Sleep Health Manager Certificate

At present, there is no such thing as "sleep health manager" in the catalog of professional qualifications in my country. All relevant certificates on the market are certificates of competency issued by third-party training institutions and industry associations. They have no professional validity, and there is no such thing as "national unified examination, national recognition, and employment with a certificate." The level of gold content is completely tied to the industry voice of the certification agency and the practical value of supporting training.

Last month, I met Sister Zhang who runs a community health center at a sleep industry salon in Hangzhou. She said that she had been chased by salespeople for half a month and spent 3980 to apply for a "sleep health manager guarantee to pass the class." With the certificate in hand, she went to the district hospital to inquire. The personnel glanced at the name of the issuing association on the certificate and directly told her that they did not recognize the certificate. To work as a sleep technician, you must have a medical and health-related professional qualification certificate. Sister Zhang almost fainted on the spot. When she asked the institution to refund the money, she was deducted a "course service fee" of 1,800.

The evaluation of this certificate in the industry is now completely polarized. Those who say it is an IQ tax are equally divided, while those who say it is useful are equally divided. No one can convince anyone. Most of the people who think it is completely useless have been through the trap, or they spent a lot of money to buy a certificate issued by the Pheasant Association. There is no training content. They memorize the questions for 3 days and then finish the test. No one will recognize it when they take it out. ； Either they went there for the gimmick of "high-paying employment," but after taking the exam, they discovered that they couldn't find the job with a monthly salary starting at 8,000 yuan as advertised, and felt that they had been cheated.

But I also know a lot of people who think this certificate is quite practical. For example, Xiao Zhou, who was an intern here before, originally worked in psychological counseling. He wanted to expand his sleep consulting business, so he found a class offered by the training center affiliated to the China Sleep Research Association. The training and certification cost less than 4,000, and the course included 20 hours of CBT-I (insomnia). Cognitive behavioral therapy) practice, and there is also a one-week internship opportunity in an offline sleep center. She can start to read polysomnography reports. The certificate obtained after graduation is well recognized in the domestic sleep industry. She now takes orders for sleep consultation and hangs the certificate in her profile. The trust of customers is indeed much higher than before, and the unit price has also increased by more than 200.

Seriously, if you really plan to take this certificate, don’t listen to the salesperson’s nonsense about “nationally recognized” and “professional qualifications”. Just check two things first. The first is the certification agency, which is now relatively highly recognized in the industry. They are either issued by training departments affiliated with formal national industry associations such as the China Sleep Research Association, or by continuing education programs of domestic head sleep companies or formal medical schools. If you search for the certification agency for a long time and can’t even find an official website, they are all advertisements for agency recruitment, which is 100% a scam. The second is to look at the training content. If the entire course is all about "testing the key points" and "guaranteeing the test" without mentioning any practical content, then it will be of no use to you to take the certificate. You might as well spend dozens of dollars to buy a "Sleep Medicine" textbook and read it yourself.

Not everyone is suitable for taking this certificate. If you are engaged in health management, psychological consultation, maternal and infant care, or elderly care services, or if you open your own health center or maternity health store and want to add sleep-related services, getting a reliable certificate and learning practical skills will be very cost-effective, whether it is to endorse customers or upgrade services. But if you don’t have any foundation and expect to spend thousands of dollars to get a certificate and then directly enter the industry and get a high salary, or even work in a public hospital, I advise you to give up as soon as possible. The sleep industry really depends on skills. You can’t even tell the difference between sleep apnea and narcolepsy, and no one will dare to use you no matter how good-looking the certificate is.

I have been working in the sleep health industry for almost 5 years. I have seen "gurus" who have a bunch of certificates in their hands and can't even treat a client with insomnia. I have also seen practitioners who have no certificates but have helped hundreds of people improve their sleep with solid CBT-I technology. To put it bluntly, certificates are always the icing on the cake, not a timely help. If you really want to eat this bowl of rice, instead of worrying about which certificate is more valuable, it is better to spend more time learning how to read sleep monitoring reports and how to make personalized sleep adjustment plans for customers. It is more effective than any certificate.