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I am very good at falling asleep. Staying asleep is another matter.
Most nights, I wake up at least once, usually several times, and struggle to fall back asleep. As a result, I’m so groggy in the morning I need coffee to think. So when I woke up at the Springs Resort in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, about an hour from Durango, Colorado and 2.5 hours from Santa Fe, New Mexico, I was surprised to realize I’d slept through the night.
Then it happened again.
And again.
By the third morning, I had a question: What the heck was happening?
I’d spent the previous three days soaking in mineral water from the world’s deepest geothermal hot spring. The resort has more than 50 pools and waterfalls ranging from cold plunges to temperatures reaching 114 degrees.
I had come to Pagosa Springs to relax. I didn’t expect to sleep better than I had in years.
I arrived to find robes, robes everywhere
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the Springs Resort was robes, lots of robes. The accommodations are stocked with fluffy green bathrobes for the pools, but guests wear them everywhere. You see them in the lobby, resort restaurants and sometimes even in town.
In my room, I found the first hint that the hot springs might offer some unexpected benefits. At the foot of the bed, a sleep tray included goodies like a lavender spray, earplugs and a small canvas sack for my cell phone. An accompanying brochure explained that the resort offers soaking circuits and free wellness classes designed around better sleep.
I was traveling alone, and the grounds were peaceful, so I didn’t need the earplugs, but I misted my pillow with lavender and tucked my phone into the sack at night to reduce distractions.
When I walked out to the pools the first morning, the air smelled like sulfur, but it wasn’t unpleasant or eggy. The scent was sharp and distinctly mineral.
People have been soaking here for centuries
That sulfur smell was coming from deep underground. As the water rises, it picks up hydrogen sulfide and minerals from the surrounding rock. By the time it reaches the pools, it contains 13 minerals, including calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, lithium and zinc. The mineral-rich water also leaves behind tufa, calcium carbonate deposits that build up over time and look almost like flowing water turned to stone.
And when I say deep underground, I mean deep. Guinness World Records recognizes the resort’s Mother Spring as the world’s deepest geothermal spring. Researchers once lowered a plumb line into it and made it 1,002 feet without hitting bottom. They simply ran out of line. To this day, nobody knows exactly how deep the spring goes.
People have been drawn to the water for centuries. The Southern Ute people soaked here and considered the springs sacred, and the name Pagosa comes from the Ute word pagosah, often translated as “smelly waters.” By 1879, even the U.S. Army was getting in on the action, sending soldiers to Pagosa Springs to soak in the mineral water in hopes of improving their health. Bathhouses eventually sprang up for visitors who came to soak in water believed to help everything from aching joints to skin conditions.
More than a century later, I was about to spend three days doing exactly what had drawn people here in the first place: getting in the water.
I spent three days moving between hot pools and cold plunges
The resort welcomes overnight guests and day visitors, with day passes available for the soaking pools, plus massages, facials and other spa treatments. As an overnight guest, I had 24-hour access to the grounds and experimented with contrast bathing, moving between pools and waterfalls of different temperatures perched above the San Juan River.
The pools and water features varied in personality as much as they did in temperature. Some were small, designed for one to three people to soak privately. Others were clearly designed for groups to relax and socialize. One area was even open only to adults. I could basically choose my own adventure.
My favorite was Moon River, a small pool perched above the San Juan River. At around 102 degrees, it was hot enough to feel delicious without sending me scrambling for cooler water after a few minutes. Its small size offered more privacy than some of the larger pools, with views of the river and surrounding mountains.
Between soaks, I took advantage of the resort’s free wellness programming, including aqua yoga, aqua sound bathing, guided mud sessions and aromatherapy sauna sessions. I also indulged in a stress-relieving massage at the resort spa based on a 150-year-old German Kneipp hydrotherapy technique. After dry brushing, the therapist applied a cold wrap around my abdomen, which warmed using nothing but my own body heat. The treatment also incorporated ashwagandha oil.
I was skeptical, but afterward I had the same exhilarated, energized feeling I got from the cold plunge.
At night, I slept.
I asked a doctor why I was sleeping so well
I didn’t just sleep through the night at the Springs Resort: I woke up rested and invigorated. It was so out of the norm that I asked the resort’s medical director, Dr. Marcus Coplin, to explain.
Coplin says contrast bathing is more physically demanding than it seems. Moving between hot and cold water puts the cardiovascular system to work, increasing heart rate while blood vessels expand and contract. “It’s as if you’re kind of jogging on a treadmill,” he told me. It requires energy, which helps explain why I was ready for bed at the end of the day.
But being tired was only part of it. Coplin says moving repeatedly between temperatures can help the nervous system find its “set point” between fight-or-flight and “rest and digest.” We can become so accustomed to accumulated stress that it starts to feel normal. After a few days of soaking, he says, the body begins to remember what it feels like without all that stress. Coplin says it makes you feel revitalized. For me, that meant sleeping through the night and waking up rested enough to function before coffee.
Now I sleep better at home
I packed the cell phone sack and the lavender mist in my suitcase, but they were far from the most valuable tools I took home. My experience at the Springs Resort taught me that I’m not doomed to a lifetime of poor sleep.
I learned restful sleep doesn’t require a hot spring or even a cold plunge. Coplin says slow, deep diaphragmatic breathing can help calm the stress response, and a regular breathing practice can offer some of the same benefits he associates with contrast bathing. I often wake up thinking about work I need to finish the next day, so his advice is something I can actually practice: recognize when my stress is ramping up and use my breath to bring it back down.
He also suggested mentally returning to how I felt at the hot springs. Instead of lying awake worrying about everything I need to accomplish, now I remind myself that I can sleep well, wake up rested and still get my work done. I couldn’t bring the soaking pools home, but I came home knowing I can sleep through the night. And that’s the next best thing to having my own hot spring.