Herbert Ross - Alternative Medicine Magazines Definitive Guide to Sleep Disorders: 7 Smart Ways to Help You Get a Good Nights Rest

2000, 2007 by InnoVision Health Media Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where the publisher is aware of a trademark claim, such designations, in this book, have initial capital letters.

CELESTIAL ARTS
an imprint of Ten Speed Press
www.tenspeed.com

Distributed in Australia by Simon and Schuster Australia, in Canada by Ten Speed Press Canada, in New Zealand by Southern Publishers Group, in South Africa by Real Books, and in the United Kingdom and Europe by Publishers Group UK.

Cover design by Chloe Rawlins

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ross, Herbert.
Alternative Medicine Magazines definitive guide to sleep disorders : 7
smart ways to help you get a good nights rest / Herbert Ross, with Keri
Brenner.2nd ed.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: Sleep disorders. 2000.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN: 978-0-307-81675-7
ISBN 978-1-58761-263-3
1. Sleep disordersAlternative treatment. 2. InsomniaAlternative
treatment. I. Brenner, Keri. II. Ross, Herbert. Sleep disorders. III.
Title.

RC547.R66 2007
616.8498dc22

2007011405

v3.1

Your health and that of your loved ones is important. Treat this book as an educational tool that will enable you to better understand, assess, and choose the best course of treatment when a health problem arises. It will also help you understand how to prevent health problems such as sleep disorders from developing in the first place.

Remember that this book on sleep disorders is different. It is about alternative approaches to healthapproaches generally not understood and, at this time, not endorsed by the medical establishment. We urge you to discuss the treatments described in this book with your doctors. If they are open-minded, you may actually educate them. We have been gratified to learn that many of our readers have found their physicians open to the ideas presented here.

Use this book wisely. As many of the treatments described in this book are, by definition, alternative, they have not been investigated, approved, or endorsed by any government or regulatory agency. National, state, and local laws may vary regarding the use and application of many of the treatments discussed. Accordingly, this book should not be substituted for the advice and care of a physician or other licensed health-care professional. Pregnant women, in particular, are urged to consult a physician before commencing any therapy. Ultimately, you must take responsibility for your health and how you use the information in this book.

InnoVision Health Media Inc. and the authors have no financial interest in any of the products or services discussed in this book, with two exceptions. Pure Energies is a company that sells EMF-protection devices, and Dr. Herb Ross is the CEO of Pure Energies. The book also makes references in the text to other InnoVision Health Media Inc. publications.

All of the factual information in this book has been drawn from the scientific literature. To protect privacy, all patient names have been changed. Branded products and services discussed in the book are evaluated solely on the independent and direct experience of the health-care practitioners quoted. Reference to them does not imply an endorsement nor a superiority over other branded products and services, which may provide similar or superior results.

If youve picked up this book, chances are you have some sort of problem with your sleep. Youre certainly not alone in that. As youll learn in this book, most Americans dont get enough sleep, and the number of hours we spend sleeping each night continues to decline.

If your sleep problem isnt severe, you may view it as less important than other health issues. But, as well explain, a sleep problem can be like the tip of an icebergit may indicate underlying imbalances or conditions, such as an overload of toxins, a desynchronized body clock, hormonal imbalance, or even a structural problem. All of these have the potential to create serious health problems, so your troubled sleep may be a wake-up call to address an underlying health issue. Its also possible for disrupted sleep to cause serious health problems. Insufficient sleep has been implicated in everything from cardiovascular disease to obesity to impaired immune response. It can also create stress, disrupt relationships, and make a person more accident-prone.

Because this book is about alternative approaches to helping you sleep better, we wont be discussing that last side effect of sleeplessnessbeing accident-pronebut suffice it to say, it can have a huge impact on health and well-being, both for you and for others that you put at risk by driving when drowsy. And while alternative medicine can be very effective for helping you sleep better, conventional medicine and intensive interventions may be necessary if youre involved in a serious accident. We wont harp on it, but we do want to be emphatic about it at least once: If you feel sleepy or drowsy, pull over and take a short nap.

We will give you some basic background science on sleep. Having an understanding of sleep cycles could actually be therapeutic. For example, the nightly sleep pattern naturally involves several periods of lighter sleep during the night, when youre more easily awakened. Understanding this may help you feel less anxious if you awaken in the middle of the night, and if you dont worry about it, you may just fall back to sleep more easily. Well also discuss the most common sleep disorders and their causes. If you have an actual sleep disorder, its probably a good idea to work with a medical professional to obtain a definitive diagnosis.

That background brings us to the heart of the book: seven key factors that may play a role in sleep problems, and how alternative medicine can help you address problems in each of these areas:

A key tenet of alternative medicine is using an individualized approach and recognizing that each persons symptoms and health problems arise from a unique set of factors. Therefore, treatment approaches must be similarly individualized. As you read through this book, consider which of these factors may be involved in your sleep problem, and also be sensitive to the interconnections between them. Because our focus is on providing alternative therapies you can start using right away, we wont spend a lot of time drawing out the interconnections between all of the various physiological systems addressed in this book. However, as you read, youll begin to see these connections for yourself and understand how they may be affecting your situation.

For example, many alternative practitioners believe that detoxification is fundamental for optimum health. This is hardly surprising, given that our modern world assaults all of us with a daily flood of pollutants and toxins. But this isnt a stand-alone topic. The food you eat can be a major source of toxins (or of detoxification), so diet is interrelated to toxicity. By stimulating the lymphatic system, exercise can help keep the bodys detoxification processes functioning more smoothly, so exercise, too, is involved. And certain environmental pollutants can have profound effects on hormonal balance, so these two topics cannot be looked at in isolation from one another.