Restful Insomnia: How to Get the Benefits of Sleep Even When You Can't [Paperback]

Sondra Kornblatt (Author), Teresa E. Jacobs MD (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2010

Insomnia has meant nights of frustration--until now. A new program, Restful Insomnia, helps insomniacs mimic the benefits of sleep so they can greet the mornings refreshed. If you are among the 70 million sleep-deprived Americans who do battle every night, take heart! This book will show you how to use your waking night hours to quiet your mind, replenish your creativity, and relax deeply. You'll come to accept your insomnia and discover how to derive enough of the benefits of sleep to be able to get up in the morning feeling refreshed.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Wonderfully creative solutions for the hopeless insomniac, transforming worry and sleepless nights into deep eazzzzzzze." -Deanna Minich, PhD, CN, nutritionist and author of Chakra Foods for Optimum Health

"Restfull Insomnia is a delicious contradiction, filled with insightful way of bringing peace to insomnia. It re-visions insomnia as a journey of the spirit. This is the book to read when you can't sleep." --Donna Eden, author of Energy Medicine

About the Author

Sondra Kornblatt is a health and science writer and the author of A Better Brain at Any Age and co-author of 365 Energy Boosters. She developed the Restful Insomnia program in 2000 and has been teaching it in the Pacific Northwest since. Learn more at www.restfulinsomnia.com. She lives in the Seattle area with her two children.  

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Conari Press; 1 edition (January 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573244678
• ISBN-13: 978-1573244671
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #444,814 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sondra Kornblatt is a health and science writer and the author of A Better Brain at Any Age and co-author of 365 Energy Boosters. She developed the Restful Insomnia program in 2000 and has been teaching it in the Pacific Northwest since. Learn more at www.restfulinsomnia.com. She lives in the Seattle area with her two children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Help for the Chronic Insomniac, March 3, 2010

By 

Debra Louise Scott (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Restful Insomnia: How to Get the Benefits of Sleep Even When You Can't (Paperback)

Restful Insomnia by Sondra Kornblatt

Red Wheel/Weiser Books, 2010

Review by Debra Louise Scott

Sondra Kornblatt presents a surprisingly readable Self-Help book for chronic insomniacs. I usually have a hard time with the Self-Help genre, as they tend to make me feel frustrated or guilty, or else take me into areas I really-don't-want-to-deal-with-right-now. Sondra avoids the usual self-examination scenarios and goes gently to addressing the actual issue of what to do when sleep is elusive.

Restful Insomnia is geared to the person who understands the body's relationship to energic forces from within and without. If the sentence, "...try having a dialogue between your body and your Conscious Mind." makes you roll your eyes, you probably won't get much out of it. However, if you are someone who meditates, does Yoga, works in esoteric realms, or utilizes alternative healing therapies, the exercises will make a lot of sense. Some passages remind me of the work of Carolyn Myss, [...]

so I was surprised to not find her listed in the Bibliography.

A subtler technique runs throughout the book that I very much appreciated. Those of us who suffer from chronic insomnia are often afflicted with short attention spans and /or impaired reading comprehension. She introduces a complex idea along with another simpler idea, the simpler idea is explained, and the other simply referred to in passing. The next section will reinforce the simpler idea and expound more on the the complex one and mention a third idea briefly. She continues this introduction and reinforcement in small sections so that by the time you get to the complex concepts, they feel more like old friends than another mind-boggling exercise. The method played well into my tendency to read these types of books in small sections rather than straight through.

Because the focus is on learning to feel rested, rather than curing the insomnia, there is no sense of frustration about progress or lack thereof. It is about learning to become friends with your body the way it is, not the way the sleeping pill commercials tell you it should be. The subtitle of the book is "How to get the benefits of sleep even when you can't". While this may be a bit overstated, it does tell you that there is an alternative to stressing over the clock ticking away, and obsessively counting the hours that you actually did sleep as a measurement of how the subsequent day is going to turn out.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helped me already though..., January 23, 2010

By 

av71 (KY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Restful Insomnia: How to Get the Benefits of Sleep Even When You Can't (Paperback)

...I've only finished the first few chapters. Funny too, at least if you have much experience as an insomniac. I can really relate to all the failed methods mentioned.

Her discussion of the conscious and unconscious mind was really eye-opening for me; we're not talking Freud here. What it boils down to is not heeding/acting on every "urgent" thought from the planning, organizing part of our brains when it's time for sleep. She gives lots of good tips on how to do that.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended!!, December 18, 2010

By 

Cala - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Restful Insomnia: How to Get the Benefits of Sleep Even When You Can't (Paperback)

I have been a chronic insomniac for about 7 years now. This book had many wonderful, useful suggestions for making insomnia less frustrating (which it most certainly is!). Using the exercises and techniques in the book, I managed to find rest even when I didn't find sleep, which was a godsend as half the frustration is not being 'asleep' when you feel you are 'supposed' to be asleep. My favorite was building a Night Nest. Wonderful, wonderful book!