I don’t sleep that well. I used to sleep through the night–at least, that’s what I remember–but for the last few years, I’ve tended to wake up in the early hours of the morning and then find myself unable to fall asleep again. I’ve tried CBD, melatonin, going to bed early, going to bed late. Nothing has worked. So, when I heard Diane Macedo interviewed on Dan Harris’s podcast, 10% Happier last week as I was walking south to the Chapter’s-Indigo store in Regina, where I was planning to drink coffee before spending the rest of the day writing at the library branch in the mall next door, I thought I’d take a look at her book. I found it on the bargain shelves–a score for me, if not the publisher.

Macedo’s book covers a lot of ground, and it’s informed by her own struggles with shift work and a variety of sleep disturbances. It’s thorough, but also strangely repetitive, but as Macedo points out in the introduction, readers can just look at the chapters that relate to their own difficulties with sleeping, and leave the rest of the book alone. The first two sections provide an overview of different sleep-related issues, and what follows are chapters that discuss possible solutions to those issues.

I found The Sleep Fix useful. I know now that my sleep disturbances are related to something called “conditioned arousal”: my brain has learned that bed, especially at three a.m., is a place to worry and to run through things I want to write, rather than a place to sleep. Macedo suggests solutions: mindfulness apps, getting up and doing something fun until sleepiness returns, a practice called “constructive worrying,” journaling. I’ve tried mindfulness apps, and sometimes they can help me shift my attention away from spinning thoughts to my breathing, and I’m going to try her other suggestions, even though I hate the idea of getting out of bed in the cold darkness. I might also have some problems with thermal regulation, since I often wake up soaked in sweat, as if a fever just broke. Macedo has ideas about what to do with that problem, too, including wearing socks to bed, since cold extremities make our bodies generate more heat.

Maybe you have trouble sleeping. If so, you could do worse than spend $8 on The Sleep Fix.