Book Review The Sleep Prescription, 7 days to unlock Your Best Rest, Aric Prather, Penguin Random House, 2022 5 stars. Reviewer: Mary Lou Codman-Wilson, PhD, Pastoral Psychology, Psychological Anthropology, Christian Education, Buddhism
Soundbite:
There’s a lot about our lives and our health we can’t control. But sleep is one of the areas where we can see a huge transformation with a few concrete changes. It turns out that improving our sleep can lead to improvements in many other aspects of our life, including how we feel, what we eat, how we learn, and how we react to others during the day, things that often are harder for us to change on our own. When we sleep better, we feel better, we’re more creative and engaged, have more energy to exercise, and have a greater tendency to pile our plates with healthy foods and colorful fruits and veggies. When you sleep better, your whole life improves, creating a foundation for health and well-being. (p.xv)
Review:
Aric Prather says the goal of his book on sleep is “to help the body do what it already knows how to do, freeing ourselves from the behaviors that adversely affect sleep, and reinforcing the behaviors that restore us to our natural sleep rhythm...” P.xix) He is right to take on the values in western culture that “have long valorized late work, short sleep, tiredness as a badge of honor, and productivity above all else” (p.174). In that context he offers seven days where readers will tackle one tiny habit per day. Each habit switch will “show the reader how to clear away the most common obstacles to sleep, and instead create a strong association with sleep cues, unique to you, that will help you lay back and let sleep work its magic. What this book is going to teach you is how to get out of your own way, so that your body can do what it was built to do: sleep.”(p.xxii)
He covers the sleep basics of “is your room dark? Is your room cool? is your room clutter and distraction free? Is your phone attached to your hand? and do you know your sleep data?” (pp.xxiv,xxv) Then he deals with analyzing our regular patterns surrounding sleep – your wake up regularity, your two main drivers of sleep – homeostatic sleep drive (the pressure that builds in one’s body to go to sleep) and your circadian rhythm (your master clock in your brain that governs the rhythm of all your body processes.–. For example, in setting one’s regular wake up time, he recommends ways to reward yourself for getting up at the same time each day - and so it is with each behavior pattern he suggests shifting. He deals with the effects of our diet on our sleep, our tendency of worry, our proper (or lack of) a wind down time before sleep, ways to “bring down your stress thermometer’ (p.43), the effects of caffeine and exercise, the problem of rumination and your negative self-talk, His suggestions are thoroughly research validated and very practical and easily adapted. This makes his book an incredibly positive help for all those who need to learn how to “unlock your best rest yet.” 5 stars.
Excerpts:
Sleep is an amazing medicine. It’s so potent it can help with any number of the ills that plague us. . Good sleep boosts the immune system, it regulates metabolism, it makes you happier. It makes you a better, more empathetic partner and a more patient parent. It can improve your productivity and creativity at work and boost your energy so you can actually squeeze in that extra (or first!) workout during the week. It sharpens the mind and can actually clear toxins out of the brain that build up over time, including those thoughts that play a role in neurodegenerative diseases – I sometimes call sleep “the dishwasher of the brain.” (p.xxi)
So, the next time you’re in bed and stressed about being unable to fall asleep, remember that it will be OK. But the key here is that when you’re awake and mentally aroused, you need to physically get out of bed. What I advise people to do is go back to one of their wind-down activities. Then when you feel sleepy return to bed. If you wake up immediately again? You guessed it. Up again. . .until your body responds. gain. What you are here doing, is “re-pairing” the feeling of sleepiness with the bed itself.