Dr Guy Meadows

Chapter 16: Dr Guy Meadows

The date is 30th November 2020. I am logging on to WebEx and joining Serge Marston, Managing Director of CME Group, who is moderating a seminar as part of his team meeting on a Monday morning at 8.15 am.

This seminar is not focussing on derivatives which the group are famous for trading. Quite the contrary, this is a sleep seminar with the UK’s leading sleep expert, Dr Guy Meadows. It is designed to helps individuals improve the quality of their sleep and daytime performance. Dr Tara Swart mentioned how important sleep was for the brain but so much more is known now since I first met Dr Guy, through Mark Sinclair in May 2016. This man is the person everyone should try and listen tooin my opinion. He is incredibly knowledgeable on his subject but understands the influence of sleep on our mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. Read ‘The Sleep Book: How to Sleep Well Every Night’: it will change your life.

I have always slept well, but I could never understand those individuals who appeared to be able to burn the candle at both ends. Prior to the financial crash in 2008, it seemed to me that many of the people who were working in the city were seriously damaging their health motivated purely by extrinsic rewards. I had friends who were City traders who would be at their desk at 7am prior to the markets opening, having entertained clients all night. Intuitively, I knew that lack of sleep would affect their decision making, but this city culture was so prevalent that no one seemed to care even though studies had shown that lack of sleep affects the ability of people to make decisions in general. Individuals short on sleep tend to have relatively low attention to detail, poor memory, poor performance and significant mood swings.