|
|
 |
Insomniac |
| |
|
|
Author:
Gayle Greene
By University of California Press
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $16.00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Product Description
I can't work, I can't think, I can't connect with anyone anymore. . . . I mope through a day's work and haven't had a promotion in years. . . . It's like I'm being sucked dry, eaten away, swallowed up, coming unglued. . . . These are voices of a few of the tens of millions who suffer from chronic insomnia. In this revelatory book, Gayle Greene offers a uniquely comprehensive account of this devastating and little-understood condition. She has traveled the world in a quest for answers, interviewing neurologists, sleep researchers, doctors, psychotherapists, and insomniacs of all sorts. What comes of her extraordinary journey is an up-to-date account of what is known about insomnia, providing the information every insomniac needs to know to make intelligent choices among medications and therapies. Insomniac is at once a field guide through the hidden terrain inhabited by insomniacs and a book of consolations for anyone who has struggled with this affliction that has long been trivialized and neglected.
|
|
Me too, sometimes., 2008-11-20
"Insomnia" sometimes haunts me. Last night it did, after finishing this book, which is, fascinating and well written. So what is Gayle Greene's problem? She has trouble sleeping, so what? Most people do, don't they, sometimes? She takes pills and that helps her get "enough" sleep. She's happily married and successful in her career. Love and work, what else is there? I think this book is mostly about psychology; but Greene makes the case that insomnia is mostly about biology--hormones and genes. She gets about 2-4 "natural" hours of sleep a night, and a drug gets her another 3 to 4, if she chooses to take it, which she doesn't sometimes, and then she ruminates all the rest of the night, worrying about sleeping. She says she is not neurotic, that she has a hormone imbalance and has always had it. And the medical profession is wedded to profit (it is); which is a barrier to funding for proper research regarding sleep, and sleep disorders--which consume one third of our time on earth; and we ought to know more about it. I agree; but what I want to know more of is dreams. If she's not neurotic, what's her problem?
This year, I have watched two people, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, campaign for the presidency of the United States for the past eighteen months. They each get about four hours of sleep a night. I have never, ever, known of two more highly functioning individuals--persons "on their game." Are they on drugs? Adrenaline. Ill effects? I don't see any.
Greene denies she gets any "secondary" benefit from her insomnia. Really? How-a-bout a great book? She is witty, smart, articulate, loved and successful ... and neurotic and obsessive. I think she's fortunate. I hope she reads this. I'm glad she wrote the book. The book details a lot that is wrong, and right, with the practice of medicine. The story she tells does an excellent job of describing how people are different, and that what "works" for one, might not work for another. And also, that what "works" most reliably is belief, or the "placebo effect" (a sugar pill.) The placebo effect IS the most reliable (it explains the success of alternative medicine's sometimes efficacy); and that people often report getting better to please the professional (even when they're not.) But that doesn't work for her ... seems she is stubborn. So I think ... hmmmm.... Her father is a physician. I have/had a friend, an old one, who is mad at me for calling her out, who's father is this great doctor ... and she suffers from chronic pain--nothing works--NOTHING--to the point she contemplates suicide from time to time. Now, that is anecdotal evidence (if evidence at all) of the possibility of unconscious motivation; and I can't help but think that both my friend's, and Greene's, incidents of incurable malaise are related to daddy. And, moreover, that belief in being cared for is a powerful treatment for what ails a person. Nice work, Gayle. Get some rest, now.
Finally!, 2008-10-03
Finally, a book written by an author who totally understands chronic insomnia! This book is for those of us who have had this problem for years. Thanks Gayle Green!
If only the content were fictitious..., 2008-09-01
Professor Greene's book, Insomniac, is a riveting memoir. As I read -- devoured, actually -- page after page, I felt vindicated, infuriated, dismayed, hopeful inspired, encouraged. This is a maelstrom of emotions indeed. The majority of books about insomnia offer the same hackneyed advice: regularize and restrict sleep, reduce or eliminate caffiene consumption, exercise, and ad nauseum. Not Gayle's book, however. As a lifelong insomniac, she has tried virtually every pill, treatment, technique that promises to "cure" insomnia -- all to no avail. In impassioned and somber prose, she guides the reader through a gripping and moving narrative of her lifelong battle with this "beast." She doesn't stop there, however. She shares the stories of other insomniacs --
insomniacs less fortunate than she.
Gayle is a tenured professor at a private liberal arts college. She has job security unlike the majority of insomniacs. Doctors and behavioral therapists exhort us to regularize and restrict our sleep and avoid so-called "sleep-incompatible" behaviors, but how, as Gayle asks, do you tell a single mother with children to feed, and struggling to make ends meet, to set aside time for what we insomniacs call "the program?"
When Gayle set out to write this book and search for answers, she was disconcerted to discover that insomnia is a poorly understood and often stigmatized affliction. Even today, insomnia is widely considered a psychological, not a neurobiological, disorder. If only WE reduce the stress in our lives; if only WE restrict and regularize our sleep; if only WE exercise more; if only WE don't obsess about our sleep (or lack thereof); "If only WE... If only WE...." WE are to blame.
As Gayle poignantly points out, however, narcoleptics were often blamed for their affliction. If only THEY had more will power; if only THEY weren't so indolent; if only THEY were more disciplined; "If only THEY... if only THEY...." But as it turned out, THEY weren't doing anything wrong. Similarly, WE may not be doing anything wrong. Why is this so difficult to see? And why is the medical and scientific world oblivious to this?
An unfortunate penchant for parsimonious explanations permeates our world. The simplest of explanations is usually correct, we are told. Indeed, it is easier to believe that our broken sleep is the consequence of a psyche in distress rather than defect in our brain -- an astoundingly intricate neural forest. Amidst 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synaptic gaps, where should researchers begin? As Gayle notes, sleep is more complex than we thought. . .
IN THE ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE, parsimony reigns. IN THE ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE, humanity believed the earth was flat, the earth stationary, the universe geocentric. Humanity believed these things because they were easy to accept and it did not collide with our common, OBVIOUS intuitions. It was OBVIOUS that the earth was flat, it was OBVIOUS that the earth didn't move, it was OBVIOUS that the earth was the center of the universe, just as today it is OBVIOUS that insomnia is depression and anxiety. But as someone once said, "OBVIOUS IS THE MOST DANGEROUS WORD IN SCIENCE."
I cannot recommend Gayle's book enough. Insomniacs, psychologists, psychiatrists, and sleep researchers will benefit from reading this book.
 Anecdotal Comments About Sleep, 2008-08-22
This is a 300 page , 50 page book. The continous repeating of the same anecdotal comments about an insomniac soon leaves the reader wondering what is being said.
The call for more research and a list of suggested research topics would have been sufficient and taken only a few pages.
See Jim Horne's review in Nature, which I thought was overly generous.
incredible information here, 2008-08-15
On every page, I kept saying, this is my life. Her information on the whole problem of insomnia and the sleep medicine industry was eye opening and right on target. so much useful information. And it reads like a novel! Fantastic book that should be read by all MDs in the field, as well as all people who have sleep problems. and all politicians as well.
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.8498
EAN: 9780520246300
ISBN: 0520246306
Label: University of California Press
Manufacturer: University of California Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 520
Publication Date: 2008-03-10
Publisher: University of California Press
Studio: University of California Press |
|
