You Are Getting Sleepy: Lifestyle-Based Solutions for Insomnia

Glovinsky and Spielman address readers suffering from insomnia with an informed and straightforward approach. Early on, they observe that people with sleep problems are often “trying too hard to sleep” and offer a seemingly simple alternative: “Stop trying to sleep.” The authors invite readers to skip around the book’s contents in search of personally relevant information and pose questions to pinpoint each reader’s specific problem, e.g., “Are you fatigued instead of sleepy?” and “Are you too depressed to sleep?” Their suggested remedies include “learning how to rest” and having only “limited daylight exposure.” Each chapter closes, usefully, with a summary of information shared. Medication is a frequent topic and the book treats it delicately, discussing when to use sleep aids, when it’s likely you’re getting sleep cues from a pill and not yourself, and forming an “exit strategy.” Glovinsky and Spielman are straightforward in their encouragement, insisting that “your sleep may be temperamental, but it is not broken,” even if it takes weeks or months to improve. In the many steps they recommend, they lead readers toward the belief that “you have sleep in you” and that you can “stop seeking sleep elsewhere,” a powerful message for insomniacs. [em]Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (July) [/em]