The Sleep Book: How to Sleep Well Every Night

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Unlike other reviewers who found the repetition annoying I found it very useful. Whilst the book can be distilled to a few key points, they really do need to explored in depth and fully understood by the reader to be properly implemented. You used to be a normal sleeper. Then you had a few bad nights or a streak of bad nights caused by life stress or by the necessity to sleep in a novel place. For the first time in you life, these bad nights made you think about sleep, pay attention to your sleep, and worry about sleep, leading to insomnia. The other big breakthrough - and on which this book is also based - is something called “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy” (ACT) – which is a recognised approach used widely in the USA and increasingly in the UK, Dr Guy’s pioneering methods at The Sleep School clinic have been an unprecedented success. By popular demand, his highly effective and 100% natural insomnia remedy is now here in this book. THE SLEEP BOOK is the sum of a doctorate degree in sleep and well over 12,000 hours spent working with more than 2,000 insomniacs in one-to-one clinics, workshops and retreat environments.

The concept the book teaches is simple, though it takes a lot of hard work to put into practice. The repetition of the concepts may jar with some, I personally find that when learning a new skill, repetition is important in cementing habits. Also, if you are not sleeping it is very likely you are having memory issues and, believe me, you need to be told repeatedly so that the information sinks in enough to be helpful to you. This book (and the app which has developed from it) has helped me to heal from a very frightening and extended episode of insomnia. While CBT teaches you to investigate your thoughts, Guy Meadows' approach is instead to practise accepting them and accepting your experience of sleep, whatever that may be for you. This is not easy, but the book gives you skills to practise during the day which will support you at bedtime and throughout the night - teaching you to be mindful throughout your day and helping you to stop struggling with your sleep (which compounds insomnia). This book also mentions recent research which has overturned a lot of sleep advice you have probably been given over the years, such as 'get up and read/do something useful if you can't sleep'.Sometimes you have stretches of good nights. You may even think you are cured while a streak of good nights lasts. I think the key is to practice acceptance and mindfulness in one’s daily life by doing say just 10 minutes practice each day. I listen to a mindfulness session each day – they are widely available on line. For me, mindfulness practice is a bit like getting mentally fit. If one neglects to do physical exercise one gets fat. Same goes for mental exercise. Mindfulness practice helped me a lot with being mentally fit. Chronic insomnia affects 15% of the UK population, and most insomniacs invest huge amount of time, effort, energy, emotion and money into fixing the problem. But Dr Guy Meadows has discovered that the secret to good sleep lies not in what you do, but what you learn not to do.

Sleep also plays an important role in maintaining our weight by managing our appetite hormones. In fact, “Every aspect of your short and long-term health and performance is underpinned by sleep.” But knowing sleep is crucial can pile on the pressure I’m not an insomniac, I just struggle falling asleep and waking up, and this book is really only aimed at people who have full on insomnia and no one else. It has now been several weeks of success. I haven’t take a sleeping pill since the day before I started to read this book and have slept well (almost) every night. I can even nap during the day!

Knowing we need sleep can cause insomnia to rear its ugly head. Guy has worked with sportspeople who, as a major sporting event approaches, have been terrified that sleep will give them the slip. “When the seed of doubt is given room to grow, the result is bad night after bad night – and the brain begins to connect these occasions with insomnia.” The night before an event, these athletes are hyper-aroused rather than relaxed. “They’re feeling anxious – almost as if they’re about to start the race.” In fact, all they’re doing is putting their head on the pillow.