Customer Reviews

I Can Make You Sleep: Overcome Insomnia Forever and Get the Best Rest of Your Life! Book and CD

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

There are many sleep problems and no silver bullet to fix them all. This book addresses many of them and seems to be a cut above average for sleep books. The CD is excellent.

My challenge is sleeping through the night and I have tried lots of things -- books, the local sleep clinic, a CPAP (I have never felt so tired in my life as the day after I tried it: once was enough), sleeping pills and most recently this book. It is written very much in the style one would expect from a TV self help guru: lots of repeating how well it works, nearly blank pages to make it longer, some exercises and a CD. The exercises (with my rating of how they helped me) are:

Reduce your worries *
Practice feeling drowsy ***
Calming the internal voice **
Systematic relaxation ****
Changing your story
Value yourself * (good thing to do, but didn't put me to sleep)
Letting the feeling unfold *
Asking the unconscious mind to help you* (So far)
Release the day *
Tapping your natural ability to sleep *
Image streaming *
Theatre of the mind **

People with a specific sleep problem should not expect most of the exercises to be targeted to their problem -- I believe a realistic goal is a couple (three or four tops) and by that standard, the book is a success. The exercise described as best suited to my problem (waking up way too early, roaring to go) is the theatre of mind. Unfortunately, when I try to do it, all I can visualize is what I was thinking about before I started the exercise. But some of the others were helpful.

The book contains much of the same advice as other sleep books (no naps, no TV before bedtime, no clocks in the bedroom etc.). I would say that part of the program is about average for a self help book.

The best thing about the book is the CD. My wife and I have taken to listening to it at bedtime and I have done well enough getting back to sleep that I have been able to cope without taking a single sleeping pill since we started. I can complain about the stereotypical self help format, but I can't argue with the success of the CD.

I was very skeptical when I started this book, but by following the advice I have become a full-fledged believer in the power of Paul McKenna and his message. I noticed a definite improvement in the amount and quality of my sleep within the first four days of using this system.

My sleep problem was waking up in the middle of the night and staying up for an hour or so before going back to bed; this was leaving me groggy and unable to stay alert throughout the day. Following the instructions in "I Can Make You Sleep," I cut out caffiene after 2 pm, made sure to have at least 3 hours between dinner and bedtime, didn't take any naps, made my bedroom darker by adding curtains to my windows, wore a nasal strip to improve my breathing, listened to the audio CD while going to sleep, and put away my laptop to eliminate middle-of-the-night work sessions.

I am now thrilled to report that I am sleeping through the night. Just this morning, I woke up and it was still dark outside; I figured that it was the middle of the night, but a quick look at the clock showed that it was actually just before dawn (which is when I actually need to get up).

Awesome book, clearly written with easy-to-follow exercises. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to sleep more, sleep better, or both.

I've tried dozens of "sleep" CDs and this one is far superior to all of them. I've only heard the end of it twice and went to sleep right after both times. I still occasionally struggle with waking early--which means that most early mornings I am asleep--yea! When I am kept awake by my too busy mind I use my favorite techniques (pretty much the opposite of the previous reviewer) and often I can get back to sleep in a reasonable amount of time. As I continue to practice my favorite techniques, it gets easier to stop thinking and go back to sleep, but even if I get no more relief than I have so far--it's a major improvement and I'm very happy to have found Paul McKenna! The book is fairly short and easy to read. Incidentally, some of the very positive statements he makes about his techniques working are actually NLP and are designed to MAKE you think they work--it's not arrogance or TV guru speak. If he tells you with great conviction that his techniques work well, he is planting the seed of conviction in your mind and you are more likely to have positive results. NLP is an amazing way to get results. Check out Richard Bandler's Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming

I love Paul's information. It is a good book, and cd. definitely worth it. I already had a cd player sitting right next to my bed, so I just put the cd in and usually before it is over, I am asleep. Went on vacation and
didn't take the cd with me, it took me two nights before I slept decent. I used to wake up and not be able to go back to sleep, however, that is not a problem now. Thank God.

I have battled with insomnia for years. The thought of falling asleep without sleeping medication stopped entering my mind a long time ago. I decided to put this book to the test and after just 3 days I have noticed a significant difference. You MUST follow the tips in the book for it to be effective, but they DO work. I have sleeping better, feeling better and have more energy. The great thing about this book is that the tips he states you need to follow are what is needed for an overall productive life. I highly recommend it!!

I read the book and started listening to the CD before bed last Tuesday. On a scale of 1-10, my sleep has gone from a misrable 3 to an 8! I am now getting a full 7 hours of sleep every night, and when I do wake up, can fall back to sleep easily.

While written primarily for insomnia, this book offers a technique that has done wonders for my ability to get back to sleep after waking up. Before, when I woke up around 3 or 4 a.m. (a chronic older female problem), I would often lay awake for an hour or two. Using his 'theater stage' technique, I'm not sure why, but I normally fall right back to sleep and sleep through the night! I'm a believer - and have moved on to 'I Can Make You Thin'. Let's hope this one works as well!

I listen to the CD and have a hard time staying awake through it. If I wake up at night I just play the CD again and it puts me right back to sleep. I did listen to the CD one time during the day and was amazed at how some of the post hypnotic suggestions were delivered and how I would think it would be hard for them not to work for most people. I have also only read a few pages of the book so far, but who needs the book when the CD works so well. Too bad all self-help books don't come with a hypnosis (not subliminal crap) CD.

If you think you'd enjoy listening to the likes of "your unconscious mind will reinforce every positive experience you ever had while you sleep..." and "Throughout your day your unconscious will bring up positive feelings so that your background feelings will far surpass your happiest days of the past..." then you have got to get this CD and throw away the sleeping pills.

I have had severe insomnia for 20 years, have tried everything, including prescription sleeping pills. I didn't have trouble going to sleep, but had trouble staying asleep. I tried all the exercises in the book, some did seem to help. But, the CD did the trick for me. My only complaint is that he has no other CD's available along this same line (trance). I play this CD every night and I sleep very well.

I'd just like to add my personal testimony that, like most people who left comments here, the book was helpful enough but the CD was VERY helpful in putting me to sleep and helping the quality of my sleep. I have wicked bad insomnia (which is made worse by being bi-polar and having ADHD) and have tried pretty much every sleep pill you can name (Ambien, Lunesta, Rozerem, Lorazapam, Melatonin, Codiene makes me jittery as does Benedryl, etc) so I've had sleep problems my whole life. I'm also very educated on the subject of sleep because it's always been such a major problem in my life. So, as such, the book didn't tell me much that I didn't already know. I did find one or two of the exercises to be of use.

But as many people have already stated, the CD/Audio track is what really paid off. I've tried a few things of that nature before but haven't had much success until this one. My only complaint would be that the voice on the audio track tends to get a fair bit quieter towards the end (as you drift off to sleep) and if you've got your CD player set up to repeat when the track loops back to the beginning it suddenly goes from fairly quiet to a lot louder as it warns you not to listen to this while you're driving. This was really startling me awake for a while so I ripped the track onto my computer and used a MP3 editor to cut off the first two minutes of it so now when it hits the end of the audio track it loops back towards a much more mellow beginning. I'm not sure I explained that real well.... but if you listen to the CD I'm sure you'll know what I mean so I thought I'd mention it in case it helps someone else.

Bottom line, if you've got insomnia, this book and it's CD worked where dozens of things had failed.