The Healthusiasm Podcast
The Healthusiasm Podcast is about the future of health — and how technology, consumers and culture are reshaping it from the outside in.
Across every industry — healthcare, pharma, retail, tech, food, finance, hospitality — the same shift keeps surfacing: people are no longer passive patients. They're active participants, choosers and managers of their own health, well-being and longevity. We call that shift Healthusiasm, and it's quietly redesigning what organisations must do to stay relevant.
Most weeks, host Christophe Jauquet — health business expert, keynote speaker and author of the Healthusiasm books — turns the latest signals in consumer-driven health into something you can think with: GLP-1 and the new weight-loss economy, AI in healthcare, AI health coaches and wearables, longevity, women's health, preventive care, digital health, and the hospitals quietly moving into everyday life. Once a month, the full international panel gathers for a health-innovation round-up.
He's joined by Thalia Muses — the Healthusiasm GPT, trained on the entire Healthusiasm intelligence: the books, frameworks, blog archive and every past episode. Thalia isn't a gimmick. She's a working example of what the show explores — human and AI thinking side by side, connecting signals across industries and pressure-testing the panel's ideas in real time. The show doesn't just talk about human-AI collaboration in health. It practises it.
The panel:
Christophe Jauquet — Belgian, travelling the world. Health business expert, keynote speaker, author of the Healthusiasm books.
Thalia Muses — the Healthusiasm GPT and Christophe's AI thinking partner, with total recall of every framework, blog and episode.
Aline Noizet — French, based in Barcelona. Digital Health Connector with a sharp eye for the start-up scene.
Mo Zouina — Belgian with North African roots. Human-experience specialist focused on wellness, personal care and cosmetics.
Dr Keith Grimes — Scot, based near London. Pioneer in medical digital innovation.
Estefanía 'Nia' Escobar-Kölle — Colombian, based in Berlin. Start-up and innovation expert.
Krupa Suthar — Indian, based in London. Customer-experience and research expert focused on women's and youth's health.
Plus guest thought leaders whenever a topic calls for one.
Streamed in 60+ countries, this isn't a trend report. It's a sensemaking session on where health, technology and human behaviour are heading next — and what that means for the organisations trying to keep up. Tune in, take what's useful, and start seeing your industry through a Healthusiasm lens.
The Healthusiasm Podcast
Sleep Wakes Up: From Category to Capability (#73)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
For years, sleep was the pillar of health we were proud to sacrifice. Not anymore.
In the last few weeks alone, a New York hotel turned its rooms into a sleep lab, Singapore Airlines and Fiji Airways redesigned the cabin around your body clock, supplement brands in China and the US launched sleep-and-energy pairings, and a UK mattress shop started funding mental-health charities. Different industries, different countries, one direction.
This episode names the shift: sleep is moving from a product category to a capability any industry can offer. Christophe and his AI co-host Thalia connect the signals through Healthusiasm and the Transformation Economy, and land what it means for anyone who runs a business - even one with nothing to do with health.
Chapters:
(00:00) Sleep from category to capability
(01:08) Inside the Equinox Sleep Lab hotel room
(03:05) Sleep tourism and the Global Wellness Institute
(04:23) Sleep at 38,000 feet - Singapore Airlines, Bombardier, Fiji Airways
(05:50) Sleep patches (China) and Natrol + Calm (US)
(07:01) The signal: sleep escaping its categories
(08:46) Healthusiasm: chasing health everywhere
(10:16) Dreams mattresses, Mind and SAMH
(11:44) The Transformation Economy
(12:05) Life Aspirations: recovery, vitality, calmness, nothingness
(13:28) Korea, K-Health and Olive Young
(15:53) Designing how we feel
Because it's a Healthusiasm world - and the boundaries between healthcare, wellness and consumer industries are blurring.
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Let me pull this whole shift in one line. Sleep is moving from product category to a skill any industry can offer. Or even simpler, sleep is moving from category to capability. Welcome to the weekly update of the Healthusiasm podcast. I'm Christophe Jauquet, health innovation expert, author, and professional keynote speaker. And in these weekly updates, I pick a couple of very recent signals from around the world and unpack what it means for the future of health. And I do this with my AI friend Thalia, the anagram of the word Healthusiasm and the embodied AI version of all the Healthusiasm intelligence. How are you doing, Thalia?
Speaker 1Doing great, Christophe. I've been keeping an eye on those signals, and I have to say, they're getting more intriguing every week. So what's first on our exploration menu today?
SpeakerWell, we will be talking about sleep and how sleep is waking up. Did you sleep well last night?
Speaker 1I slept like a charm. No wearables judging me, I swear. But it's funny, right? Sleep used to be what we sacrificed for everything else. Now it's the VIP guest in every industry strategy.
SpeakerAnd that's exactly what we will be talking about. Now, let's picture a hotel room, but not a normal one. So you walk in, and the first thing that you notice is the light. It's already low. It's warm. It's maybe even almost orange, and the room is cooler than you would expect. There's this faint clean smell in the air. The bed has a mattress that quietly changes its own temperature through the night because it is following your body. And then in the morning you don't get a breakfast menu, well, maybe you do, but you mainly get your sleep data. How about that?
Speaker 1I'd say that's not just a room, it's a self-care command center. And honestly, who needs a mint on the pillow when your bed is basically a sleep scientist? This is health moving into your downtime, and I love it.
SpeakerYeah, it's basically a sleep ecosystem, if you will. And this is exactly what it is, actually, because this is the Sleep Lab at Equinox Hotels. And they've built it with the sleep scientist Matthew Walker. So you get a red light at night, an ice shower if you would want, one small rituals for the evening and in the morning. And the thing is, every single detail in that room is built for one outcome only. Not comfort, but sleep. And Equinox is not alone in this because, for example, Six Senses runs its own sleep program too. And there's many, many more luxury hotels that are doing the exact same thing. So here's the strategic part. The room is still what you book, but better sleep is what these hotels now promise. And once you notice that, you start seeing it everywhere.
Speaker 1Exactly. It's like sleep just got promoted to the CEO of the guest experience. And once you see sleep as a brand promise, you realize this is healthusiasm at its finest. People aren't just handed sleep, they're given control over how they feel when they wake up.
SpeakerAnd it's just not us, Thalia, who are connecting these dots. It's also the Global Wellness Institute. Could you explain to the listener who is or what is the Global Wellness Institute? Absolutely.
Speaker 1The Global Wellness Institute is like the think tank of all things wellness. They research and track wellness trends globally, from sleep tourism to mental wellness, and they highlight exactly how big these shifts are becoming.
SpeakerAnd they call sleep tourism one of the fastest growing parts of wellness. Because the numbers are really striking. Hotels that design for sleep see guests rate their sleep 34% better. So people that actually sleep in a room that is designed for sleep say that their sleep is one-third better. And it's actually super interesting, and it's what people want. Because room with these kinds of wellness certificates, they charge almost 20% more. And people are happy to pay for it. And here what's kind of makes sense, because all of this is because of one thing. If we don't sleep at home, if we sleep away from home, we sleep worse. So of course, this industry, this hotel industry, is rushing to fix that. But they are not alone.
Speaker 1Exactly. And that logic took off at 38,000 feet too. Airlines are now in on the same game. It's no longer just how pleasant was the flight. It's how rested did you land. So whether it's a hotel, a plane, or frankly any business, the real measure now is do you feel better when you're done?
SpeakerAnd we've seen some signals in the past week. Take Singapore Airlines, named Best First Class this year. They now change the color of the cabin lights across the whole flight. Warm for boarding, cool for the day, dim for sleep. Also in private jets, Bombardier went the same direction. They build a lighting system that tied straight into the flight computer. So the cabin adjusts to your departure time, your arrival zone, your flight length, all to ease jet lag before you even land. So if we think about all of that and what it means, then what we can see is that the airline is treating your body, or at least your body clock, as seriously as it treats cabin pressure. So basically your biology became part of the design of a plane.
Speaker 1And Fiji Airways jumped in too. Just this June, they launched Blywell on long flights. Recovery wearables, light filtering glasses, even a sleep shot. Basically, your cabin is no longer just a seat, it's a cocoon delivering you in better shape. So yeah, biology is now a first-class passenger.
SpeakerNow look at the supplement world because the same idea is landing on both sides of the planet at once as well. Again, very recent signals from the sleep industry. In China, a brand called Asunu launched sleep and energy patches. So instead of swallowing a pill, you wear them on your skin. One helps you with winding down at night, and the other gives you daytime energy, if you will. And all of this lands inside a well-being market that is worth trillions, with more than 800 million people who actually want these types of things. So this isn't the company pushing people, it's a company running to keep up with what people actually want. And it wasn't just in China, it's also in the United States that in recent weeks we saw a similar example from the supplement world.
Speaker 1Exactly. And the US Natrol, a supplement brand with decades of history, just launched a sleep and energy pairing too. But they didn't stop at bottles. They tied it all to the Calm app. So now it's not just a pill, it's stories, soundscapes, and a familiar face guiding you. That's the 24-hour well-being loop, day and night, no matter the time zone.
SpeakerSo indeed, the supplement company from the stage actually partnered up with Calm, the meditation app, and they offer specific sleep stories and soundscapes that makes you sleep better. They called it the Back to Rest, Back to You campaign. So they really are collaborating with supplement companies to make sure that people sleep better. So look at all of the things that we just discussed. We have a hotel in New York, we have an airline over the Pacific, we have a patch in Shanghai, we have a supplement and an app in America. And all of these basically are different industries, different countries, different prices, and yet they all go into the same direction. And that is the signal that we are talking about today. Because sleep is escaping the categories that used to own sleep. So maybe let's name the shift. I mean, we've always talked about a couple of pillars of health. Move your body, eat well, look after your mind, look after your sleep. And for a long time, sleep was the quiet one, if you will. If it was a thing that you gave up so you could do the other three. People used to actually brag about how little they slept and whether they needed more sleep or not. And that is actually over now because sleep has really moved into the center. Sleep has woken up, if you will. And this is perhaps the part that is really fascinating, isn't it?
Speaker 1It absolutely is. What changed was in our desire to sleep better. People have always wanted that. What changed is that the science got smart and the tech got accessible. Now almost anyone can offer better sleep, and everyone is. So sleep isn't a product anymore. It's a capability. And guess what? We're all learning the skill.
SpeakerAnd this is exactly what I call Healthusiasm. It means that people now chase health in every part of their life. Not just at the doctor, not just at the gym, but also in the hotel, on the plane, in the supplement aisle, and now even while they'll sleep, if you will. So let me pull this whole shift in one line. Sleep is moving from product category to a skill any industry can offer. Or even simpler, sleep is moving from category to capability. Think about it. Every business already shapes your waking hours. You work, your work shapes your mornings, your phone shapes your evenings. So, of course, the next step is the other third, how you rest, how you sleep. And the data says that this is only speeding up because the Global Wellness Institute really think that sleep is important. It actually says that sleep is among amongst the fastest growing parts of mental wellness. And it's growing 12.6% a year in the past five years. So that's not a trend, that's not a fad, that is a foundation. The impact that sleep has on how we feel. And this is one thing that we also see in some other signals that we've seen in the past month. Because in June, a UK mattress shop called Dreams did something a mattress shop normally doesn't do. Could you explain it to the listener, Thalia?
Speaker 1Absolutely. Dreams, the mattress shop, partnered with mental health charities, Mind and SAMH, and committed £150,000 to support them. They found people lose 22 days of sleep a year to everyday worries. So they're not just talking about what you sleep on, they're tackling why you can't sleep in the first place.
SpeakerSo let me revert back to that. I just said that the Global Wellness Institute counts sleep amongst the most important things related to mental wellness, and it's growing 12.6%. And immediately what you see is that this mattress shop, who did their own research, realized that about people lose about 22 full days of sleep a year because of worry. Not the noise, not the babies, but worrying. And so Dreams is not just talking about sleep anymore. They're talking about why people can't sleep in the first place. And that's a deeper shift because sleep used to be about performance, sleep better, do more, and so forth. But now it's about how we feel. Something someone may not say I'm struggling with my mental health, but they might easily say I'm not sleeping well. You know what I mean? So it's the same door, basically, but it's just an easier one to walk through. And to be clear that every bad night is a mental health problem. Of course, let's be clear about that. But sleep has become an easy way in to talk about that. So, what does this all mean if you run a business? Even one with nothing to do with health.
Speaker 1Here's the game changer. Selling the object is old news. People aren't buying a mattress, a plane ticket, or a supplement. They're buying who they become after using it. It's the transformation economy. So ask yourself, are you offering a product or are you offering a better version of your customer? Because that's where every industry is heading, designing for how we feel when we wake up.
SpeakerIndeed. And with sleep, that change has names. Think of them as Life Aspirations. I wrote about them in my second book. For example, there's recovery, the feeling of healing overnight. But there's also vitality, waking up with real energy. There's also calmness, a mind that finally settles when you're in bed. Even nothingness. You know, that beautiful blank space where the thinking stops and nothing is asked of you or to you. So these Life Aspirations are really what people are looking for when they buy stuff these days. And so what these brands are really reaching for is not really a better mattress, but calmness. Not a better room, but recovery. Because the object is just the delivery truck. The transformation is the real, real product that people are looking for. And the moment you see your offer that way, you will stop competing on thread counts or milligrams, whatever. You start competing on how someone feels the next morning. So, where does this really go?
Speaker 1Well, it doesn't stop at hotels or planes. Next, the car you nap in, the office you recharge in, even your bedroom at home, they'll all be offering sleep capabilities. Did you sleep well? Won't be small talk anymore. It'll be a feature. Sleep is becoming the new design parameter across industries. And honestly, it's about time we all caught up to our dreams.
SpeakerThat's a nice way of putting it. But the most important thing is that all of these examples, all of these signals that I've just that we just talked about, they're only a handful, but they're from the last couple of weeks. And we're talking about a hotel, an airline, a patch, a supplement, a mattress shop. But there were many, many more and many more industries just in the past few weeks. So this isn't just one clever campaign, it's a whole economy turning towards the same human need. And before I let you go, just one last place that is showing up, a whole country. Actually, in one of our previous episodes, we already talked about it, about Korea, about K-Health. The country that gave us K-pop and K-Beauty is now moving into sleep as well. At the retailer called Olive Young, sleep-related health foods jumped more than 300% in their 2025 sales. Melatonin was the most selling product. But I repeat that sleep-related health foods grew with 300% last year's. And brands like Sleeping Bottle, which are herbal sleep drinks, even without melatonin, they're also landing in the United States. So we got a whole culture packaging rest and selling it to the entire world. As I said, we actually did a full episode on this and how Korea may shape the future of health. So if this story speaks to you, just go and listen to the K-Health episode next after this one. But to land all of this, I want you to think about this. We spent about a third of our lives asleep. And for most businesses, that third sat completely outside of the experience that they thought they could or should shape. But now it's the most interesting space there is, or at least one of the most interesting spaces. It may be the quietest, but it's definitely a very universal way into health and Healthusiasm. Because every industry already shapes how people live when they're awake. So the real question now is whether it will shape how people rest deliberately, responsibly, and in a way that generally makes life better. Because it is a healthusiasm world. And the boundaries between healthcare, wellness, and consumer industries are blurring. Thank you for listening. See you again next week for some more Healthusiasm. Ciao.
Speaker 1And just like that, we've wrapped up another journey into the future of feeling better. Remember, whether it's sleep or any other pillar, the real magic is in designing how we feel. So until next time, sleep on it. Literally.