Sleep Disorders

Insomniac

I can't work, I can't think, I can't connect with anyone anymore. . . . I mope through a day's work and haven't had a promotion in years. . . . It's like I'm being sucked dry, eaten away, swallowed up, coming unglued. . . . These are voices of a few of the tens of millions who suffer from chronic insomnia. In this revelatory book, Gayle Greene offers a uniquely comprehensive account of this devastating and little-understood condition. She has traveled the world in a quest for answers, interviewing neurologists, sleep researchers, doctors, psychotherapists, and insomniacs of all sorts. What comes of her extraordinary journey is an up-to-date account of what is known about insomnia, providing the information every insomniac needs to know to make intelligent choices among medications and therapies. Insomniac is at once a field guide through the hidden terrain inhabited by insomniacs and a book of consolations for anyone who has struggled with this affliction that has long been trivialized and neglected.

The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night's Sleep

"We are a sleep-sick society," says William C. Dement, M.D., Ph.D. According to Dr. Dement, "sleep science" has yielded a great deal of scientific knowledge about sleep--yet the general public, and even doctors, aren't aware of it. Sleep disorders are routinely misdiagnosed or ignored, sometimes resulting in medical tragedy and death, frequently leading to chronic exhaustion. In The Promise of Sleep, Dr. Dement aims to remedy that by making the latest sleep information accessible to health professionals and lay readers. He describes the sleep cycle and gives a short history of sleep research. Then he dives into clear and detailed explanations of concepts and conditions we've all heard about, but that few of us understand: sleep debt, biological clock, circadian rhythm, insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy. He discusses why we need sleep (sounds obvious, but it isn't) and the role of dreams. After 300 pages of sleep facts, Dr. Dement teaches you how to "reclaim healthy sleep" in your own life. You learn to assess your personal sleep situation by keeping a sleep diary, measuring your sleep debt, and evaluating your risk of sleep disorders; find appropriate treatment; manage sleep crises; and adopt a "sleep-smart lifestyle." A three-week "sleep camp" program at the end helps you put all the strategies together. This book will put you to sleep--and that's meant as praise! --Joan Price

Sleep better, live longer with the groundbreaking information and step-by-step program in this revolutionary book.

Healthful sleep has been empirically proven to be the single most important factor in predicting longevity, more influential than diet, exercise, or heredity. And yet we are a sleep-sick society, ignorant of the facts of sleep--and the price of sleep deprivation. In this groundbreaking book, based on decades of study on the frontiers of sleep science, Dr. William Dement, founder and director of the Stanford University Sleep Research Center, explains what happens when we sleep, when we don't, and how we can reclaim the most powerful--and underrated--health miracle of all.

Taking us on a fascinating tour of our sleeping body and mind, Dr. Dement reveals the price we have paid for ignoring sleep--an epidemic of heart disease, 33 percent of traffic-fatigue-related accidents, and immeasurable mental and psychological disadvantages. And he offers a hands-on prescription for vibrant good health and longevity, including...self-tests to determine how much sleep you really need...the role of prescription and over-the-counter sleeping aids...the latest research on how sleep affects the immune system...how to combat insomnia, snoring, and jet lag...plus information on sleep disorder clinics nationwide, Web sites, and more.

Taking readers on a fascinating tour of our sleeping body and mind,

Dr. William C. Dement reveals the price paid for ignoring sleep--an epidemic of heart disease, traffic-fatigue-related accidents (responsible for a full third of all traffic accidents), and immeasurable mental and psychological disadvantages. Offering a hands-on prescription for vibrant good health and longevity, THE PROMISE OF SLEEP includes self-tests to determine how much sleep you really need, full information on the role of prescription and over-the-counter sleeping aids, the latest research on how sleep affects the immune system, helpful methods for combating insomnia, snoring, and jet lag, plus information on sleep disorder clinics nationwide, sleep disorder Web sites, and more. -->

Power Sleep : The Revolutionary Program That Prepares Your Mind for Peak Performance

Where you start reading this book will probably say a lot about your current station in life. New parents will probably skip right to chapter 12 and the section subtitled "Tips for Exhausted Parents of Newborns, Infants, and Children." Drowsy office workers might go for chapter 9, which explores the subject of midday naps (which may reduce stress and the risk of heart disease). Other chapters look at traveling (driving, jet lag), shift work, and insomnia and other sleep disorders. Dr. James Maas has spent 34 years lecturing to drowsy psychology undergraduates at Cornell University, and knows how to hold an audience--even when the subject is sleep, and even when the conclusion is that most of us don't get enough of it. This is a fascinating book; you'll want to take it in slowly and then sleep on it.

Do your eyelids feel heavy during afternoon meetings? Do you sleep extra hours on weekend mornings? Do you use caffeine to stay alert? An alarm to get out of bed?

These are all symptoms of sleep deficiency--signals that you are operating below your peak performance and beneath your mental capacity. Despite popular perceptions, sleep is not a luxury--it is a necessity. More than seventy million Americans are sleep-deprived, and make crucial business and personal decisions in an impaired state. In Power Sleep, Dr. James B. Maas, a pioneer of sleep research at Cornell University, has created an easy, drug-free program to improve your body and mind for an alert and productive tomorrow. In Power Sleep, you'll find:

• The golden rules of sleep

• Twenty great sleep strategies

• Dos and don'ts of sleeping pills and over-the-counter remedies

• How to combat travel fatigue, including jet lag and drowsy driving

• Tips for exhausted parents of newborns, infants, and toddlers

• How to overcome sleep disorders, including insomnia

An important and practical book, Power Sleep will help you get the sleep you need to improve your mental and physical well-being quickly and dramatically and to become a peak performer.

The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery

For two hundred years a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. In England, cows attack their owners in the milking parlors, while in the American West, thousands of deer starve to death in fields full of grass.

What these strange conditions–including fatal familial insomnia, kuru, scrapie, and mad cow disease–share is their cause: prions. Prions are ordinary proteins that sometimes go wrong, resulting in neurological illnesses that are always fatal. Even more mysterious and frightening, prions are almost impossible to destroy because they are not alive and have no DNA–and the diseases they bring are now spreading around the world.

In The Family That Couldn’t Sleep, essayist and journalist D. T. Max tells the spellbinding story of the prion’s hidden past and deadly future. Through exclusive interviews and original archival research, Max explains this story’s connection to human greed and ambition–from the Prussian chemist Justus von Liebig, who made cattle meatier by feeding them the flesh of other cows, to New Guinean natives whose custom of eating the brains of the dead nearly wiped them out. The biologists who have investigated these afflictions are just as extraordinary–for example, Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, a self-described
“pedagogic pedophiliac pediatrician” who cracked kuru and won the Nobel Prize, and another Nobel winner, Stanley Prusiner, a driven, feared self-promoter who identified the key protein that revolutionized prion study.

With remarkable precision, grace, and sympathy, Max–who himself suffers from an inherited neurological illness–explores maladies that have tormented humanity for centuries and gives reason to hope that someday cures will be found. And he eloquently demonstrates that in our relationship to nature and these ailments, we have been our own worst enemy.

Advance praise

“The Family that Couldn’t Sleep is a riveting detective story that plumbs one of the deepest mysteries of biology. The story takes the reader from the torments of an Italian family cursed with sleeplessness to the mad cows of England (and, now, America), following an unlikely trail of misfolded proteins. D. T. Max unfolds his absorbing narrative with rare grace and makes the science sing.” –Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire


“Much has been written about prions and Mad Cow Disease–nearly all of it is worthless. Thankfully, from the world of journalism comes D.T. Max to set things right. Throw all those other “Mad Cow” books in the trash: This is the book to read about prions–or whatever you want to call them. It’s a riveting tale, told by someone with a very special understanding, derived in part from his own strange ailment. Find a cozy spot, clear your schedule and dive in.”
– Laurie Garrett, author of Betrayal of Trust and The Coming Plague


“D. T. Max deftly unfolds the mysterious prion in all its villainous guises. Although scientists do not fully understand these proteins–how they replicate and wreak such havoc in their victims’ brains–The Family That Couldn’t Sleep reveals their historical, cultural, and scientific place in our world. Prepare to be enlightened, entertained, and frightened.”
–Katrina Firlik, MD, author of Another Day in the Frontal Lobe


“A great book. D.T. Max has drawn the curtain on a cabinet of folly  and malady that will stagger your imagination.”
– Philip Weiss, author of American Taboo


“D.T. Max has combined the enthralling medical anthropology of Oliver Sacks with the gothic horror of Stephen King to produce a medical detective story that is as intelligent as it is spooky. The villain of The Family That Couldn’t Sleep is the prion, a tiny little protein that causes some of the most terrifying, brain-mangling, creepy diseases known to man. Always fascinating–how could it not be, given that its characters include cannibals, mad cows, madder sheep, a Nobel prize-winning pedophile, and, most poignantly, an Italian family cursed by fatal insomnia?–Max’s book is also a gripping account of scientific discovery, and a heartfelt meditation on what it means to be cursed with an incurable, and brutal, illness.” – David Plotz, author of The Genius Factory



From the Hardcover edition.

Sleep Medicine Pearls [2nd Edition] (Pearls)

This second edition by noted sleep medicine authority Richard B. Berry presents 100 cases that review key elements in the evaluation and management of patients with a wide variety of sleep disorders. Sleep disorders are among the most frequent health complaints physicians encounter: one third of adults experience occasional or persistent sleep problems. These disorders become a major health problem when they impair daytime functioning.

• A glossary is provided for sleep and sleep lab terminology
  
The "pearls, " distillations of the key information for each case are always a key feature of books in the Pearls Series®
All cases are real clinical cases compiled by the author, not theoretical

• 10 completely new cases have been added
  
• In addition to the cases, there are 22 sections presenting the Fundamentals of Sleep Medicine which better acquaint readers with the basic elements of sleep medicine
  
• All first edition cases have been substantially revised and rewritten
  
• Many new illustrations and sleep tracings have been added
  
• The glossary has been expanded and updated to reflect latest terminology

Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Insomnia: A Session-by-Session Guide

Cognitive behavior therapy which has been adapted to treat so many problems, has also brought data-driven and data-yielding treatment to insomnia. Focusing on this evidence-based modality, Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Insomnia is a much-needed treatment manual that provides clinicians with the why’s and how’s of this approach in concise and practical terms.

This book, which is written as a reader-friendly guide, is intended for clinical trainees, non-insomnia sleep specialists, and for expert CBT clinicians from outside the sleep medicine field who wish to begin the process of learning to provide empirically validated CBT-I.

The Book is organized into seven parts: definition of insomnia; review of the conceptual; framework for treatment; overview of the components of therapy; session-by-session guide; dialogues; assessment and eligibility for CBT-I; and sample documentation. The organizing principles for the guide can best be expressed as two seemingly simple questions:

“Who is appropriate for CBT-I?”

“What does one need to know to set up a Behavioral Sleep Medicine service?”

The guide provides all that one needs to confidently answer these questions.

The Well-Rested Woman: 60 Soothing Suggestions for Getting a Good Night's Sleep

Written by former insomniac and longtime journalist, Janet Kinosian--who cured herself by using these methods--The Well-Rested Woman offers sixty inventive ways to help any woman get a good night's sleep. Change your sleep by changing your life!

Attune your circadian rhythms
Uncover your chronic sleep positions
Write a sleep biography
Cry at night if you want to
Make friends with your nightmares
Feng Shui yourself to sleep

Filled with inspiring quotes and lists of sleep-promoting herbs and vitamins, the Well-Rested Woman is every woman's ultimate companion to a lifetime of rejuvenating, restful good nights.

Sleep Medicine: Essentials and Review

Sleep Medicine is one of the fastest growing fields of medicine and of strong interest to neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, pulmonologists, otolaryngologists, and the technologists who perform sleep studies. Almost all of the major medical centers in the US now have centers for sleep disorders. In 2007, sleep medicine will become an official medical subspecialty, with board examinations being administered by the American Board of Medical Specialties. Sleep Medicine: Essentials and Review will cover this new field by providing a book that can be used both as a practical, outline-style text for managing sleep disorders and as a "high yield" review for preparing for the sleep medicine board exam. In addition to the text, the author will include 150 board-type multiple choice questions with answers and explanations. Dr. Lee-Chiong is a major authority in the field and author of a comprehensive sleep medicine textbook.

Primer of Polysomnogram Interpretation

* Primer of how to interpret the data collected during a sleep study * Provides sample PSG summaries * Features practical and accessible information for the less experienced clinician

Sleep Thieves