You Are Getting Sleepy

June 5, 2017
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. Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenberg Rostan.

July 1, 2017

In a world where daily physical labor is increasingly rare, insomnia is rife. This title posits that, in order to sleep, you must get sleepy, and details ways to encourage sleepiness when you want it (and not when you don't). Some suggestions are familiar: don't exercise near bedtime; no caffeine after 3 p.m.; no liquor after dinner; no TV or computers in the hour before bedtime; use your bed only for sex and sleeping; etc. But the authors also go more deeply into cognitive behavioral techniques, discussing ways to adjust your internal clock, relaxation exercises, and the effects of pharmacological sleep aids. There is less emphasis on what, specifically, to do to promote sleepiness and more on the ways and whys that each strategy works or fails. Overall, this is an exhaustive study of our psychology and its physical responses, but it offers no quick fix, because there isn't one. VERDICT At times the writing is too technical for most lay readers. A more readable choice is W. Chris Winter's The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It.--Susan B. Hagloch, formerly with Tuscarawas Cty. P.L., New Philadelphia, OH

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