This book opens with "ten things you can do today to sleep soundly tonight." The items on this list range from the sensible--have a bowl of cereal as a bedtime snack, darken your bedroom--to the silly--don't store items underneath your bed. Yes, yes, I know: the latter is one of many rules of Feng Shui, an Eastern philosophy that holds proper arrangement of one's environment will promote health. But its putative benefits for sleep are unsubstantiated.

This book offers a quick survey on how and why we sleep and how sleep changes from infancy to old age. It provides a brief guide to insomnia, sleep apnea, and narcolepsy, and restless legs syndrome, along with suggestions for assessing sleep problems. The author, a psychotherapist, suggests changing habits that hinder sleep, emphasizing the importance of putting sleep high on your priority list, and taking the appropriate steps to get an adequate amount of sleep every day.

As self-help strategies, she lists the basic principles of sleep hygiene. In a chapter on relaxation techniques, she covers tactics shown in various studies to be helpful, such as progressive muscle relaxation and guided imagery. But she also suggests tactics lacking such evidence, including reflexology. The longest chapter in this short book addresses natural remedies, with recipes for herbal teas, compresses, sleep pillows, and even homeopathic treatments. Overall, this book provides more froth than substance for anyone with serious concerns about sleep.

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