Sleep payments: could they lead to better rest – and better health?

Paying people to sleep? I’m in. The idea is not without precedent – there is such a job as a professional sleeper, for research purposes.

Sounds good. Where do I sign up? A new study has taken a slightly different approach: they rewarded students with money whenever they managed more than seven hours’ sleep.

What kind of students? University of Pittsburgh undergraduates, with an average age of 19.

How much money? Not a lot – about five bucks (£3.76) each time.

Why would they do that? To see what happens.

And what happened? The students who received the money got on average 19 more minutes of sleep per school night than the ones who didn’t.

I’m no research scientist, but 19 minutes doesn’t sound like five dollars worth of sleep to me. It’s enough that those students hit the seven-hour target – considered to be an optimal amount – on 26% more nights.

Does that really make a difference? The rewarded students also saw an improvement in their marks – their GPA rose by an average of 0.08 points.

I don’t even know what GPA stands for. It stands for grade point average – imagine a scale where an A equals 4, a B is 3, and …

No maths, please. What you’re saying is, academic improvement was modest but significant. It was even more marked among first-year students.

And all it took was money? The students were also given sleep trackers that issued bedtime reminders and morning feedback, but without the monetary incentive, these had little effect.

While I like the idea of cash as a form of therapy, I worry it could get expensive in the long run. Interestingly, some of the effects of the incentive persisted: students still slept an additional eight minutes on average in the weeks after the money stopped, and their grades remained higher through the following semester.

How has news of this intriguing study been received by the British public? “Great preparation for the UK benefits life,” read one comment under the MailOnline article on the subject.

Honestly, that sounds like a wilful misreading of the study’s aims and its … “Great training for the next generation,” read a comment under a similar Times article. “Get paid $ for doing nothing.”

Do say: “Modest incentives may improve sleep and improved sleep can improve performance.”

Don’t say: “I’m going to a nightclub, so I’ll be needing this week’s sleep money upfront.”