Margaret Thatcher, who he was known to sleep only four hours a night, often said to be “Sleep for wimps!” But sleep is actually work. Putting down the phone, putting aside personal or political concerns—this takes discipline. Real relaxation takes practice.
Sleep coaches used to treat newborns (and their tired parents). But recently, as concerns about sleep have increased, seniors have found that they need help with their habits as well. A 2023 Gallup poll found that 57 percent of Americans think they would feel better with more sleep, up from just 43 percent in 2013. Only about a quarter of those surveyed reported getting the recommended eight or more hours a night—down from 34 percent 10 years earlier.
Sleep experts seize the opportunity to help seniors achieve their dream of waking up rested. WIRED spoke with a sleep consultant who, after years of working with children, tapped into that neglected population. He says it’s entirely possible to change your daytime and nighttime habits to get a good night’s sleep. Why not start tonight?
Usually, an adult it comes to me with one of two things: First, a major life event—work stress, having a baby, losing a parent, ending a relationship—disrupts their schedule. Sleep is always the first thing to go. The second is that they have an endless pattern. There are people who really have trouble sleeping since childhood, and it becomes part of how they see themselves. They try everything, and say, “I’m a bad sleeper.”
In both cases, they are tired. I always laugh, because when I’m stuck at a dinner party it’s like, “Oh, I have a quick question. I haven’t slept all night in 19 years.
I have been a sleep consultant for over 20 years. I started my baby’s sleep routine after getting my master’s degree in clinical psychology. I was working with many parents, and I began to notice a common problem: Their children’s sleep problems were literally pushing them to the brink of divorce.
Even after I got their children to sleep well, parents still struggled with habits that existed before their children arrived. That’s when I realized that I had to help the elderly.
There are camps: trouble sleeping or trouble waking up at night—or both. So that’s my job: to unravel that mystery of what keeps a person up at night. Some of the strongest cases are people who come in focusing only on their nighttime habits and not revealing what happens during the day.
One of my clients had trouble sleeping through the night for years. We noticed that they were eating more calories at night, and not eating anything during the day. So they kept getting up to eat, and that completely disrupted their schedule.
Another client, a woman who exercised regularly and drank 200 ounces of water a day, did not communicate that she was getting up to urinate literally every hour. We had to reduce the amount of water he drank and make him stop drinking it at a certain hour.
Sometimes people just stop working. I think of the mother who says, “I just forgot to fasten my child’s seatbelt in my car.” “I put my keys in the fridge.”
I start with the basics. Yes, we do sleep hygiene, but that’s what you can Google: Find dark shades, have a place to sleep. Many people think they have a good schedule, but their habits or the environment they live in are against them. That’s where coaching helps, because I see what they lack.
People have these stories that they tell themselves, like, “If I sleep, it means I’m not working hard enough” or “I’m young and I don’t need that much sleep.” What new story can you tell yourself about sleeping? From there, I use a journal, cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, mental work, breathing work.
