Before I even begin this topic, I want you to metaphorically realise that you are a ship that has thrown your anchor overboard.

This means you will not shift much from your position.

And that’s because you’ve invested a lot. Your money. Your time. Your energy.

I’m talking to the many health professionals right now that work in the sleep field. If you’re not one of these people, then you will still learn a lot about the differences between a Sleep Coach vs Health Professionals.

Recently we published a study investigating the paediatric sleep training of a range of health professionals. 99% of the people we surveyed were a health professional (ie, had a University qualification that led to registration as a health professional).

1% were ‘Sleep Coaches’.

This imbalance likely occurred because we recruited via a top-down process - by contacting the governing bodies of various health professions (ie, Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, Australian Medical Association, etc).

WINK is on Instagram, and the balance seems to be in the complete opposite direction. Especially for baby sleep coaches. Which is where I first heard the term ‘Sleep Coach’ …

2013 Pediatric Sleep Meeting in Florida

If I think of a few of the ‘big names’ in the infant sleep space at the beginning of the 2010s, they’d be names like:

• Professor Avi Sadeh

• Professor Richard Ferber

• Dr Marc Weissbluth

• Professor Harriet Hiscock

• Professor Karyn France

• Professor Jodi Mindell

And it was one of the females in the group - Jodi Mindell - who, after a talk at the 2013 Pediatric Sleep Meeting in Florida, mentioned a rise of ‘Baby Sleep Coaches’ in the USA.

As background, qualified health professionals (as well as Trainees and Students) attend the Pediatric Sleep Meeting in Florida every 2nd year (and the conference is virtual this year if you struggle getting to sunny Florida).

Jodi stated she didn’t completely know about Sleep Coaches, and proposed to invite them to talk at the 2015 conference. And that’s what happened.

Kim West was the first Sleep Coach I’d heard of, and led the talks about what a Sleep Coach does.

What I learned from my anchored position was:

• She didn’t know as much as those of us who research infant sleep (and that meant she could sometimes get the treatment wrong)

• She was a terrific entrepreneur (and us infant sleep researchers were hopeless)

At the start of this blog, I mentioned the investment we make when learning knowledge and skills that can help people.

And technically speaking, most ‘Coaches’ learn how to help people.

The tricky thing though, is that there is no governing body in each country that regulates the training and ongoing professional development of a ‘Sleep Coach’.

This means there is huge diversity in a Sleep Coach’s skillset.

To her credit, Kim West has helped to set-up an international governing body for infant sleep coaches. Like I said, she is a great entrepreneur. But a Sleep Coach isn’t just someone who focuses on babies …

“Im a Sleep Coach!”

Currently, a few of us are investigating various ‘wearables’ that can measure sleep for our new research studies we’re embarking on. And one of those is a headband that has some decent stats behind it.

Problem is though that we want to use his headband to measure sleep, and then we perform a treatment.

But the headband comes in a package, whereby after it measures a person’s sleep, an app provides them with Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i). The ‘heabands’ CBT would interfere with our research studies.

So I rang up the company to see if they could cut out the CBT side of the device, and therefore get a discount.

After 15 min on the phone, I found out that the ‘expert’ I was put in charge with had a degree in exercise physiology - and called himself a Sleep Coach. But he told me he couldn’t treat insomnia. He coached people who had Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

… pause for effect (or just plain disbelief?) …

Mr Sleep Coach didn’t know my background (if you don’t know, it’s too long to describe here) - so I asked him …

“How Does Someone Become A Sleep Coach?”

Well, you can contact the company - ResMed - and an interview can be conducted.

Mr Sleep Coach said, that if you have a qualification, then that’s a great leg up - but you don’t have to have one - nor a background in sleep.

If you don’t believe me, here’s an excerpt.

There was so many questions that I wanted to ask - and perhaps many more statements I would like to have made on that phone call.

But at the end of the day, we’re talking about the biggest sleep company in the world - ResMed - making an army of Sleep Coaches.

Dr Elizabeth Kubler-Ross spoke about the 5 Stages of Grief and Loss …

Disbelief, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance.

I think I’m still in the 1st stage.

Why?

Here’s my personal investment in becoming someone who helps people sleep:

1. 10 years of University qualifications (Bachelor; Honours; Masters; PhD) - eg, our Bachelor degree in the 1990s contained topics entirely about sleep; I directly measured circadian rhythms in my PhD…

2. Working as a sleep researcher since 1998 (116 scientific published articles at the time of writing)…

3. Working as a clinical psychologist specialising in sleep disorders (eg, insomnia and circadian rhythm disorders across the lifespan) since 2002 …

The qualifications cost me 10,000s of dollars - the direct/indirect funding behind the 100+ studies is in the millions - the ongoing fees and professional development costs for me to continue practicing as a clinical psychologist are well into the 1000s if not past 10,000 dollars.

That’s why I’m shocked - and worried - that the biggest sleep company in the world is producing a factory-line of Sleep Coaches …

The Solution?

Prof David Clark is one of the leading clinical psychology researchers in the world - and he embarked on a ‘study’ that ended up being an amazing way to help people.

It’s called IAPT (Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies).

David identified that despite the high level of training of health professionals through the University system, there was not enough health professionals to meet the demand.

So the idea was to:

1. train others in the highest standards of care, and

2. to continually supervise their practice

And it worked. In the UK, there’s been a number of wide-ranging benefits, including a reduction inthe number of sick days (amongst others).

It seems Prof Jodi Mindell was right.

For the betterment of the public, it’s wise for health professionals and sleep coaches to join forces.

Together, they will be better at helping people.

Sleep coaches can learn directly from the gurus (ie, the scientist-practitioners - see Blog #12). They can undertake training from those who have not only been helping people for a long time - but also learn directly from those who are doing the clinical research.

Let me emphasise that - direct learning from the gurus.

But even the gurus know the value of ‘Reflective Practice’ (there’s research on this!).

It’s not just about attending a workshop or doing a course. It’s about reflecting on your own practice so you can become better at what you do (which means a greater percentage of your clients benefit).

And the gurus became ‘gurus’ because they received ongoing supervision. Just like what happens in David Clark’s IAPT.

A workshop and/or course does not cover every single sleep problem that a human being can present with. This is where ongoing supervision is important.

Yes, WINK provides online training directly from me - and there’s also ongoing supervision for Members - so let’s just get that out of the way….

Because this final piece is directed at the gurus, the health professionals, the sleep experts.

And it’s intended to kick the pedestal that we stand on, so we become less ‘high and mighty’.

We are crap entrepreneurs!

I know we didn’t have time to do an MBA, or learn what B2B, B2C and ‘looping in’ means, or that ‘leverage’ and ‘synergy’ are words that can be used every single day.

But if you’re alive and breathing and sleeping well - then there’s still time to learn ….

Congratulations

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the first few graduates of our WINK Sleep Online Training. We only launched our first online course for adults - Brief Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (BBT-I) in early March. So both Anitha Vivekanandan (An M.D. from the land of the long white cloud) and Deb Herdman (A Registered Nurse from the state that does better at everything than us South Aussies, Victoria) have completed the BBT-I certification (and from what I hear, are already putting their skills into practice - with some good results!). I’d also like to congratulate Lisa Maltman who did a brilliant job with our manual-based training for Treating Sleep Problems in Teenagers - and has now upped her already great skillset to help teenagers in the school setting. She is joined by Kristie Scudds from Headspace who also recently became certified to help teens sleep better!

Well done to all of you - you’re about to be joined by more graduates from the UK, Australia, India, Switzerland, the USA and Turkey.

• Prof Michael Gradisar