Equinox experts on eating, exercising, and having sex before bed
Equinox experts have a message for the high-performing public: “Sleep is a biological process that you, as a human being, should be able to engage in without the crazy tech that's happening in the space,” said Matt Delaney, New York City-based national manager of innovation for Equinox who oversees the sleep coaching program. In fact, getting the requisite shut-eye to help you power through workouts and life should be relatively low-fi. That’s why Equinox is offering sleep coaching for Tier X clients during which coaches attempt to optimize clients’ habits without supplements or technology (save, perhaps, a sleep tracker). “Sleep coaching is basically a version of cognitive behavioral therapy. The first line of defense is helping people change their behaviors.”
And it works—according to actual science. Equinox partnered with UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine to look at the impact of dedicated sleep coaching versus wellness coaching. “For the sleep coaching group, there was a decrease in body composition, an increase in ventilatory threshold (an all-cause predictor of early mortality), improvements in lower- and upper-body strength, and lower-body power,” says Delaney. “I don't think anybody would argue that they function better when they're sleeping well, but the fact that we were able to apply a coaching method and prove that it worked in helping people with their sleep and maximizing their performance was pretty powerful.”
Here, we curated a few of the most compelling questions our experts have been asked, with answers from Delaney and Amanda Clark, a Tier X coach at Columbus Circle and nationally board-certified health and wellness coach who specializes in behavior change for sleep.