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HOW TO OVERCOME INSOMNIA ALL BY YOURSELF

A HEALTHY SENSE OF SELF GUIDE TO GETTING A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP

An intriguing but uneven guide for readers seeking a good night’s sleep.

A manual offers a method to cure chronic insomnia, allowing sufferers to enjoy a rejuvenating sleep.

This guide to overcoming insomnia skips the usual trappings associated with getting a good night’s rest, such as forgoing electronics or creating a bedtime routine, and instead focuses on developing a “Sense of Self” to finally sleep well. Vogels describes her method as a means for dealing with childhood trauma that prevents healthy sleep. She argues that there is a type of insomnia caused by the search for approval after adverse childhood experiences. Using her personal history as an example, she describes how her parents were constantly critical, and it was only as an adult that she realized the negative messages she received about herself during childhood were the reason she could not sleep soundly. In this manual, she aims to help readers confront their own Sense of Self through practicing "mind/body awareness exercises." While the author provides many anecdotes from her own journey to a restful slumber using this method, it seems that her sample size is one. She addresses this in her Author’s Note, referring to a book on neuroscience that validates her own conclusions but that was published too late to be referenced in her work. Still, readers who are looking for ways to cure their insomnia that are based on a great deal of research and evidence rather than just one writer’s personal experiences may want to look elsewhere. For example, her claim that “depression comes from not being able to realize your hidden goal and gain your substitute sense of self” may sound dubious to those who struggle with the condition. That said, the manual may be helpful for insomnia sufferers who have exhausted other techniques.

An intriguing but uneven guide for readers seeking a good night’s sleep.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 145

Publisher: BalboaPress

Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2020

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CALL ME ANNE

A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.

The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.

Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.

A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.

Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023

ISBN: 9781627783316

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Viva Editions

Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023

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BRAVE ENOUGH

These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.

A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.

What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.

These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-101-946909

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015

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