GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP
HOW TO CONQUER YOUR INSOMNIA
WITHOUT DRUGS OR MEDICATION
Katherine Albert, MD, PhD
New York: Fireside, 1996
208 pages, paperback, $11
ISBN: 0-684-83527-4

Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg

The most important message of this book, Albert tells readers, is that your sleeping life and your waking life are one. Insomniacs, it turns out, show a surprising disconnect between their days and their nights. They keep irregular hours, drink coffee or alcohol at bedtime, use their bedrooms as a home office, take worries to bed.

Many sleep specialists advise insomniacs to become "co-scientists" in their search for the causes of troubled sleep, to keep records, and try to correlate their poor sleep with daytime events.

Albert, who directs the sleep laboratory at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in New York City, proposes approaching trouble sleeping "obliquely, intuitively, and playfully," and to focus on feelings associated with sleeplessness. "It might be helpful," she suggests, "to think of your insomnia not as a problem to be solved or as a disease to be cured, but rather as a message to be deciphered."

Insomnia might be saying, for example, "I need help." If you are having trouble meeting certain responsibilities, she suggests, the insomnia may dramatize this need and let you get some help or encourage someone else to offer you support. It might be voicing, "I need some time for myself." While there surely are more relaxing occasions than in the middle of the night, she notes, viewing the insomnia as a last-ditch effort to carve out personal space may lead you to a better solution. Other possible messages: "I need respect for my limits." "I'm angry." "I need sexual fulfillment." I have something to tell you." "I need to solve my problem." "I need more scope for my ambitions."

Becoming aware of such issues usually implies action. Many people resist awareness, Albert notes, because they don't wish to act. But awareness also can lead to a conscious decision not to act, and this, in itself, may ease troubled sleep.

The book outlines strategies to help you tune in your feelings, such as journal-keeping, meditation, and focusing on dreams. And if you can't sleep, get up, Albert suggests. Don't stay in bed fretting. Make the most of the time. Enjoy some soothing treat. "Maybe at the moment," she observes, "you need that more than sleep."