Hotel launches ‘womb rooms’ to help you sleep like a baby

A boutique hotel in London has come up with rooms modelled on the womb to help its guests to sleep. Each serviced apartment at the Zed Rooms, in the hip Shoreditch area of the city, includes the Woom (see what they did there?), a bedroom that aims to emulate the womb's sense of safety with a cocoon-like bed to enable you to sleep like a baby, according to Cuckooz, the company that runs the complex.

The aim is to tackle the "first-night effect", when half of the brain stays alert in unfamiliar surroundings, resulting in a poor night's rest. The Zed Rooms hope to deliver REM-rich sleep – the best kind, apparently – by creating an environment that will help you to conk out as soon as you arrive. Honeymooners need not apply, presumably.

Each apartment also has a Loom room, with a four-poster bed draped in “ethereal” fabrics, to promote dreams. Both rooms come with what is billed as a supercomfortable mattress and temperature-regulating pillows and duvets. Muted lighting, blackout blinds and sound-absorbing curtains also help accelerate the deep-sleep experience. Even the olfactory senses are catered for, with Scent to Sleep essential-oil fragrances.

Their designers say the rooms were inspired by the final few weeks of pregnancy, when a baby increases its REM sleep, getting an average of 12 hours a day; they feature relaxing colour schemes, air-cleansing plants, to help eliminate toxins, and high-end electronics to keep body clocks in harmony. There is even a “sleep menu” of dishes rich in serotonin, melatonin and tryptophan.

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The penthouse – a woom with a view, presumably – comes with yoga mats to stretch out on the terrace, meditation sessions via an iPad app, and naked light bulbs to create a sense of simplicity.

How much for a night in this sleepy hollow? Prices start at £190, or about €210.