01/14/2019
“Exhausted all the time” was how one client described his general disposition to Robert McCabe, a personal trainer in London. This, despite his claims of sleeping well. “His performance in and out of the [fitness] club was suffering,” says Mr McCabe.
After tracking his sleep, the client discovered he was getting fewer than his stated seven hours a night and so he booked a 12-week sleep coaching programme at Equinox, his high-end gym, at a cost of £750.
Through this programme, Mr McCabe helped the client increase his sleep by two hours a night. The effect? As well as feeling rested, he raised the weights in his Turkish Get Up (a kettlebell exercise) from 16kg to 30kg over 12 weeks.
According to a 2016 report by the Rand Corporation, “sleep deprivation is associated with a higher mortality risk and productivity losses at work”. It found that people with fewer than six hours sleep have a 13 per cent higher mortality risk than those sleeping seven hours or more. Exhaustion has an economic impact, too. It estimated the US lost 2.3 per cent of its gross domestic product (then, about $411bn), Japan 2.9 per cent, and the UK 1.9 per cent.
A growing number of employers and individuals are paying to ease sleep deficiency
