"What exactly is your grid? And in all of this, what is solid and what is just fashion?"

The short answer

Ten sub-objectives, from the room to the message, each assessed at two levels: the acceptable minimum baseline, which every room must offer, and the optimised baseline, that of the longevity room. Each element carries its level of evidence, established, emerging or unsupported, and the report states it next to each recommendation.

The calculation or the proof

The ten sub-objectives. 01 Stay environment (light, air, water, including pool water, noise, materials). 02 Sleep. 03 Nutrition. 04 Movement. 05 Recovery. 06 Mind and nervous system. 07 Measurement. 08 Experts and protocols. 09 Guest journey. 10 Image and message.

The two levels. The minimum baseline satisfies the guest in every room. The optimised baseline defines the longevity room: same floor area, better equipped, sold at a higher price. Each recommendation carries its cost, its target gain and its payback period.

The three levels of evidence, by example.

• Established. Ordinary room light before bedtime delays the onset of melatonin secretion in 99 % of participants in a study of 116 adults (Gooley et al., 2011). Bringing night-time CO2 down from around 2,500 ppm to below 850 ppm improves measured sleep (Strøm-Tejsen et al., 2016). Environmental sensors fall within this level.
• Emerging. The 800 ppm value for a bedroom comes from a 2025 review whose authors call for it to be confirmed (Akimoto et al., 2025). Brain feedback and vagal stimulation are classed here. The guest's self-measurement is established for following a trend, emerging for interpreting it.
• Unsupported. An epigenetic "biological age" presented as a verdict: technical noise alone produces differences of up to 9 years between two analyses of the same sample (Higgins-Chen et al., 2022).

What the grid does not publish. The detailed thresholds for each sub-objective and the financial module remain in the report. The website shows the logic; the report gives the method to the venue that commissioned it.

What we cannot claim

A score on the grid is not a health score. It says where a venue stands, not what its guests will experience.

The grid assesses a venue, not people: the audit includes no measurement of guests or staff.

Levels of evidence move. An emerging element may be confirmed or dropped; the grid is revised with the literature.

What a hotel can do now

A first pass, on your own. For each of the ten sub-objectives, ask whether every room reaches the minimum baseline, and note what is missing.

Start with what is measurable and least expensive. Darkness, CO2 at night, temperature: three readings, a few sensors, one night.

Sort your own message. Classify each sentence of your brochure as established, emerging or unsupported, and remove the third column.

What the Living Lab measures

The grid is built from what the Living Lab, near Lisbon, embodies and tests. It is being equipped in waves; part of the equipment is being delivered.

Measurement planned: the Living Lab's environmental measurements for sub-objectives 01 and 02, published here with their date.

Sources

• Gooley JJ et al. Exposure to room light before bedtime suppresses melatonin onset and shortens melatonin duration in humans. J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 2011. doi:10.1210/jc.2010-2098
• Strøm-Tejsen P et al. The effects of bedroom air quality on sleep and next-day performance. Indoor Air, 2016. doi:10.1111/ina.12254
• Akimoto M et al. New research on bedroom ventilation and sleep quality suggests that building standards should be revisited (ASHRAE 1837-RP). Science and Technology for the Built Environment, 2025. doi:10.1080/23744731.2025.2531317
• Higgins-Chen AT et al. A computational solution for bolstering reliability of epigenetic clocks: implications for clinical trials and longitudinal tracking. Nat Aging, 2022. doi:10.1038/s43587-022-00248-2

The longevity audit for venues  ·  The Research Journal

IO8 Living Lab, near Lisbon. Measured, never promised.

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