Overcoming Insomnia: A Self-Help Guide Using Cognitive Behavioral Techniques (Large Print 16pt)

I thought this was a well written and helpful book with excellent suggestions on dealing with insomnia. Professor Espie may be the world's top expert in insomnia and what really works. He discusses various behavioral approaches that I thought were easy to implement. For me I was concerned about my own sleep issues and his book gave me confidence what is the normal sleep pattern seen in my age range. I happen to be a physician and would view this a Best Buy. It is hard to find self-help books of quality, written by authentic experts that offer invaluable advice. This is the real deal. I bought the kindle version.

I would recommend this book to everyone with insomnia. It is clearly written, it guides you step by step with instructions what you have to do each week. It is accompanied by a lot of research findings, the claims are scientifically supported, provides a lot of information. The whole approach is holistic - it guides you through several factors that could affect your sleep - from the environmental ones like noise, light, food and, of course, changing your congitions (wrong beliefs) about sleep. Excellent!

This book has saved my life!! By the time I finished the second chapter I was sleeping through the night. The author describes insomnia in a very comprehensive way. The second chapter deals with the anxiety aspect of insomnia which is one of, if not the, main reason for insomnia and provides ways of overcoming it. For me this is all it took to get me to relax and fall asleep. I have already recommended this book to friends!

I tried everything and then I tried this. CBT worked for a friend of mine when his wife was dying of cancer and it worked for me. No more melatonin, no more 3 o'clock anxiety sessions. If, on occasion, I have a bad night, it's just a bad night, a one-off, and not part of a death spiral.

I read several books for insomniacs and I found this book to be most helpful. It is easy to read and answers almost all of my questions.

It truly is a great resource for anyone who cannot sleep. After tossing and turning for months, my sleep improved greatly. I no longer stay in bed waiting for sleep to descend. Instead, I am able to align my sleep and my expectations, so that I am rested.

I haven't read the book yet, but I'm infuriated to discover that it's a large-print edition. This should be mentioned in the description.

I didn't find it useful, at all. Academic. Work bookish. It's main use would come as the kind of book you read to put yourself to sleep through sheer tedium. On the other hand, my sleep problems for the moment have disappeared, coincident with ordering this book. Go figure.

A good book. Mostly resolved my sleep problems. Revolves around keeping a sleep diary, fixing your beliefs about sleep and of course fixing your sleep hygiene.Fix the air quality in your room (leave a window open during the day)Don't expose yourself to bright lights during the night.Do expose yourself to light in the morning (i.e. don't keepo your curtains pulled); I found I sleep best when I take my dog for a walk first thing in the morning.(Can't remember if it's in the book or not but meditating for 10 minutes has been proven to improve sleep quality)Ideal temperature for a bedroom is 18C.Exercise regularlyEat healthilyGet up in the morning when you are awake (even if it's before your alarm goes off) so that your body associates your bed with sleep.My personal recommendation: Don't allow youself to think about things whilst in bed - do it somewhere else. Also don't drink upto an hour before bed otherwise your sleep might be interrupted by you needing to use the toilet.

I’ve never written a book review but felt compelled to write this in the hope the Prof Espie reads this as a thanks for helping me cure my long term insomnia that has had such a negative effect on my life.I started the book 11 months ago and can finally say now that my sleep is deeper, longer, more predictable and satisfying. It’s not a quick fix and I didn’t feel the full benefit for about 6 months but that is such a short period of time in comparison to my many years of tiredness.The book is clearly written with the Professors kind, understanding voice and is scientifically based which gave me confidence to keep going even though it was hard at times. I’m so glad I persevered and kept to the programme. It’s changed my life and I can’t recommend it enough. Thank you so much Prof Espie.A few tips for those in colder climates , the programme involves getting out of your warm bed quite a lot in the early weeks so starting in spring might be a good idea.As there are some questionnaires to complete, a physical copy is preferable to having it on the Kindle.Also, if you need support from others going through the same CBT programme Prof Espie and other experts have set up a web site called Sleepio. It takes you though the same stages as this book and there are supportive discussion forums with many other people doing the course. It costs approximately £200 for a year and includes a weekly question session with a sleep expert .Good luck to anyone deciding to begin this CBT programme, you won’t regret it if you stick with it!

Bought as it was recommended by my sleep consultant. Sadly I found it almost completely useless though.I didn’t like the tone of the author and I just don’t get on with CBT at all. It just doesn’t speak to me, and I didn’t find that the sleep depravation techniques worked at all.I can be just about functional at a zombie level of competence on 2 hours sleep for months on end without it forcing me to sleep at night so in the end the premise of this book doesn’t work for me. It’s just a very long drawn out torture. And the sleep hygiene rules just create a very fetishised torture chamber and routine for the sleeping to NOT take place in.It works for millions but not for me. 😞

Goes a bit too much into the science, when all I wanted was to find out how to sleep through the night. It did hit on sleep restriction which seemed the only bit of advice. I bought it whilst waiting for the sleep restriction element of the author's Sleepio website. Said website is okay, but apart from the sleep restriction I found the other advice a bit woolly, ie, pretty obvious. And the site is 100% about getting to sleep not staying asleep which is much harder to do; same as this book really.

I have had insomnia and bad sleeping for ten years, nothing worked, including hypnotherapy, pills etc.This worked! The book is quite long-winded and the program is 6 weeks, so you have to get into it, and the depth and slowness is what makes it work. Basic concept is sleep compression (all hours of usually broken up sleep, in one go, so you go to bed at say 2am, get up at say 7am), only use bedroom and bed for sleeping (ie, stay out of room and bed), and a load of other things that are supplemental and change your attitudes to insomnia, which works with the main effects to reinforce.Recommended most highly, even if you think nothing will work.Also, this book comes from the Glasgow sleep centre for sleepy scientific studies, and was recommended to my by my doctor, and is not the usual dodgy self-help fare.