DESPERATELY SEEKING SNOOZIN'

DESPERATELY SEEKING SNOOZIN'
THE INSOMNIA CURE FROM AWAKE TO ZZZZZ
John Wiedman
Towering Pines Press, Inc., 1998
P.O. Box 17923, Memphis TN 38187
224 pages, paperback, $14.95
ISBN 0-9664189-5-6

Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg

John Wiedman had insomnia for more than ten years. "I know what it is like to toss and turn and get in and out of bed all night watching the clock go slowly from midnight to 5 a.m.," he writes. He has gotten up and read, watched television, played on the computer, and more. "Trust me," he tells readers. "I have gone through just about anything that you have, maybe worse."

In this book, he documents his successful quest for relief.

Troubled sleepers, and persons with any other medical problem, typically seek advice from family, friends, and others, from bartenders to hairdressers. They may read articles or books, and look to the media for advice before seeing one or more physicians. Wiedman takes to the Internet, where he finds plenty of other insomniacs, also often online in the middle of the night. He includes messages posted to electronic support groups for persons with sleep disorders in the book to reinforce and amplify his points. They suggest that the world is full of insomniacs who aren't finding help in their doctors' offices.

There's some truth here. Wiedman cites the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research's estimate that 19 of 20 persons with sleep disorders remain undiagnosed, and that the majority of physicians do not ask patients how they are sleeping in the course of a routine office visit.

Wiedman consulted several physicians about his trouble sleeping, and even spent a night at a sleep disorders center in 1990. Sleeping pills and behavior modification, he says, were suggested. He elected not to take medication, however, and reports that "this clinic did not offer behavior modification training or support." His experiences highlight a common problem in the treatment of long-standing insomnia: the need for, yet frequent lack of, on-going collaboration between patient and physician to tailor treatment to the individual. In books such as No More Sleepless Nights (Peter Hauri and Shirley Linde) and Good Nights (Gary Zammit, with Jane A. Zanca), sleep experts emphasize the importance of a persistent trial and error approach to find a remedy that works.

Wiedman eventually decides on his own to try to change sleep-sabotaging behavior. He recognizes, as he tells readers, "You created the habits that are causing your insomnia, and you are going to get rid of those habits." He then describes a commonsense plan of good sleep hygiene, starting with restricting time in bed to the time one actually sleeps, and adhering to a regular wake-up time every day. He also suggests techniques such as relaxation, avoidance of bedtime worrying, and use of white noise generators.

This is all standard advice, long advocated by the sleep community. Yet Wiedman reports that he, like many insomniacs, once doubted that such "simple" strategies could help. He now is convinced. His sleep, he says, improved dramatically, and within just a few weeks, once he accepted his own responsibility for taking action.

Readers who might resist advice from experts may be moved by patient-to-patient talk to give the same tactics a try. If so, Wiedman will have performed a useful service.