The Insomnia Answer: A Personalized Program for Identifying and Overcoming the Three Types ofInsomnia [Paperback]

Having read many many many of the sleep books, this one is completely different for 2 reasons. First it is remarkably well written. Helps you actually understand what sleep is and how it works for you in an easy to read style. Second, the sleep restriction therapy actually works. Not a bunch of babble, but a straightforward approach that forces you back to good sleep. I must say its not much fun, but if you do suffer from insomnia and want to get a life, this is the book.

I have struggled with insomnia for years. My case is not as severe as some, but it reached the point where I usually would not get a complete night's sleep without sleeping pills. This book has given me a new way to think about sleep and some tactics for sleeping better.

The authors are experienced clinicians who have studied sleep patterns for years, and use that information to treat patients. I will summarize the main points that directly relate to improving your sleep:

1. Understand how sleep and waking times are driven by two independent forces in your physiology. When these two forces get out of sync, insomnia is often the result. This model breaks away from the old - "you get tired then you get some sleep to get refreshed and start over" - view we all understand. Sleep and waking cycles are more subtly connected. Understanding the overlap and "waves" of these forces in our bodies is a helpful new way to think about sleeping problems. This is the model coming from the extensive clinical experience of the authors.
2. It is helpful to categorize your insomnia into 1) trouble getting to sleep 2) trouble staying asleep, and 3) broken sleep all night. This is not new, but the treatments coming from the sleep/wake cycles model combine with this categorization. There is also good information about how issues such as depression, shift work, breathing difficulties and others can bring about specific patterns.
3. There are some "sleep hygiene" practices you need to follow for better sleep. Most of these are pretty well known - avoiding caffeine, exercising at sensible hours (not too late), not depending on sleeping pills, avoiding excessive napping, etc. These are reviewed and shown how they can disrupt the sleep/wake cycle
4. Utilize less obvious practices such as sleep reduction/consolidation (this is the main one helping me), bright light therapy, worry lists, buffer relaxation before going to bed, how to monitor your readiness for sleep as you approach bedtime, etc. One of the more surprising approaches shows you how to shift your sleep clock ahead a full day (chronotherapy) - but this is not applicable in all cases.

The book is very helpful and I recommend it. I think it spends a bit too many pages (almost a third of the book) in the early chapters talking about how people get insomnia, night owls vs. morning larks, etc. However, one of the main points of the book is to literally change how you think about sleep so you can be more positive about it, so this information is useful - it just could be compressed a bit to save reading time. The sleep/wake "waves" model is the brilliant conceptual insight and the practical what-exactly-to-dos also really help.

I have had insomnia for the past twelve years trying every med for insomnia on the market. After reading The Insomnia Answer I was motivated to try sleep restriction therapy and it works and I sleep better than I have in many years and don't wake-up drowsy or feel at all drug-dependent. A brilliant and very useful book for anyone suffering from sleep deprivation.

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