Insomniac

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 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!

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!

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.