgrade your mattress to one that’s reminiscent of your last hotel stay, check out our bed and mattress guides. Here, you can compare mattress types, find the right match for your sleeping position, and discover what makes our best mattresses so popular.

2. Regular bed inspections and replacements

Hotels regularly inspect and maintain their beds. Every mattress is thoroughly checked for signs of wear, and if they fail to meet the strict comfort standards, they are replaced with new ones.

Cleanliness is also a top priority for hotels. Bedding is washed and replaced for each guest, ensuring fresh sheets for all guests during their stay. This is not something that many people experience at home.

Our UK Sleep Survey showed that most Britons change their sheets less than once a week. YouGov data backs this up, showing only 28% of people change their linens every 7 days, while 27% do so every 3 weeks.

The Sleep Foundation recommends changing your sheets at least once a week for optimal hygiene, but this isn’t a common practice in the UK. However, if you want the hotel experience, fresh sheets should be a staple part of your strategy!

A young woman with straight hair sitting on bed hugging her white pillow, surrounded by white

3. Sleep focused bedroom design

When you step into a hotel room, you’ll immediately notice the thoughtful design elements aimed at promoting a peaceful environment. Follow the below tips or check out our article on how to sleep better for more ideas.

Use ambient lighting to create a calming mood
Minimise disturbances and design your space with silence in mind
Set the temperature to a comfortable level – between 18 and 24 degrees is best.
Keep your bedroom clutter-free and centred around sleep. If you work from your bedroom, keep one zone dedicated to work and the rest comfortable and cosy.
Fit your bedding with hospital corners for a crisp, crease-free feel.

4. Hotels work hard to offer the best sleeping experience

Hotels make guests’ sleep quality a priority, so they are always concerned if a guest has had a bad sleeping experience.

Hotel rating services such as the AA include the bed and sleeping conditions as an important criterion in their ratings of hotels, and hotel comparison sites such as Tripadvisor encourage their users to comment on the sleep experience of their stays.

Tripadvisor even has an annual award for the hotel that is rated best for sleeping, so it is a vital consideration for hotels looking to achieve a 5 star rating.

With this in mind, it could be wise to start a sleep journal. Regularly reflecting on the quality of your sleep and what may be causing poor sleep can help.

A person sleeps on a white sheet surrounded by fluffy clouds and a blue backdrop.

The sole purpose of hotels is to give you a relaxing experience

Checking into a hotel offers a brief escape from the stresses of everyday life. You can take a break from work, cleaning, and cooking, as everything is handled for you. Many hotels also offer extra services designed to make you more relaxed, such as spas and gyms.

By the time you’re ready to go to bed, you feel calmer than you might do at home. Your hotel room doesn’t contain clutter or reminders of unfinished tasks, both of which contribute to heightened stress before you sleep.

For these reasons, a hotel bed can feel comfier and make it easier to drift off. As alluded to earlier, exercises such as sleep journalling can help make you more relaxed. Consider other ways a hotel stay differs from your normal routine and try to incorporate these more regularly into your lifestyle. Read more about how lifestyle affects sleep in our articles on:

What about the times I struggle to sleep in hotels?

Even the most comfortable hotel beds can leave you tossing and turning. This is due to our evolutionary instincts known as the first night effect. When we sleep somewhere new for the first time, it can be difficult to fall asleep, as our arousal levels spike in response to any potential danger.

This survival mechanism evolved from our ancestors who needed to be alert to potential threats when sleeping somewhere unfamiliar. As a result, we cannot fall asleep easily in this state of heightened alertness.

Thankfully, this heightened state of alertness gradually decreases the longer we stay at the hotel. By the time you’re ready for another night’s sleep, you’ll be able to fully enjoy the comfort of your hotel bed.