The Sapiens Approach to Behaviour Change

In the high-stakes worlds of private equity, venture capital, consulting, and executive leadership, peak human performance isn’t a luxury - it’s a prerequisite.

And yet, data shows a sharp rise in cognitive fatigue, immune vulnerability, and sleep dysfunction among this population. These issues often remain hidden—until they compromise critical decisions and long-term strategic execution.

At Sapiens, we specialize in precision diagnostics and evidence-based behavior change for elite performers. Our method, tested with over 7,000 executives, identifies physiological bottlenecks and applies targeted interventions to unlock energy, cognition, and resilience.

‍

Data Informed Health & Performance Routines

Preventative health and human performance support with Sapiens doesn't stop with diagnostics. We also support moving from data to action and sustained new routines.

1. Stress Diagnostics - Tracking markers that are upstream of health and performance.

We begin with a multi-modal diagnostic protocol - combining salivary cortisol profiling, HRV tracking, hair steroid analysis, and validated self-assessments. This allows us to identify individual energy leaks and missed recovery opportunities with clinical-grade accuracy.

2. Habit Change Experiments - Applied behavior design - for people with no time to waste.

Once we isolate the most promising intervention points, we initiate a structured behavior change process - called Habit Change Experiments. This approach bridges diagnostics with sustained action by offering tailored, low-friction, high-yield habit protocols—impact measured with selected, personally relevant biomarkers.

The Sapiens Approach to Behaviour Change

Human behavior is optimized for inertia. The brain, an energy-efficient prediction machine, resists deviation from the familiar - even when the current patterns undermine performance and health. Add to this the hyper-scheduled lives of senior executives, and habit change becomes even more elusive.

That’s why we operationalized behavior change using principles from behavioral science, chronobiology, and stress physiology.

Every Sapiens Habit Change Experiment includes:

• One focus area per month
• 3-5 tailored interventions based on baseline diagnostics
• Daily 10-Second Whats App Check-Ins track habits and subjective impact
• 1-2 monthly biomarker for impact measurement
• Monthly personal expert check-ins
• If done in a team, you benefit from structured peer-support

Case Study: Peter – Regaining his Edge

Meet Peter - a Private Equity executive

Peter, a Private Equity executive, wasn’t feeling “burned out,” but admitted he was running at only ~70% of his capacity.

His cognitive sharpness had declined, recovery was impaired, and sleep had deteriorated after taking on additional business responsibilities.

Insights from Peters Baseline Diagnostics

With the Sapiens Stress Diagnostics he identified:

• ‍A blunted Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR) → Linked to delayed mental activation and sluggishness until mid-morning‍
• Elevated evening cortisol and reduced night-time HRV → Indicative of difficulty to wind-down after work and sympathetic overactivation at night‍
• Reduced Sleep recovery in first 3 hours of his night → Compromising physiological recovery and immune resilience

In short, his daily schedule was creating a vicious stress loop:

Late-night emotional emails → Elevated evening cortisol → Poor sleep → Late start into the day → Skipped breaks → Evening overwork → Repeat.

Peters Sapiens Habit Change Experiment: Evening Down-Regulation

Together with his Sapiens coach and after collecting 350+ data points with the Sapiens Diagnostics, he identified his 1 Change Area: Evening Down-Regulation.

Based on the Sapiens reference data, his coaches experience and Peters insights during the diagnostics debrief, they identified this was the one single change that was most likely to break the vicious stress loop he was in.

They expected the highest return on daily energy levels and performance from this intervention compared to other options they reviewed like gut health interventions, micro-nutrient therapy, post lunch recovery, … .

Peters Experiment Protocol

Peter and his coach created personalized interventions that ended up to be tailored like this:

Goal: Reducing evening activation and rumination to improve sleep architecture and raise daily energy levels

Timeline: 12 weeks

Biomarkers Tracked:

• Avg. night-time HRV (via ECG monitoring)
• Pre-bed cortisol levels with saliva samples (5 samples per month)

Daily Pulse Check:‍

• 5 second Whats App based check-in on energy and focus levels
• 5 second Whats App based habit tracking

Tailored Interventions: 

Peter and his coach selected these 5 interventions as they hypothesized these had the highest impact on his goals - reduced evening activation and increased day-time energy levels:

• A morning routine involving movement and sunlight to stabilize his cortisol awakening response
• Eating dinner early
• Digital sunset: Blocking devices prior to bed
• Cognitive offloading routine involving journaling and stretching
• Regularized bedtime

‍

Peters results & Reflections

Peter started tracking these 5 routines and while it was difficult at first to stick to a regular bedtime, measuring the biomarkers after the initial first month of doing around 70% of the routines, motivated him to double down on the experiment.

Already after month 1, Peter measured lower evening cortisol levels, +10% recovery during sleep hours and higher self-rated day-time energy levels.

Also, the results from his habit tracking and subjective impact tracking revealed a positive correlation between the early dinner and the morning light with his subjective energy and focus levels. That was motivating to see this confirmed.

‍

Within 12 weeks, his morning alertness rebounded and recovery during sleep went towards optimal with 72% of sleep hours.

‍
He described it simply: “I got my morning energy- and my edge at work - back.”

‍

The Behavioral Science Behind the Sapiens Habit Change Approach

At Sapiens, we don’t just talk about behavioral science—we build it into the Sapiens Habit Change Experiment System.

As BJ Fogg (Stanford Behavioural Scientist) stated, a new behaviour occurs when motivation, ability and prompt all work together.

Behavior = Motivation × Ability × Prompt

Sapiens Experiments operationalize this by:

• ‍Motivation: Personal biomarker baseline and progress markers makes the “why” obvious‍
• Ability: We take out all the friction of your habit change and provide you with tiered habit change levels (Light, Medium, Aspirational) to keep change doable; our platform notices when you get busy and recommends a down-scaled version of your committed habits until the intense week is over‍
• Prompt: 20-second daily check-ins drive consistency coupled with personal accountability check-ins with a Sapiens Coach.

As emotions and positive feedback loops play a large role in habit change, we don’t just recommend dry habits but we help clients to create rituals:

Rituals add meaning and structure to behavior, making habits stickier—even under stress.

We design rituals into the habit journey:

• Evening shutdown rituals, not just sleep advice
• Our coaches support you in identifying meaning behind your habits and working on the emotional root causes behind habit change obstacles‍
• Check-in rhythms that provide stability in chaotic weeks

The most important element to make the habits stick even after the 3 months experiment is over:Body literacy. We are supporting our clients in building a deeper level of awareness on how their behaviors may contribute to the outcomes they (don’t) want. Peter learned to check-in with his evening personality that was having a hard time to set a boundary and shut off. He was also learning to notice his evening activation levels and practiced techniques to self-regulate before evening stress spiraled out of control.

Instead of relying on willpower, we embed the psychology and biology of change into the habit change architecture:

• One change at a time
• Enhancing body literacy, not just providing protocols
• Scaled intensity for real-life feasibility
• Biological and behavioral tracking to create feedback loops

Applied behavior design - for people with no time to waste.