The rare book that may help sufferers of poor sleep improve their quality of rest simply by elucidating the context of good...
A no-nonsense, science-based guide to achieving restful sleep from the doctor Ariana Huffington calls the "sleep whisperer.”
Right off the bat, Winter, a board-certified neurologist and sleep medicine specialist, dispels a powerful sleep myth: he asserts that everyone sleeps. In fact, he argues that insomnia is not an inability to sleep; instead, it reflects a person’s dissatisfaction with the quality of the sleep and, in many cases, an accompanying anxiety about a perceived lack of sleep. This reorientation of the problem casts a long shadow on the crowded market of sleep solutions, and the author cuts through the noise of pharmaceuticals and gimmicks to propose natural, implementable solutions that anyone can try at home. Throughout the book, his tone is refreshingly conversational, and while he backs up his suggestions with established research, he keeps the jargon to a minimum and focuses on clearly laying out a) the most common reasons a person’s sleep is disrupted or unsatisfactory and b) how to train the mind and body to regularly achieve restful, satisfying sleep. This is not to say that everyone can solve their sleep problems by lifestyle modifications alone; Winter examines the medical conditions, such as sleep apnea, that can result in disrupted sleep and long-term poor health. He also recommends an occasional device to help regulate sleep patterns or make bedtime more consistently enjoyable. However, the big takeaway is that sleep conditions are treatable without taking a pill and that, like so many things, a psychological adjustment may be the key to success. Many people will find this fact alone a huge relief from sleep-related stress and will be on their ways to achieving better rest.
The rare book that may help sufferers of poor sleep improve their quality of rest simply by elucidating the context of good sleep and offering the right techniques to achieve it.Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-58360-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: New American Library
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
Is beauty truth? Skin deep? A cultural relative? All of these possibilities and more are probed in this scholarly disquisition on the nature of beauty by a Harvard Medical School psychologist. The bottom line is that the idea of beauty is biologically based, and it’s all about sex. Across all cultures (and many species), the survival of one’s genes is dependent on choosing a partner who is fit—and looks it: a male who can provide superior sperm or a potential mama who can and will do well in the caretaking business. For men, the unbeatable combination in a female may be youthful looks, shining hair, pale unblemished cheeks that can blush with ease, up-pointing, rounded breasts, and an hourglass figure—all part of a gestalt read as nubile and not already saddled with offspring. If the face is also symmetrical, and does not deviate too far from average, it may be judged beautiful and complete the formula for the ideal mate. Rather than support one formula over another for ideal beauty, Etcoff says rhat their very existence points to the high regard cultures have paid to beauty. And pay they do: with surgery, scarification, tattoos, cosmetics, nose rings, earrings, and the rest. Indeed, “the rest” forms a sizable subtext of the book as Etcoff reviews the trends for body shaping, implants, wigs, crinolines, high heels, perfumes, and all manner of artful dodges designed to make the deceiver irresistible. How those trends play out in today’s world of maxi-thin, maxi-tall runway models, anorexic teenagers, and adults obsessed with obesity also come up for discussion. In the end Etcoff wisely suggests that to focus on beauty and to want to attain it is not a sin; we should relax and enjoy it as part of our genetic heritage. But perhaps even more wisely, she notes that that is not all there is to beauty. She ends with a comforting anecdote about George Eliot, whom Henry James described “magnificently ugly.”
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-47854-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
A rambling, highly personal memoir cum exposÇ by a labor-and-delivery nurse fed up with the American way of birth. Fascination with childbirth, plus the realization that her own childbearing was over, led Diamond to become first a prepared-childbirth instructor and then an obstetrical nurse. After receiving her nursing degree, she spent the next eight years in various hospitals, both miltary and civilian, sometimes on staff and sometimes under contract with a nursing agency. Her account of those years is chockful of horrendous stories of childbirth, mostly demonstrating how dehumanizing the hospital system is. Hospitals, she says, have adopted a pathological/technological model of childbirth that regiments a natural process and gives rise to a host of intrusive procedures. As the nurse performing these, Diamond frequently felt caught between the needs of the patient and the demands of the doctor. Complaints about doctors abound—she describes some as arrogant, indifferent, and insensitive, and their behavior as downright disgusting. She also has harsh words—rude, lazy—for coworkers. Nor is she easy on herself, frequently bewailing her own lack of assertiveness. Finally, exhausted and depressed, she turned away from nursing and to writing. This angry book is the result. Anyone wanting to experience childbirth vicariously will relish these graphic stories of labor and delivery, but pregnant women should perhaps be warned away. If Diamond's picture of current childbirth practices is as accurate as it seems to be, women already committed to a hospital delivery may be in for an unnecessarily rough time. As an insider's look at current hospital obstetrical practices, this has the ring of truth, but the details of so many births become repetitious, and the author's emotional ups and downs tend to get in the way of her central message.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-85682-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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