BEATING INSOMNIA

This memoir and self-help book presents one man’s experience with anxiety-related sleep deprivation and how he overcame it.

In 2017, California-based mental health counselor Altschuler was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After his return to work following cancer treatments, he found that constant sleep deprivation resulted in anxiety, social isolation, and, eventually, suicidal ideation and despair. Desperate for a solution, Altschuler tried multiple options—from medication to therapy to neurofeedback—until he encountered Springfield, Oregon–based sleep physician Daniel Erichsen, who provides this book’s foreword and whose coaching became the basis for Altschuler’s own sleep hygiene tips and best practices for a sound slumber. He calls these the “Six Ps to Better Sleep”—“Preparation,” “Plan,” “Possibility,” “Positivity,” “Passion,” and “Pay Off”—and explains each in detail. He also discusses myriad strategies that didn’t work for him as well as other established approaches that proved successful. Many tips emphasize an approach to sleep that’s related to cognitive behavioral therapy; specifically, they draw strongly upon the idea that a person can change their perspective about insomnia and replace intrusive thoughts that induce wakefulness. These arguments, built more upon personal experience than evidence-based strategies, will offer many readers some insight on ways that one may be able to facilitate slumber without medical intervention or expensive technology. However, more specifics about these strategies would have greatly added to the book’s value. This sleep guide also contains a great deal of summary and repetition that detract from the book as a whole. Still, there are some strong stories here, such as one in which the author tells of how reaching his lowest point led him to a place of greater resilience.

An earnest but disjointed personal guide to overcoming chronic insomnia.