From Library Journal
First-time authors Jacobs and Wiedman bring two complementary and responsible viewpoints to the topic of insomnia. Both have suffered from insomnia, write extensively about the ineffectiveness and sometime harmful consequences of sleeping pills, and suggest starting treatment by keeping a sleep diary. Jacobs, a professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Behavioral Medicine Insomnia Program, promotes a drug-free program of healthy sleep patterns based on biofeedback, relaxation, positive thinking, and good sleep habits. Wiedman, a mortgage broker by trade, suggests a very simple three-step plan. While the two books offer similar information, Jacobs's scholarly manner will satisfy those looking for an authoritative answer, while Wiedman's more informal approach will appeal to readers seeking something more personal; Wiedman also includes an excellent annotated list of Internet resources. Both titles are highly recommended for growing consumer health collections, but librarians should be aware that other recent works on this topic by Theresa DiGeronimo, Jodi Mindell, and Gary Zammit (LJ 6/1/97) may already be on the shelves.?Kelly Hensley, East Tennessee State Univ. Lib., Johnson City
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"The breakthrough program with the scientifically proven power to help you sleep again." --Joan Borysenko, author of Minding the Body, Ming the Mind
Book Description
Imagine an insomnia treatment that improves sleep in 100 percent of insomniacs, helps 75 percent of insomniacs become normal sleepers, and allows 90 percent of insomniacs to reduce or eliminate their use of sleeping pills. This treatment is safe, natural, and has no side effects except improved mood, higher energy, increased mind/body control, and better health. No, this is not a new miracle drug. It is Dr. Gregg Jacobs's drug-free program described in Say Good Night to Insomnia.
At Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dr. Jacobs has tested and developed a six-week, drug-free program that conquers insomnia in a large majority of patients. The first clinician to offer proof that insomnia can be overcome without drugs, Dr. Jacobs's program provides techniques for: Eliminating sleeping pills Establishing sleep-promoting habits and lifestyle practices Changing negative, stressful thoughts about sleep Implementing relaxation and stress-reduction techniques Enhancing peace of mind and reducing negative emotions
At Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dr. Jacobs has tested and developed a six-week, drug-free program that conquers insomnia in a large majority of patients. The first clinician to offer proof that insomnia can be overcome without drugs, Dr. Jacobs's program provides techniques for: Eliminating sleeping pills Establishing sleep-promoting habits and lifestyle practices Changing negative, stressful thoughts about sleep Implementing relaxation and stress-reduction techniques Enhancing peace of mind and reducing negative emotions
About the Author
Gregg D. Jacobs, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a Senior research scientist with the Mind/Body Institute of Harvard Medical School.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Say Good Night To Insomnia
PART I
Getting Started
1
You Can Say Good Night to Insomnia
Bedtime is approaching and Alan is dreading it. He knows what tonight will bring: the torment of another night of insomnia.
Each night has become agonizingly familiar. Exhausted, Alan gets into bed and turns out the lights to go to sleep, only to lie wide awake. The harder he tries to fall asleep, the more he tosses and turns and the more tense and frustrated he feels. With the realization that he can't fall asleep comes a distressing wave of anxiety and stressful thoughts about sleep--"I've got to get some sleep or I'll never function tomorrow!"--and the worries about the problems in his life: tomorrow's meeting, Friday's deadline, his company's downsizing, his mother's illness. All are made worse by the loneliness and darkness of the night.
Even when Alan finally falls asleep he cannot escape insomnia. After just a few hours, he wakes up and tosses and turns before falling back to sleep just as the sun rises.
When the alarm clock rings, Alan has to drag himself out of bed, angry and depressed in the knowledge that yet another day feeling wiped out, helpless, and desperate awaits him.
Insomnia has become Alan's living nightmare.
Does Alan's ordeal sound familiar? It does for most insomniacs, who live in an interminable state of anxiety concerning insomnia and its effects on their lives. Like Alan, they also feel hopeless, powerless, and trapped by their lack of control over sleep, and they dread what, for most people, is an enjoyable experience--going to bed.
And no wonder. The anger, exhaustion, and irritability caused by insomnia can handicap mood, productivity, coping skills, and family and social life, and deprive insomniacs of a sense of joy and well-being. They grow even more frustrated or depressed by family or friends who tell them "it's all in your head" or "just relax," and may start to wonder whether they have a "psychological" problem. As a consequence, insomniacs feel embarrassed or even ashamed about their condition, which diminishes their self-esteem.
Doctors and Sleeping Pills
It is stressful enough to endure insomnia, but many doctors' reactions to it can make it even worse. They frequently don't ask about insomnia, overlook it, or simply ignore it. Why? Because insomnia is so ubiquitous that it is often dismissed by doctors as an unavoidable and normal part of life!
Doctors are not trained to diagnose or treat insomnia. Even though it is one of the most frequent health complaints today, doctors receive less than one hour of training on sleep problems during their entire medical education. This lack of training is compounded by the fact that, until recently, little federal funding has been allocated for insomnia research, which means that information about treating insomnia is not available to doctors in medical and scientific journals. (Fortunately, Congress and the National Institutes of Health have started to appropriate more money for sleep and insomnia research, as evidenced by the decision to fund my own research for four years.)
It is easy to understand why doctors are not comfortable treating insomnia. And when they are not comfortable treating something, they are inclined to avoid it. As Dr. William Dement, an internationalexpert on sleep disorders and director of the Sleep Clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine, explains, "Most physicians dread the arrival of a chronic insomnia patient. If one asks a large group of doctors if any of them enjoy managing chronic insomnia, not a single hand will go up." It is no wonder that the vast majority of cases of insomnia go undiagnosed and untreated!
There is another reason insomniacs can't turn to their doctor for help: medicine has not developed an effective treatment for insomnia. Until recently, the only medical treatments available were sleeping pills such as Halcion, Restoril, Dalmane, Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, and many others. Sleeping pills, however, are no longer considered a safe or appropriate treatment for chronic insomnia because they can have serious side effects that far outweigh their benefits; are only moderately effective for insomnia and stop working over time; strengthen the belief that the cure for insomnia comes from external factors; and can lead to physical or psychological dependency, which can cause feelings of helplessness, loss of control, and lowered self-esteem.
Most important, sleeping pills don't cure insomnia, because they don't treat the causes of insomnia. Consequently, if you rely on sleeping pills, your sleep may improve while you take the pills, but as soon as you stop, your insomnia will return, thereby sustaining the cycle of insomnia and sleeping pills.
Given everything we know about the drawbacks to sleeping pills, why do so many doctors still prescribe them? Partly because when doctors are busy and don't know what to do about insomnia, sleeping pills are a fast and easy solution. Another reason is the pervasive influence of drug companies, which sponsor scientific conferences, advertise in medical journals, send sales personnel to doctors' offices, supply free samples of sleep medications, and fund research studies that pay part of doctors' salaries. Therefore, doctors may be subtly influenced to prescribe the sleeping pills that the drug companies manufacture.
Doctors also prescribe sleeping pills because of the predominant attitude in medicine today that drugs are the best treatment for health problems. This drug-oriented approach, which focuses on treating the body, has worked well for acute and infectious illnesses.However, it has been largely ineffective in the treatment of today's chronic health problems such as stroke, heart disease, arthritis, cancer, insomnia, chronic pain, and mental illness, in which emotional, behavioral, and lifestyle factors play a prominent role.
Psychotherapy and Over-the-Counter Sleep Aids
Not surprisingly, 85 percent of insomniacs never seek medical help. Insomnia has become an epidemic affecting desperate, silent sufferers who, believing that their doctors can't help them or will prescribe habit-forming prescription sleeping pills, have been left to fend for themselves, typically spending years battling the problem futilely and suffering needlessly.
You may be one of the many insomniacs who have turned to expensive, time-consuming psychotherapy in your belief, or perhaps your doctor's, that insomnia is caused by "psychological problems." Not only does this belief induce feelings of helplessness and diminished self-esteem; there also is no scientific proof that psychotherapy is effective for insomnia, in large part because the majority of insomniacs do not have a psychiatric problem such as anxiety or depression. This is why trying to treat insomnia as a problem caused by psychiatric factors is destined to fail and only contributes to the stigma of insomnia being a "psychiatric" problem.
Millions of other insomniacs have turned to a slew of new over-the-counter nighttime sleep aids such as Tylenol PM, Excedrin PM, and Anacin PM, whose manufacturers have capitalized on this epidemic. These products, cloaked in the brand names of trusted medicines, avoid the stigma associated with prescription sleeping pills. Consequently, they are one of the fastest-growing classes of health care products today, with sales soaring to over $100 million in 1992. Yet, in truth, there is no scientific evidence that these medications are any more effective than a sugar pill!
Like prescription sleeping pills, over-the-counter sleeping aids can have unwanted side effects, lose effectiveness over time, and bolsterthe belief that the cure for insomnia comes from something external, which can foster psychological dependency and feelings of helplessness. Most important, these sleep aids don't cure insomnia because they don't treat the causes. Therefore, if you stop taking over-the-counter sleep aids, your insomnia will return.
Insomniacs spent an additional $200 million annually on one recent self-help craze for insomnia: melatonin. Health fads are nothing new, but rarely does one strike with the force of "melatonin madness," which hit its peak in 1995. Advertised at drugstores with signs proclaiming WE HAVE MELATONIN and extolled by the media and national magazines and books as the cure-all for insomnia, melatonin has also been trumpeted as a cure for heart disease, diabetes, depression, and aging. Demand for melatonin was so high that for almost a year vendors had a hard time keeping it in stock.
As we will see, however, the exaggerated claims about melatonin's benefits for insomniacs go far beyond established scientific evidence. It turns out that these claims are based on only a few selected studies, one of which was conducted by a scientist who owns a company that sells melatonin. What insomniacs do not know is that there are just as many studies showing that melatonin has no consistent beneficial effect on insomnia. Consequently, the public has been given an unbalanced picture about the present state of knowledge concerning melatonin, knowledge that is woefully incomplete. Therefore, if you are using melatonin, you are assuming unknown risks.
Why are insomniacs willing to spend money on melatonin and gamble their health on unproven claims about its effects on sleep? Probably because melatonin is available over the counter, is inexpensive, is promoted as "natural" (lead is also natural, yet can be dangerous), and because the lure of a fast and easy panacea for insomnia is irresistible.
Although melatonin may ultimately prove to be effective for some insomniacs, you are risking your health by using it. You are also relying on something external, which only leads to dependency. And because melatonin, like all drugs,...
