Guy Meadows used to work as a researcher in sleep labs at the Charing Cross and the Royal Brompton hospitals in London. He would spend his nights observing those with sleep disorders as they tried to get some shut-eye. Eight years ago he decided he had had enough: “I was tired of watching people sleep. I was doing shift work. I know how bad that is for your health.”
His work, however, had convinced him there was a market among people desperate for a cure to their sleep problems. Now the 36-year-old, who describes himself as a “normal sleeper with disturbances” – he has two children, aged three and one – works as a sleep consultant, running workshops and one-to-one counselling sessions to help people overcome insomnia.
Mr Meadows is part of a growing profession advising individuals and companies on sleep. As he puts it, long hours, working with markets in different time zones and technologies leaves many people “tired but wired. When man was wandering around the fields with his plough, he wasn’t checking Facebook and Twitter. His brain was much quieter. Today our brains are so stimulated we can’t sleep.”