Frank Lipman - Better Sleep, Better You: Your No Stress Guide for Getting the Sleep You Need, and the Life You Want

This book is intended to supplement, not replace, the advice of a trained health professional. If you know or suspect that you have a health problem, you should consult a health professional. The author and publisher specifically disclaim any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, that is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

Thorsons

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

HarperCollinsPublishers

1st Floor, Watermarque Building, Ringsend Road

Dublin 4, Ireland

First published by Thorsons 2021

FIRST EDITION

Frank Lipman, MD and Neil Parikh 2021

Cover design by Caroline Young HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

Cover image Shutterstock.com

Illustrations by Giacomo Bagnara

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Frank Lipman, MD and Neil Parikh assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

Source ISBN: 9780008398606

Ebook Edition April 2021 ISBN: 9780008398613

Version 2021-03-25

For my grandson Benjamin, who reminded me what its like to sleep like a baby.

Frank

For our team at Casper, who work tirelessly to awaken the potential of a well-rested world.

Neil

This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

• Change of font size and line height
• Change of background and font colours
• Change of font
• Change justification
• Text to speech
• Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008398606

Dependent on sleep are: happiness and misery, nourishment and suitable physique, potency and impotency, knowledge and ignorance. Sleep observed untimely, excessively and negatively takes away happiness and life like the goddess Kalaratri. If properly observed, it provides happiness and life like the flash of true knowledge to a yogini.

Charaka Samhita Sutrasthana

Y ou arent getting enough sleep. Yes, thats a pretty bold statement, since we dont exactly know you, but if youre like most peopleand were willing to bet that you arethen youre not getting the rest you need. The numbers alone do the talking: 40 percent of Americans report occasional insomnia, 22 percent experience insomnia almost every night, and 70 percent of Americans arent getting enough sleep, no thanks to shifts in our culture (twenty-four-hour everything), technology (all Wi-Fi, all the time), and habits (overworking, undernourishing). Unfortunately, the seemingly small oversight of not getting enough sleepwhether its because youre choosing other priorities over sleep or youre having sleep-related challenges that dont seem to be going away anytime soonwill most likely end up having some very big consequences, if it hasnt already. But not to worry; thats all about to change. Namely because youre about to read the very first one-stop sleep-better resource thats perfectly tailored to you, your sleep, and your life.

From the time we, the authors, first met, we knew that we were going to team up to improve peoples lives. In fact, thats why we were introduced in the first placebecause a mutual friend knew how obsessed we each were with that mission. Neil first came to Frank as a patienthe wanted a new approach to feeling better and liked Franks holistic philosophy (as in, better sleep leads to improvement in your overall health, and improvement in your overall health leads to better sleep) along with his tough-love style (a little bit of a whooping followed by a carrot). Meanwhile, Frank was inspired by Neils passion for the emerging tools and technologies that help form new, better habits, especially when it comes to getting a good nights rest. After weeks of daily e-mails back and forth about our respective discoveries of new gadgets, therapies, and ideas around sleep and behavior change, this book was born. Our mission: Write a book that would finally get people in bed to get the rest they need.

Especially in the wake of Covid-19, when even more people began struggling with maintaining healthy sleep habits and it became clear that lack of sleep was a comorbidity in the virus, we knew that we needed to do something different from what had already been done. Most of you have seen the articles (or at least read the headlines). You already know that we are currently experiencing a sleep-deprivation epidemic, and youre awareeither anecdotally or firsthandthat most people are paying the price. From an out-of-whack immune system, to weight gain, to hormone dysregulation, to brain chemistry imbalance, or even worse, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimers, youre at least somewhat aware of the price you pay when you dont get enough sleep. And on the flip side, tons of studies have confirmed that if we just get more sleepmore than the five or six hours weve been telling ourselves is plentythen we can fend off both major and minor illnesses, boost our ability to learn, solve problems better, think outside the box, lose weight, look and feel younger, and better manage stress. Plus, theres no shortage of clickbait articles outlining just about every sound piece of advice for sleeping more or better, whether its unplugging from our devices an hour before bedtime, using room-darkening shades, or taking a lavender oilinfused bath before bed.

And yet, we are all still exhausted.

Not many people sleep any better than we did before the emerging research gave us an even clearer understanding of why sleep is so important, what it does for every single element of our health, and how to get more of it. So to everyone walking around feeling like theyre living in a fog, like theyre moving at half speed, like they cant shake their depression/anxiety, and like they, perhaps, may never get a good nights sleep ever again, this book is for you. Its also for those of you who arent quite there but feel irritable, dulled, worn out, and worn down. We have made it our goal to figure out why its so difficult to do anything about itand to fix it.

We believe the fix begins with changing the way you think about sleep. For the longest time, the three big pillars of wellness have been diet, exercise, and stress. Important, yes, but not the whole picture. Without adequate sleep, a healthy diet, regular exercise, and stress management arent enough to comprehensively transform or even maintain your health. Thats because