The Courtyard Marriott right here in Lake Nona harbors some of the most unique technology in hotel rooms across the country, called Stay Well. Introduced by DELOS, this technology includes a variety of health and wellness features for guests: specialized Stay Well mattresses and soft night lighting to improve sleep, air purification technology to remove toxins like smoke, dust, and allergens from the air, as well as aromatherapy that can use specific scents to help guests relax after a long day of travel or work.
Perhaps one of the most interesting features of the Stay Well rooms at the Courtyard Marriott is the use of technology that simulates dawn and circadian mood lighting. According to the National Sleep Foundation, your body’s circadian rhythm is a 24-hour internal clock that is running in the background of your brain and cycles between sleepiness and alertness at regular intervals. It’s also known as your sleep and wake cycle.
A part of your hypothalamus, a portion of your brain, controls your circadian rhythm. That said, outside factors like lightness and darkness can also impact it. When it’s dark at night, your eyes send a signal to the hypothalamus that it’s time to feel tired. Your brain, in turn, sends a signal to your body to release melatonin, which makes your body tired. That’s why your circadian rhythm tends to coincide with the cycle of daytime and nighttime.
Having the circadian mood lighting in the Stay Well rooms allows for guests to wake up with light that is more similar to that of a sunrise, filling the room with natural light that stimulates the body in a more natural manner than that of a blaring alarm clock. This light is also able to emit sounds similar to those in nature, gradually increasing in volume to wake the body from sleep. The light and sound is completely adjustable to users to accommodate varying levels of sensitivity.
Another feature unique to the Stay Well rooms is the Stay Well shower infuser. This device reduces the chlorine in your shower water, which can lessen its drying effects. The shower water is infused with vitamin C, which is also used to help promote healthy hair and skin.
These rooms were in part researched by Dr. Deepak Chopra, a DELOS advisory board member and wellness expert, who explained that when traveling for work or business, it is easy for people to feel run down by the often bland and typical hotel room and how it can often prove to be a difficult task to maintain personal health and wellness while away from home. He explains that each feature included in a Stay Well room is grounded in medical research and helps to promote balance between mind, body and environment.
The Stay Well rooms are a particularly interesting feature of the Lake Nona area, not only for their health and wellness benefits but also because of how unique they are nationwide. Very few other hotels in the United States have these Stay Well rooms, even though the response to the room’s benefits have been overwhelmingly positive, with guests praising the lighting settings on the mirror in the bathroom for their assistance in waking up or helping to relax the body at the end of the day. The aromatherapy aspect of the rooms has received mixed reviews, mainly because some guests have not enjoyed having the scent in the room while they are trying to sleep.
These rooms are a spectacular edition to Lake Nona’s growing reputation as a medically advanced city and remain part of the innovative relationship between personal health and wellness.
