Should you hire a sleep coach? Inside the profession helping adults nod off

Accountability is part of the appeal for people working on a good night's rest

A qualified sleep coach will gauge past and current stress points, monitor sleep patterns and suggest lifestyle tweaks. Getty Images

“Growing up, my sister used to sleep talk a lot ... it used to fascinate me, and my dad would tell funny stories about how she would shoot up in bed,” recalls Jamie Moore, general manager of J Club. Aside from a funny family anecdote, Moore explains this is how his fascination with sleep began.

Alongside his role at the luxury wellness centre, Moore is also a certified sleep coach. While the phrase might make one think of parents hiring help for snooze-shy toddlers, sleep coaching for adults is an emerging trend in the wellness space and one of the fastest-growing professions.

“Sleep coaching is fairly new, and has evolved in part due to the advent of significant changes in technology over the past 20 years,” says Claudine Gillard, sleep therapist and founder of Sweet Dreams Sleep Consultants. “More people are becoming aware that sleep is so influential in every aspect of our lives, especially since mental well-being has been discussed more openly.”

While no sufferer needs science to tell them just how bad they can feel after a poor night's sleep, the research is there, with recent studies demonstrating how poor sleep can age the brain and impact memory, heighten feelings such as loneliness and social rejection, and trigger or worsen a range of psychiatric disorders.

“People are seeking help that is not just taking a pill, which doesn't work in any meaningful way,” Gillard adds. As sleep becomes the latest word to be given the coaching verb, here's what to know about the lives, work and limitations of sleep coaches for grown-ups.

Uncovering the why

“The first thing we always do is have a conversation. I'm trying to understand why you've come to see me,” explains Moore. While the go-to answer is often, “I am not sleeping enough”, it takes a little deeper digging to understand what that's impacting.

“A lot of the time, what people are really saying is: 'I feel lethargic, I'm not as productive as I want to be at work or I'm not giving enough time to my partner and children,'” says Moore, who often works sleep coaching into his fitness training.

After establishing what a client is trying to achieve, next up is recognising the “why” behind troubled sleep. “Many issues are due to life pressures leading people to take their focus off their well-being via their sleep. Working hard can become the priority, with sleep becoming secondary,” says Gillard.

This comes with sussing out a person's daily routine. For Julie Mallon, senior sleep consultant and founder of Nurture 2 Sleep, this involves filling in an extensive questionnaire and then diving into sleep tracker data or asking her clients to keep a sleep diary. While she'll often look at both, the latter is her preferred data-collecting method. “A good old-fashioned sleep log, when you fall asleep and when you wake up, is much more personal than me looking at your watch,” she says.

“And then, depending on what we encounter, we look into the role of food, exercise and stress when it comes to sleep,” she adds. That can be everything from noting your daily coffee intake to diving into the routine of family life.

Once coaches have a grasp on lifestyle, they can try to implement long-term changes that suit each client. For Moore, this means finding reasonable tweaks that can be adapted to current needs and preferences. “You wouldn't get a nutrition plan that is all foods you don't like,” he adds. “I want to know what you enjoy and incorporate that into your current lifestyle. And when you think about sleep, it requires the same approach.”

Pinning down the root cause is just one part of the puzzle. According to the experts, many people already have that knowledge, especially with information overload in the current self-development climate, but struggle to make behavioural changes that stick.

“It's a lot easier said than done, right?” says Moore. “If you're a good coach, you look deeper and have those conversations to open up how you can support and assist.” Research demonstrates that having someone to hold you accountable can increase success by 65 per cent, which can jump to 95 per cent if that comes with regular check-ins.

Mallon says understanding exactly how to provide support in the most effective way for individual clients is part of the job. “From that initial consultation, we will agree on aspects such as whether they need WhatsApp support, or do they need a weekly or a monthly check-in,” she adds. “Often, if they're here in Dubai, I go around to their home and look at the set-up of their sleep environment.”

But something Mallon wants to make very clear about her work – and the profession in general – is that the focus is not on diagnosing or treating medical issues. While she does have a background in the field as a nurse, which can aid in recognising symptoms, she says: “I'm very much looking at the behavioural.”

Coaching with caution

While clients should be cautious that sleep coaches can't (and shouldn't) diagnose or prescribe medically, they should also take the time to understand the titles and qualifications of experts, which can often be hazy in the wellness space, when searching online.

Mallon, who qualified and worked as a nurse, midwife and health visitor before undertaking the extensive Gentle Sleep Coach programme, says: “I have come across some of the most alarming information ... many people say they are sleep coaches, and I've seen the detrimental effects of misinformation. When finding a coach, you have to do your homework.”

Just how easy it is to add the word “coach” to an online profile, combined with many fields of coaching lacking legal regulation and industry-wide standards, plays a part in the wider cynicism over the profession.

On the scepticism, Moore says: “It does frustrate me, actually.” Starting as a personal trainer after gaining a sports science degree, he saw first-hand how sleep impacts all areas of people's lives, leading him to undertake an online certification in sleep and psychology.

For him, it's a case of separating the good from the bad. He adds: “I think the challenge sometimes is people don't dive deep into conversations with clients ... that's what gives coaches a bad name at times.”

Gillard, inspired after having her life transformed thanks to sleep coaching for her young son, moved into the field. Referring to herself as a sleep therapist, she explains: “My training was with world-renowned sleep expert Dana Obleman of Sleep Sense, who personally led my course and mentored me for six months.” She adds it is one of the most extensive of many online courses inviting people to train to become consultants.

Irrespective of concerns, supply and demand are clearly high. “Modern-day living is having a huge impact on how we sleep in this on-off culture,” says Mallon.

As Gillard puts it: “There is no aspect of our health that is not affected by poor or not enough sleep, and therefore, sleeping better is only beneficial.”