Customer Reviews

Insomniac

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Gayle Greene does a first-rate job of putting a human face on insomnia, an affliction often described in dry, impersonal terms. A lifelong insomniac, Greene approaches her subject not from the strictly medical perspective proffered in self-help books but from the perspective of one who has been there and done that - and has a great deal to say about aspects of insomnia which ordinarily are overlooked. She speaks with conviction and her voice is consistent throughout the book. This is no mean feat: Greene integrates her own story and the narratives of other insomniacs with lots of scientific material. Her language is clean and jargon-free, and passionate and analytical, by turns -- exactly what one looks for in a work that aims to inform and persuade.

In addition, Greene's book offers a powerful critique of a medical establishment that historically has regarded insomnia as "all in the head." In fact, the physiological underpinnings of insomnia are what most insomniacs are waiting to hear about. Yet research in this important area has lagged. Greene's book gives us the inside scoop on why. She attended conferences on sleep disorders and gathered a wealth of information, including the sort of candid comments scientists are usually loath to make in public. Greene questioned the experts face to face, and their responses -- and the nonverbal messages they conveyed -- speak volumes. They're entertaining, too!

Any insomnia sufferer will find plenty of food for thought here. Insomniacs who have felt misunderstood or blamed will feel legitimized in reading Greene's account of her and others' experiences as they struggle to cope. Readers may also want to take some of Greene's suggestions for wooing sleep and try them out for themselves.

Finally, Greene's book poses a challenge to those who are conducting insomnia research. Will scientists in positions of power take note of the funding changes she proposes? Perhaps, she suggests, it's time for insomniacs to organize and push for them ourselves.

Greene embarked on the trail of sleep, having sought it in vain in her own life. If you've ever had an insomniac friend or co-worker, you need to read this book. You'll see yourself in the repeated pseudohelpful comments she has received. Greene didn't stop with friends,relations, and the internet sites for the sleepless, she looked for answers in every conceivable realm. One of the most amusing of her chapters shows her approaching sleep scientists at a national meeting and being rebuffed once they realized she was a lay person. Greene listened to talks and read papers anyway, and came away with a profound understanding of what the biologists do not know. In Insomniac, she made an eloquent argument for Insomniacs Unlimited to form and ACT UP! Evidently "it's all in your head" has been far too convenient a diagnosis, and Greene believes a serious search for a molecular mechanism would be timely and productive. I predict most readers will agree. She does not blind you with science, but includes a soupcon of clearly explained brain function from time to time, with clear quagmire warnings. Her description of living with insomnia will make you cry. Well worth reading!

This is a wonderful book! I actually tried to slow down at the end so I wouldn't finish it. It is not a book of cumbersome suggestions/rules about how you should be able to "conquer" insomnia. (How tired are we of hearing "keep to a regular sleep schedule, don't nap, don't use the bed for anything but sleep or sex, etc., etc. As though we didn't know all this stuff already.) There are no elaborate sleep schedule diaries, no promises about sleeping perfectly in 6 weeks if you only adhere to her rules.

No, if you are looking primarily for another self-help book, this is not it (thank goodness). Instead, this is a book about the science and history, even philosophy, of sleep disturbance. It discusses the progress (or not) of sleep research efforts. The chapters where the author attends sleep conferences are informative, maddening, and sometimes terribly funny. There is a chapter called "Bedding down the beast" with modest suggestions of things to do that have helped her through the years, but they are not pronouncements from on high: just suggestions.

I personally will treasure this book and re-read it many times. Besides being informative and helpful, "Insomniac" is a lot of fun to read. And Gayle Greene is a person you really get to know - what a pleasure!

This isn't a `self-help' but a self-helping book. Here's just about everything you can try, with details about what happened to the author when she tried them. She is wonderfully careful to stress that everyone experiences insomnia differently, and the best she can do is share her own and a few other's experiences. And her indignation that medical science has simply given up on insomnia as just too hard.

This book will be loved by everyone with insomnia, and only hated by the true believers in the various (and self-contradictory) "cures". Greene is a grouchy insomniac with style, and a great sense of humor. Certain passages (alone at the sleep convention, packing for a trip, confronting male doctors with female issues they'd rather ignore, etc.) deserve places in illness humor books - assuming there are such things.

While there's nothing really you can do about insomnia, there are all sorts of short term things that, at least for awhile, help. Most of them aren't good for you, long term. For myself, I've worked through the whole range, running from alcohol through Ambien, by way of chloral hydrate, probably all the benzodiazepines ever in existence, and a period when I decided to not sleep at all by way of a very large (and very illegal) bottle of Dexedrine. Stay up 5 days and sleep for two. Works fine until the induced schizophrenia goes florid.

Greene's insomnia seems worse than mine, and she fights it every inch of the way. Thank God, because the rest of us seem to have been forced into servile mode: I know what a great favor you're doing for me and I don't deserve it, but please prescribe me some pills anyway. Doctors are in the horrible position of knowing that the pills available are all wrong in one way or another. Quacks, credentialed or not, have to believe in the virtues of their own panaceas or admit to themselves that they've mislead and mistreated their patients. There is no one more righteous then a questioned credentialed quack!

I'm tempted to thank Greene for not resting in trying to help us find our own voice.

This is the most thorough book on insomnia I have ever read. And I have read a lot of them. I have been insomniac all my life, since birth. (Genetic--like my mom).

You will find in this book a lot about genetic causes, and everything else you want to know, all the latest science. It's a very empowering book. It tells you things you can do for yourself that the doctors don't know. It's easy to read and even funny in places.

The nightmarish life we insomniacs live each night seems less nightmarish with this book. Thanks to this book I don't feel so alone.

This book made important points in clear, enjoyable, passionate prose. Greene discusses possible physical causes of insomnia, the financial disincentives for scientists and pharmaceutical companies to develop new remedies, and the need for insomniacs to organize into a patients' interest group. Likewise, her personal stories and discussions with other insomniacs underscore how often insomniacs are blamed rather than helped by health care professionals.

Nevertheless, the book goes on at such length about these points that it develops an overwrought tone. Moreover, because it focuses so much on Greene's problem, sleep maintenance rather than sleep onset, this other form of insomnia gets little discussion or consideration.

As a fellow sufferer, though, the best thing this book has done for me is
lead me to accept my condition. In fact, after reading this book, I think I don't suffer nearly as much from my sleepless nights as others do, so henceforth I will look at my tossing and turning time as a gift, and slink out of bed and into an armchair with more books!

I think this is a wonderful book, and an incredible resource. It is a combination of an Insomniac's memoir with a summary of a huge amount of literature and research on insomnia, the status of sleep research and the lack of consensus among the medical community, treatments (both traditional and alternative), and the experiences and concerns of insomniacs themselves- what life is like with this "condition". Its a book for insomniacs, their friends and families, and the healthcare, healing, and therapeutic professionals who work with them. Nothing like it exists. Every case is different, but this book really does give some idea of how chronic insomnia impacts our lives. The author encourages readers to dip in, skip, and choose the parts that are interesting and helpful, and I think that is appropriate.

I've had serious, sometimes life-threatening insomnia for 20 years. That means, for the last 4 years, falling asleep at stop signs, and getting drowsy driving - I no longer drive for more than 30 minutes without wake-up medication (ProVigil/Modafinil, and alas, it worsens my sleep and gives me headaches, or I'd use it all the time). I don't know anyone with my kind of problem (my diagnosis is 'fragile sleep', the big expert told me, and he really did try to help, and did help, some.) The insomniacs I know are mostly people for whom sleeping pills seem to work. So it was really affirming to read Gayle Greene's story, her struggles, all the things she tried. She's right , we don't talk about it , and who wants to listen to all the miserable details. Yes, the discussion boards, [...] help. I got my best reference on Sleep Restriction there. And people do tell their stories, but at least when I hung out on Sleepnet, the stories were usually pretty abbreviated. I never told much of mine, it's too long and I didn't and don't now have the energy. She's put a huge amount of energy into this, and I so appreciate the results. She gives a voice to those of us who have been invisible. And so much information.

Yes she does complain a lot, as she acknowledges. That's part of the picture. And, she gives some sense of what it is like to live with managing this condition. Everyone is different. Everyone has to make their own decisions as to how to adapt, what to give up,what to try, etc. I do Sleep Restriction. It does help me, enough to be worthwhile, but it also complicates my life. And doesn't do as much as I'd hope.

I learned a lot from this book, about medications I've taken but not realized how they related to each other, about Sleep Restriction and the parts of the "recommended procedure" that I've forgotten about because they didn't work for me, about tools and strategies and supplements that I hadn't heard of or haven't tried. And insights into doctor's attitudes and comments to me, and the status of funding for insomnia research (appalling).

I was interviewed for this book, years ago, and had no idea of what to expect. It is so much more than I could have imagined, so much information, and the personal touch adds enormously. I highly recommend it.

As someone who has suffered her whole life, Gayle Greene asks all the right people, all the right questions. She not only asks, but challenges the medical community to find causal reasons for this awful affliction. She covers sleep history to the time of industrialization when the way we sleep changed dramatically. She looks at cross-cultural sleepers to see if they fare any better. From sleep clinics, traditional and alternative medicine, yearly sleep conventions and interviews, Gayle has left no stone unturned. As any one with a chronic health condition, we all have to do our own research before we even go into a Dr.s office in this day and age of medicine. Thanks Gayle for doing that for us. Your words ring true.

As someone who worked with scientists and was required to go to their meetings (often sponsored by big businesses of some kind or another), and read their often-biased writings, it was interesting to read about a health issue from a lay person's point of view. Greene starts out strong, both in giving case studies of others, her own problems and issues with sleeping, the background behind the science, the problems with the conferences and the obvious funding of the science by business, even the nutritional and alternative aspects of dealing with insomnia.

The problem is the often repetitive nature of Greene's complaints. Even though the reader (who are going to be people going through insomnia themselves) sympathizes with Greene, after awhile the 'whining' gets a bit much. The issues are real, as is Greene's own lifetime problems with sleep...however, the book could have used tightening, and the publishing house should have insisted on the presentation of each part only once, including her own case.

That being said, Greene's book definitely bears reading for those who want better information concerning insomnia. She does manage to bring everything together in one book, including both useable information for individuals (women especially who tend to go through massive problems with sleep after menopause), and current state of the science. Since we should all be more proactive in our own health care, this book gives information to take to doctors to discuss. Even Greene suggests that readers may not want to read the entire book, depending upon their needs.

Karen Sadler

I am awaiting my copy of this book and cannot wait to read it. Reading the editorial reviews and the customer reviews brought tears to my eyes. Yes, I am one of those who took my medication at the same time every night, cut way down on caffeine, stayed out of the bed for naps, took hot showers before bed, used lavender everything for its soothing effect, and all the other "rules" for getting sleep. I, too, felt the disapproval from my doctors, friends, and family members for still not getting a decent night of sleep. Yes, it was my fault or implied so. I am also one who is constantly having their meds changed because my body becomes resistant to them far sooner than average. I struggle with further depression over how miserable I feel with no sleep and weight gain to a weight I only experienced when pregnant with my daughter. I have been begging for help, only to be met with blank looks or being told to keep trying to follow the "rules" for sleep. I can't wait to hear the words of someone who walked this sleepless path, felt blamed for it, got little help from anyone and finally got fed up enough to go seek answers on her own. I have reached that point myself and am excited to hear what Gayle has learned so I can adapt it to my issues. Thank you Gayle! We have all been up all night worrying and wondering how to solve this problem. It's not our fault and it's time to find the source of sleeplessness!