Dealing With Stuff
  • Dealing With Stuff
  • About
  • Contact

The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia

9/25/2020

 
Picture
This is a sleep book by a woman, for women. (Take ‘women’ to mean ‘people with proportionally more estrogen, progesterone, etc.’) Shelby Harris is a psychologist and sleep expert, and also a mom of young kids. She gets all the social, parental, and technological pressures that impact our sleep. The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia may actually help where nothing else did.

I read a lot of insomnia books because I have a parasomnia disorder, and I’m always looking for new tips. Not every insomnia book mentions more serious problems like mine, and it did come up, but I will give the caveat that what worked for my night terrors isn’t really addressed here in explicit detail.

The basic idea behind this book is that changing any one factor will not solve sleep problems by itself. That is 100% true. The premise is to use tracking methods and very specific behavioral techniques to improve the ratio of time spent in bed to actual time asleep.

This stuff works. I know because many of the things I did to resolve my sleep issues show up in here.

I kept meticulous records of my sleep - with more detail than the sleep diary in the book - and I am sure that if I hadn’t done this, I never would have figured out the root cause.

I became very careful with the timing of when I ate and hydrated. Start early and cut off three hours before bed. (If you get night terrors, or your kid does, please don’t eat anything right before bedtime!)

I ruthlessly eliminated naps and forced myself to go out in bright sunlight and stay awake if I needed to.

I took up running, dropped my extra weight, and got fit.

I cut out soda, anything with high fructose corn syrup, and basically all junk food. Then I increased my vegetable consumption fourfold.

One of the most important points in the book is to distinguish between sleepiness and fatigue. This would have been really helpful for me to know 15-20 years ago. “Tired all the time” doesn’t always mean insomnia or a sleep issue; it may be fatigue, and fatigue may be a sign of something else.

I encourage anyone with sleep issues - which is apparently about 2/3 of all women - to read The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia. Take its recommendations seriously, do all the steps, and keep records of your results. If you respect the process, you can free yourself of the problem.

Favorite quotes:

Even as a psychologist and a sleep expert, I’m not immune to a poor night’s sleep now and then. I just know how to prevent it from becoming a regular occurrence at this point in my life.

One of the goals of insomnia treatment is to have you think less about your sleep overall—just as you probably were not too focused on it in the past, before your sleep problems began.

Comments are closed.
    New podcast!
    Clutter of the Day

    Author

    I've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years.  I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago.

    I have a BA in History.

    I live in Southern California with my husband and our pets, an African Gray parrot and a rat terrier.

    #Questioner
    #ENTP

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015

    Categories

    All
    ADHD
    Birdwatching
    Body Image
    Book Reviews
    Books
    Cleaning
    Clutter
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    COVID 19 Chronicles
    Fibromyalgia
    Filks
    Fitness
    Food
    Future Self
    Futurism
    Goals
    Habits
    Humor
    Languages
    Martial Arts
    Mindset
    Minimalism
    Money
    Motivation
    Movie Reviews
    Moving
    Organization
    Past Self
    Pets
    Preparedness
    Procrastination
    Public Speaking
    Quests
    Relationships
    Resolutions
    Running
    Sleep
    Technology
    The-woowoo
    The-woo-woo
    Thyroid Disease
    Timemanagement
    Time Management
    Tiny Houses
    Travel
    Weight
    Work
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Dealing With Stuff
  • About
  • Contact