The burnout economy

Summary

Today, Explained – "The Burnout Economy" (May 1, 2026)

Podcast: Today, Explained (Vox)
Hosts: Noelle King, Peter Balin on Rosen
Guests: Kelly Maria Korducky (journalist), Dr. Matt Walker (sleep scientist)
Theme: A century after the five-day workweek became the norm, America remains deeply burned out. The episode investigates the modern "burnout economy" — spotlighting life and executive function coaches, and the rise of luxury “sleep tourism” as desperate attempts to combat exhaustion when systemic problems go untreated.

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Episode Overview

The show marks the 100th anniversary of Ford’s five-day workweek, reflecting on America’s unending struggle with burnout. Hosts Noelle King and Peter Balin on Rosen explore why—despite endless self-help trends and new industries catering to the overwhelmed—we remain exhausted. The episode features insights from a journalist who tried executive function coaching and a behind-the-scenes look at the burgeoning sleep tourism industry, tapping experts (and some luxury hotel marketing speak) along the way.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Enduring Legacy of Overwork

• Noelle King opens the episode by revisiting the birth of the five-day workweek (00:01), highlighting its capitalist intent rather than benevolent origins. Yet, a century later, burnout prevails, prompting a proliferation of modern “solutions”: life coaches, sleep vacations, and more.

2. Executive Function Coaching – What Is It and Who Is It For?

Guest: Kelly Maria Korducky, journalist

• Definition: “Executive functioning is the brain's ability to kind of manage tasks. It's sort of your internal project manager...the ability to manage time, to prioritize, to switch between tasks....” (01:45, Korducky)
• Who hires these coaches? Primarily white-collar, knowledge workers who can afford private coaching. “Yeah, for the most part, it is white collar professionals who work in what we would consider...knowledge work.” (03:27, Korducky)
• Coaches’ backgrounds: Often former corporate accessibility staffers displaced by layoffs who transition into private practice (02:42).
• Methodology: Focus on hyper-specific, non-judgmental “first steps.” Example: breaking a project into something as small as “open this book” to bypass the shame cycle and procrastination (03:44–04:41).
• Accountability & emotional neutrality: External accountability and a non-judgmental gentle nudge are seen as key—helping clients “divorce their internal feelings and shame from the process” (04:41).
• Effectiveness: Korducky was surprised by her findings: “I was expecting to feel like I was being sold a bag of goods....I was surprised to find very satisfied clients and very invested coaches...” (06:19).
• Band-aid for bigger problems: “To a large extent, all of these remedies are band aid solutions for systemic challenges in the way that work is set up these days.” (07:23) Most people can’t “opt out”—so these provide coping tools, not real change.

3. The Rise of Sleep Tourism: Can You Buy Rest?

Host/Reporter: Peter Balin on Rosen

• The trend: More Americans are attempting to buy their way out of exhaustion via luxury “sleep tourism”—including trips expressly for the purpose of sleeping, not sightseeing or adventure (10:28–11:23).
• Market size: Sleep tourism is now a $600 billion global industry (11:23).
• Sleep vacation example: At Equinox Hotels (NYC), the experience includes IV “sleep drips,” wave table relaxation, and a high-tech “sleep lab” hotel room designed by scientists (12:19–15:24).
• On the process: From IVs filled with magnesium and vitamins, to a “wave table” waterbed touting three hours’ rest in 30 minutes, to a sleep ritual-laden room with mood lighting, rituals, and specialty teas, it’s an elaborate (and sometimes awkward) process (13:20–16:38).
• Scientific claims: Dr. Matt Walker (UT Dallas) explains how thermal regulation—the cooling of body temperature through hot showers, smart mattresses, and deliberate room climate—can enhance sleep quality (17:15–18:26). “Temperature is a huge part of that. You need to drop your brain and body temperature to fall asle and then stay asleep.” (17:44, Walker)
• Results and cost: The room costs about $2,000 a night, and that doesn’t include extras like “Gatorade colored IVs.” (19:23–19:30)

4. Can “Sleep Maxing” and Sleep Vacations Fix Real Burnout?

• Takeaways for listeners: Most of the luxury sleep tips are impractical for everyday life, but some—like keeping the room cool, dark, and avoiding screens before bed—are accessible (19:51–20:11).
• Expert advice: Dr. Walker likens high-end sleep optimization to sports coaching—it can help healthy people “optimize,” but “there's no amount of my optimizing tips that are going to help you” if you suffer from deeper issues like insomnia; you need medical help (20:31, Walker).
• Systemic stress: The sleep industry’s size reflects how desperate and weary people are. “It’s almost as though people are now having this allergic reaction against the idea of this sleep machismo attitude....people are actually saying, I am so burned out, I'm so tired that I'm going to go away to a hotel, not for a vacation, but just to try to recharge my battery.” (22:08, Walker)

5. Sleep, Self-care, and a Shift in Mindset

• Cultural shift: The “grindset” mentality is out; “pamper yourself, take care of yourself” is in. “Sleep maxing” is trending, especially on TikTok (21:12–21:59).
• Lingering doubts: Despite the hype, practical takeaways are few. Life is messy, and no luxury routine can fully protect against the chaos and friction of modern life (23:02, Balin on Rosen).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Our culture has places so much moral value on output, productivity, efficiency, drive, and that inevitably gets tied up in our ability to do stuff.” (04:41, Kelly Maria Korducky)
• “I was surprised to find very satisfied clients and very invested coaches who are quite serious about putting together the research, figuring out the methodology and doing what they can to be effective as helpers.” (06:19, Korducky)
• “But I think overall we're at a moment where we're thinking about sleep maybe a little differently than we have in the past....The grindset mindset is out. Pamper yourself, take care of yourself. That's in.” (21:12, Peter Balin on Rosen)
• “Because in the modern era, I think most people worry more about charging their phones to full at night than charging their brains to full.” (22:53, Dr. Matt Walker)
• (On sleep optimization) “There's no amount of my optimizing tips that are going to help you. We need to get you to a doctor and fix your broken ankle.” (20:31, Dr. Matt Walker)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:01 – Ford, the five-day week, and the birth of burnout
• 01:27–08:49 – Interview with Kelly Maria Korducky about executive function coaching
• 10:28–19:30 – Sleep tourism explained and experienced at Equinox Hotel
• 15:24–19:51 – Rituals and activities in the "sleep lab"; cost of luxury sleep
• 17:15–18:26 – Dr. Matt Walker on the genuine science behind sleep optimization
• 19:51–20:31 – Realistic tips for listeners; expert caveats about what sleep coaching can (and cannot) address
• 21:12–22:53 – Sleep maxing, TikTok trends, and shifting cultural attitudes
• 22:08–22:53 – Dr. Walker on the “sleep machismo” backlash and the real drive behind sleep tourism
• 23:02–end – Final takeaways and practical limits of “sleep tourism” as a burnout solution

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Conclusion

"The Burnout Economy" paints a vivid portrait of how deeply burnout pervades modern American life, and how both the coaching and hospitality industries have stepped in to monetize society’s exhaustion. While executive function coaching and luxury sleep vacations offer coping tools, they are ultimately band-aids for more profound, systemic problems. As self-care culture shifts and the “sleep maxing” movement grows, the episode reminds us: meaningful solutions to burnout require more than just a better mattress or a life coach—they require structural change.

Transcript

[Noelle King]

100 years ago today, the Ford Motor Company adopted a standard for factory workers that would come to govern many of our lives. The five day work week. Ford was losing exhausted line workers who typically worked six days. So he wasn't trying to be nice here. He wanted a more stable and productive workforce. He was a classic capitalist. If young man makes up his mind to work, there's no limit to what he can do. But we're still burned out and we're still looking for solutions to burnout. Today on today explained 100 years after Henry Ford said, take a day off guys. We're hiring life coaches. We're neutralizing our shame. Lol. We're going on sleep vacations. We're literally going on a sleep vacation. It's not gonna be like when you have anesthesia and then you wake up, but you might feel a little mellow and is it working? That's coming. Support for TODAY Explained comes from Starbucks the energy of Friday is unmatched. With work winding down and plans powering up. And what better drink to reach for than the new Starbucks Energy Refresher. With flavors like Mango, Dragon Fruit, Strawberry, Acai, Mango Strawberry, you can get the boost you need on this particular Friday. Try the all new energy refreshers at Starbucks.

[Producer or Host (possibly Peter Balin on Rosen or Danielle Hewitt)]

You're listening to Today Explained.

[Noelle King]

Kelly Maria Korducky is a freelance journalist who contributes to Business Insider for bi. She wrote this piece about a kind of life coach that claims to help people who are being run ragged by work and family with their executive functioning. They're called, no surprise, executive function coaches.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

So executive functioning is the brain's ability to kind of manage tasks. It's sort of your internal project manager, the ability to manage time, to prioritize, to switch between tasks, to get started on a project, to get stopped on a project. Basically the ability to kind of do the things that need to be done. An executive functioning coach might be doing pretty similar things to any kind of like work coach or career coach or life coach, but the way that they're positioning what they're offering is a bit different. So they're really focusing on the cognitive framing of what's involved in in the whole process that they'll be working on with their client. I'm a certified executive function coach and

[Noelle King]

my clients come to me all the time with questions on how to get started. Welcome Back to episode 12 of what the F. Where we look at executive

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

function strategies for the adult world.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

I am so excited to show you my very favorite prioritization tool. It is one that I use personally in times of executive function overwhelm, the coaches are often people who have work in corporate settings as kind of accessibility staff, who in many cases those departments have been narrowed down and there have been layoffs. So they've gone on their own and taken what they've learned professionally into a private coaching setting.

[Noelle King]

I would imagine that the people hiring executive coaches are white collar professionals with some amount of money. Am I getting the demo right?

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

Yeah, for the most part, it is white collar professionals who work in what we would consider. Yeah, knowledge work. So some organizational skills dependent. Cognitive skills dependent. Creative, managerial. Often.

[Noelle King]

You did a couple sessions with one of these coaches?

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

Yeah, so yeah, I did two sessions with actually one of my sources just to kind of understand what this involved. And it was really interesting. We spent a lot of time talking about, like, very, very specific, very, very granular challenges that I was encountering in like, ultra specific projects. And just distilling the first step down to, like, the small, smallest, least scary. Like, open this book. Literally, that was one of the steps. Like, okay, you need to open this book. So just, just open this book without judgment. But, you know, see how it feels.

[Noelle King]

You know, you need to open the book. This is the great thing about procrastinators. You know exactly what you need to do.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Why are you. Why are you hiring someone to tell

[Noelle King]

you to open the book when you know what you got to do? Or like, how does this actually help?

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

For some reason, having this external accountability factor and also a gentle nudge, because my internal nudge is not gentle. Like, I may be putting off opening the book, but I'm also like, flagellating myself for not opening the book. And then the shame cycle just keeps perpetuating and accelerating, and suddenly this very small first step becomes enormous in my mind. So the coach is sort of like a feelings neutralizer. Okay, maybe the primary function of the coach is to help the client divorce their internal feelings and shame from the process of doing what they need to do. Our culture has places so much moral value on output, productivity, efficiency, drive, and that inevitably gets tied up in our ability to do stuff. And the way that we think about doing stuff and can make mountains out of molehills sometimes in the process can be very counterproductive.

[Noelle King]

Did any of the coaches have any, like, tips or tricks that really surprised you? No.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

It doesn't have to be surprising to work. Right. The interesting thing for me was not so much the methodology, but the efficacy of the methodology. I wasn't expecting to become a convert

[Noelle King]

at all.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

I was expecting to feel like I was being sold a bag of goods. This is an unregulated industry of self appointed professional helpers. Right. I was surprised to find very satisfied clients and very invested coaches who are quite serious about putting together the research, figuring out the methodology and doing what they can to be effective as helpers.

[Producer or Host (possibly Peter Balin on Rosen or Danielle Hewitt)]

I break down executive functioning in a way that actually works with your brain.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Let's take a closer look at that

[Noelle King]

three step process for getting started on tasks.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

A lot of people find real benefit in seeking out coaches and they kind of fill a, an ambiguous gap in the system.

[Noelle King]

Our show's been doing a lot of reporting on burnout, which is fairly rampant at this point in American society. And I wonder if you think that these coaches better address the kind of exhaustion that many of us feel than, I don't know, maybe the advice that we're used to.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

No, not necessarily. I mean, I think that the, to a large extent, all of these remedies are band aid solutions for systemic challenges in the way that work is set up these days. And many white collar workers, and I think workers in general are kind of expected to always be available. And that's very, very taxing on our executive functioning. But also, yeah, our mental health, our ability to be rested and recharged and feel like we're completely present in every aspect of our lives and effective in every aspect of our lives. A lot of people don't really have any options to opt out. Like, you need to make a living. And this is, this is the system we're working with. And as nice as it is to imagine the ability to opt out, you know, if that were so easy, wouldn't we all be doing it? I would love to opt out, but I unfortunately cannot. So, yeah, I think that coaches fit into this toolkit of strategies and approaches that can help make the whole big mess a little bit more workable.

[Noelle King]

Kelly Maria Korducky is a freelance journalist who contributes to Business Insider. Coming up, you want proof that we're really exhausted and that we'll buy just about anything. People are going on vacation just to go to bed. Sleep tourism is a multi billion dollar and growing industry. Peter Balanon Rosen goes on sleep safari. When we return,

[Producer or Host (possibly Peter Balin on Rosen or Danielle Hewitt)]

This is advertiser content from Starbucks.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Claire, it's Friday. I'm excited. Are you excited?

[Producer or Host (possibly Peter Balin on Rosen or Danielle Hewitt)]

I'm so excited. I'm so energized. There's so many people I'm gonna see. There's so much I'm gonna get done. I. Yep, I'll say it. Thank God it's Friday.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

You should say it. I mean, speaking of tgif, have you heard of the TGIF effect? It's a real psychological phenomenon.

[Producer or Host (possibly Peter Balin on Rosen or Danielle Hewitt)]

Tell me more.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

In a study at the University of Rochester, they found that adults between the ages of 18 and 62 reported higher energy levels and better moods between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.

[Producer or Host (possibly Peter Balin on Rosen or Danielle Hewitt)]

Well, your team at Today Explained is reporting on the news five days a week. I'm sure it's really nice to get that break over the weekend. Is there anything else behind the TGIF effect?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

They attribute it to the big break that you get on the weekend, but also the freedom to choose your own activities and to hang with your faves.

[Producer or Host (possibly Peter Balin on Rosen or Danielle Hewitt)]

Well, and on that note, I'll see you on Monday.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Peace.

[Producer or Host (possibly Peter Balin on Rosen or Danielle Hewitt)]

Embrace the weekend's energy with Starbucks new energy refreshers. They're a refreshing way to stay present through the moments that matter most. Try the all new energy refresher at Starbucks.

[Noelle King]

O to 10 explained.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

I'm Peter Balin on Rosen and I'm a producer with Today Explained.

[Noelle King]

Beautiful. Okay, so the people who do marketing have been marketing a solution to burnout. A sexy new solution. And the sexy new solution is go to sleep.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Indeed. Indeed. Yes, sleep is very important, but it can be really hard to get right. Like I've got a one and a half year old, so this is what bedtime can sound like at my house. It's okay, bud, I'm just changing your diaper. But hotels are now offering these luxury sleep vacations, tailor made packages designed for sleep tourists. The growing number of people who say they're going on vacation not to go shopping or see wildlife, but just to catch a few Zs.

[Noelle King]

This makes sense to me. Although I always thought of the catching of a few Zs a part of the vacation. Like yes, I will go and see the tigers or whatever, but I would like to get eight hours of sleep when I'm on vacation. You're telling me that they're saying this is something new?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Yes, sleeping on vacation has been around as long as vacations have been around. But these new things are specific hotel packages designed to be all about sleep. And it's actually for this new global sleep tourism industry that's worth about $600 billion.

[Noelle King]

$600 billion is a lot of money.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Yeah. Part of that is because they're offering these luxury sleep packages designed hand in hand with sleep sc. Right. So now we've got sleep tourism options in Fiji, Portugal, Hawaii. I couldn't make it to Fiji myself, but I did go to one in New York City where I live At Equinox Hotels, the luxury hotel cousin of the luxury gym. This is your first time staying with us in the hotel? It is, yes. We're happy to have you. Happy to be here. And Katie Tardif, who's their head of marketing, she was ready to drop some marketing jargon about what they have to offer.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

We basically took luxury hospitality and we

[Noelle King]

deconstructed it and we rebuilt something entirely

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

designed around human potential and human performance. Within a 24 hour day, they are

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

ready, willing and able to sell you a package to help you sleep.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

It is engineered to provide deep, restorative sleep, solid REM sleep, and leave you feeling more refreshed.

[Noelle King]

Okay.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Now, as an intrepid sleep reporter and a sleep deprived dad, I wanted to understand the mechanics of this and to know if being a sleep tourist could unlock better ways to sleep in general. Like, could I take any of my tourism home with me? So I approached my sleep journey in three legs, and in the first leg, I asked, could I, a sleep tourist, get as relaxed as humanly possible? So I hit the Equinox Spa to get what they call a sleep iv.

[Noelle King]

Have you ever done an IV before?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Like at the hospital maybe?

[Noelle King]

Okay, never, like recreationally.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

No. But there I was, sitting by a window, classical music floating through the air, sipping my lemon water, about to pump myself full of this bright yellow Gatorade looking cocktail of things like magnesium, taurine, vitamin C, B, zinc, All these things they said supposedly prime my body for good sleep.

[Noelle King]

Of course, I'm poking you with a needle so you're going to feel a little bit of a pinch.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

All right, I'm a little freaked out by needles. You do this all the time, right?

[Noelle King]

I hear that all the time. And I do, in fact, do this all the time.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Freaky needle aside, an hour and a hang in the sauna later, I was feeling pretty zonked. I am fighting to keep going right now. But I knew I couldn't stop yet. I had more relaxation to do. Which brings us to leg two of my journey. Now that I had found relaxation, could I squeeze the most out of it? So I did this thing called the wave table. It's marketed as a way to get the equivalent of three hours of sleep in just 30 minutes, where you basically lie on this waterbed under a weighted blanket and listen to these sounds that are supposed to help slow down your brain. To me, it just kind of sounded like this ambient oceanscape. Because I'm a nerd, rather than napping, I was focused on the sound design of it all. Wave after wave, after wave. But then. I can't believe this. I have to pee again. So, yeah, it's all a bit woo woo. And all that water. Maybe not the best thing for getting some enhanced disease.

[Noelle King]

Oh yeah, yeah. No, you got stuck with a needle, terrifying yourself.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

You had to pee.

[Noelle King]

Peter, you will recall that the point of this was to get some sleep. Did any sleeping actually happen?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Yes, the sleeping part of the journey. I wanted to see if the tools of science could help with that. So I entered what they call their sleep lab.

[Noelle King]

What does that mean?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

It's a hotel room which promised a full on scientifically tailored premium sleep experience. Like this room. It's got a room bar, but instead of Diet Cokes and chips, it's full of supplements and juices and patches to help you sleep. It's got a smart mattress that adjusts things for you overnight. And it came equipped with all these activities and exercises that help you get good sleep. So I set out to do every single thing they recommended. And it played out just like Katie, our Equinox rep, said it would.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

You have a set of AM and

[Noelle King]

PM rituals on the table.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Number one, let go of the tension by inhaling for a count of and then exhaling. Number two, count of six, mentally note one more. There were breathing exercises. Color therapy.

[Noelle King]

In this 30 minute color meditation session, we invite you to unwind.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Number three, Lie flat on your back. Take six deep inhales and exhales.

[Noelle King]

We also walk you through a series

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

of very specific breath work.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Number seven, lower stress inducing cortisol levels

[Noelle King]

by closing body work techniques. Lower your arm and thread it under the opposite arm.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

More breathing exercises. Number nine. For an added libido boost, we'll skip that.

[Noelle King]

Drink our proprietary Equinox sleep inducing teas. Drink dark tart cherry juice.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Drink something else. I'm gonna have to pee on it. Taking a steam shower. Almost two hours of activities later, I was finally done and the room goes to sleep with you. The shades automatically drop. The room cools off. The mattress does too. And then darkness.

[Noelle King]

It is

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

literally so pitch black in here.

[Noelle King]

Okay, so they claim that this is scientific. I'm willing to believe it scientifically. What was happening with all this?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Well, to figure that out, I spoke with Dr. Matt Walker, who's a professor of neuroscience and biomedical engineering at UT Dallas. Now this guy, he's not just a professor. He is like the face of sleep in America today. He teaches the literal masterclass, you know, like masterclass on how to sleep. And he helped design this room so

[Dr. Matt Walker]

it's a Whole theatrical sort of thermal and sensory ballet, all of which is designed around the biology of what your

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

body needs to get sleep. Your body needs to do a ton of dancing, it turns out. Matt tells me temperature is a huge part of that. You need to drop your brain and body temperature to fall asle and then stay asleep. So that hot, hot steam shower I

[Dr. Matt Walker]

took, it draws all of the hot trapped blood in the core of your body out to the surface, and your core body temperature after a hot bath actually plummets. And that's the reason you fall asleep and stay asleep more soundly.

[Noelle King]

Huh?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Fascinating, right?

[Noelle King]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

And then they have this whole special mattress in their room.

[Dr. Matt Walker]

Remember, we keep cooling the mattress as you're going into the middle of the night, into the deep stages of deep non rem sleep to get you there. And.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

And then to wake up, your body kind of has to do that whole dance again, but in reverse, warm the

[Dr. Matt Walker]

body back up again because it's become cool.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

And the wake up was honestly, really nice. The room came alive around me. The room and mattress had warmed, the shades lifted. These ambient alarm clock sounds floated through the. And there I was. Soft, light, pleasant feelings all around.

[Noelle King]

So you did it? You. You got to sleep? Were you. Did you wake up well rested?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

I kind of wished I'd had, like, one of those video game health measures floating above my head so I could tell where my levels truly were at. But it was a lot of work to go to sleep. But once I did wake up, I did feel pretty nice.

[Noelle King]

One thing that is striking me in this moment is that none of this sounds particularly cheap. How much did this cost you?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Well, to get one of these rooms, depending on how far you book in advance, it'll run you about 2,000 bucks a night.

[Noelle King]

$2,000?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

And that's just for the room. Not even the Gatorade colored IV that I did.

[Producer or Host (possibly Peter Balin on Rosen or Danielle Hewitt)]

Hmm.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

Okay.

[Noelle King]

You and I have talked about this. I am not a sound sleeper. I have not been since, I don't know, for many years. I don't have. I don't have $2,000 a night. What's the. What are the lessons for those of us who were not lucky enough to have experienced this with you? Give me some tips.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Sure, sure. I think there's things like keeping your temperature cooler, taking a hot bath or shower before bed, keeping things as dark as possible. You can do that even if you're not out on a sleep vacation. Another thing, though, doing all those sleep activities actually did keep me off my phone before bed.

[Kelly Maria Korducky]

Huh.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

And that's pretty good for sleep too.

[Dr. Matt Walker]

Best you can 20 minutes before bed

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

digital detox But I actually asked Matt about whether this could help someone like you who has bad insomnia or someone else who might be so burned out that they can't sleep. And he says a sleep vacation, even in his carefully designed lab, it's not necessarily going to change things.

[Dr. Matt Walker]

Think of us perhaps as a really good sports coach who can help with optimizing your sleep performance versus let's say that you're an athlete and you've got a broken ankle. Well, there's no amount of my optimizing tips that are going to help you. We need to get you to a doctor and fix your broken ankle.

[Noelle King]

I trust him. But I will tell you that even If I had $2,000 a night to spend on this, I would not do it. I am too skeptical. However, you said this is a $600 billion industry, which means lots of people are willing to spend the two grand a night. What do you think that's telling us about where we are at the moment?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

I'll say. As I was looking into all of this sleep tourism, there did seem to be some more branding than substance at times. Like, you would see a place boast about their sleep tourism option on their website and then I'd go and look and it'd be like, oh, they offer you a sleep mask and a comfy pillow, but not necessarily anything like that seemed super sciency. But I think overall we're at a moment where we're thinking about sleep maybe a little differently than we have in the past. Right. Like the grindset mindset is out. Pamper yourself, take care of yourself. That's in sleep. Maxing is a thing that's all over TikTok with people offering tips on how to hack your sleep. Considering the fact that you spend one third of your life sleeping, it would make sense that you learn the best way to sleep. Welcome to sleep maxing 101.

[Noelle King]

Cold room 67 is ideal. No light.

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Nat Walker told me that the fact that there's a tourism market for this, it proves something he's known for a long time.

[Dr. Matt Walker]

Sleep has had this stigma of laziness that if you're getting and giving yourself the chance to get enough sleep that you're slothful. But it's almost as though people are now having this allergic reaction against the idea of this sleep machismo attitude because there are certain sectors, particularly of the workplace, where there's this almost competitive under sleeping that we're seeing. But now people are actually saying, I am so burned out, I'm so tired that I'm going to go away to a hotel, not for a vacation, but just to try to recharge my battery. Because in the modern era, I think most people worry more about charging their phones to full at night than charging their brains to full.

[Noelle King]

Did you take anything away from the hotel? Like, not. Did you steal anything? But the stuff that they taught you, did you keep doing any of it?

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

Right. That's kind of what I went in looking for. Like, could I as a tourist take any of this home with me? And honestly, only some of it. Like, I don't have a fancy bed, but I can breathe at home or try to keep my room cool. But all those exercises, they prompted me to do in that room. Just not realistic to do all the time. Because life is busy, it's messy, it's full of friction and challenges, things that aren't great for sleep but are part of having a full life. All right, should we say her good night?

[Noelle King]

Yeah,

[Peter Balin on Rosen]

go to sleep and good night.

[Noelle King]

That was Peter Balin on Rosen. Today's show was co produced by Peter and Danielle Hewitt. It was edited by Jenny Lawton and engineered by David Tadashore and Bridger Dunnigan. Gabriel Donatov is our fact checker. The rest of the team includes Hadi Muagdi, Miles Bryan, Patrick Boyd, Kelly Wessinger, Ariana Espudu, Dustin desoto and Sean Ramas. Firm MGMT is Abishai Artsy, Amina Elsadi and Jolie Myers. Our EP is Miranda Kennedy and we use music by Breakmaster Cylinder. Tomorrow America actually takes a look at 250 Years of America in the feed in the AM. You can also watch it on Vox's YouTube channel. Today Explain is distributed by WNYC. See the show is a part of the Vox Media podcast network. Podcast Vox Media.com you can listen ad free by signing [e-mail] members. I am Noelle King and it's Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Starbucks. Perhaps you're clocking out today with TGIF on your lips. You can keep the good vibes going with an energy boost with Starbucks new energy refreshers. Their handcrafted energy refreshers can be the perfect thing to round out your Friday afternoon with flavors such as strawberry acai or even mango Dragon fruit. Try the all new energy refreshers at Starbucks.