The Neuroscience of Excellent Sleep: Practical advice and mindfulness techniques backed by science to improve your sleep and manage insomnia from Australia's authority on stress and brain performance

by Stan Rodski

How to use the insights of neuroscience and the techniques of mindfulness to get a good night's sleep.
Everyone's familiar with the consequences of lost you're groggy and irritable, your focus is off, you don't perform at your best, and you're likely to dump sugary foods and caffeine into your system for an energy boost. But the effects of poor sleep go way beyond these concerns. Indeed, they can be life-threatening.

It's one thing to know the problem, it's another to fix it. In this book, renowned neuroscientist Dr Stan Rodski takes us through the fundamentals of sleep - how sleep works, why we sleep and how much sleep we need - but, most importantly, he gives us exercises to help overcome the bane of insomnia. In any endeavour, the key to achievement is proper preparation, and sleep is no different. Drawing on the techniques of mindfulness, meditation and relaxation, and the neuroscience that underpins them all, Dr Stan gives you the tools to prepare yourself (and your children) for an excellent sleep - and enjoy it!

Genres: Audiobook, Self Help, Health, Nonfiction

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Suz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was quite technical, written by a nueroscientist and psychologist. I listened to the audio and I've always believed that an author should not necessarily narrate their own book. Some of the sentences faded out at the end. The ausio may not be the best format, although in some libraries there is almost a twelve month wait.

The author refers to a lot of online resources (his), and recommends a lot of colouring, and certain colours, or to choose colours of your own referring to the meaning of colours. I need somehting different to this and I have to admit this made me feel very skeptical. He also referred you to his prior book which to me was a little off putting, I think he said something like 'you should read'.

He also suggested people working at their desks should do an exercise every twenty minutes. I was taken aback at any reasons for this as not everyone works at a desk, and it was a stretch to just say this as an assumption.

I much preferred Fast Asleep: How to Get a Really Good Night's Rest and found this book to be disappointing, for me.

[Miruna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aparent dacă doar citesc cărți despre somn și igiena somnului, asta nu o sa ma ajute și să dorm bine noaptea 😩😩
La ultimul capitol am dat skip super repede pentru că mă plictisea subiectul legat de cum să îți faci copiii să doarmă.
Same old info, multe mantre de repetat înainte de culcare, dar și câteva exerciții cool de meditație și pentru neuroplasticitate.
2.5 spre 3 steluțe

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a 3.8.

The book started with a good background and the real meat of it all was in the third chapter. There is a lot of information I think sprinkled into the book to give it density, but I don't think there's much point to having a quiz to tell if you're getting bad sleep, and some of the activities like the manifestation (author describes it as hypnosis) were maybe longer than they need to be? No one would be realistically repeating those paragraphs in their head versus giving people a framework to make their own.

The last part of the book I avoided reading because it was just about the sleep of children which at my point in life I don't really care about, but that may make some parents more interested and rate it better.

But for what the book did give, the introduction and explanation of sleep cycles and chemicals in the body was good, the tips to getting a better sleep too were also good, but you could almost pair those two together into a short guide.

[indy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a readable, low-science primer with straightforward tips. Borrow it from the library rather than buy it.

You'll be disappointed if you read this book expecting a deeper look at sleep neurobiology.

Parents and carers may appreciate it more than insomniac adults: 40% of the book is devoted to building healthy sleep routines for children. The book outlines practical advice based on the child's age and the difficulties they're experiencing.

If you're struggling with sleep, don't read this book immediately before bed.

[Amy Jin · Rating 3 out of 5]

So it was all right before the part he start talking about self hypnosis, like as if doing these exercise can help relieve symptoms of anxiety and stress all that but the truth is that talking to oneself like that will just make you more anxious from a psychology prospective since the brain was constantly reminded of anxiety, it would just make things worse.Some other emotions such as anger would be necessary rather than joy alone, and the cause of sleep walking problem remain unknown so better consult a doctor rather than trying to self hypnosis,the same thing applied to tinnitus, it’s more of a biological disease so have to solve that ASAP.
And the final part is about children, don’t really see why he spend one third of the book to write about how to provide children with a good sleep , adding a bit of personal experience would be better, like describe real life situations where the author or his family members once have trouble sleeping and how they eventually solve that.

[S Mollymok · Rating 2 out of 5]

It has a couple of gems… but is missing a ton of detail. There is quite a few pages that end up saying nothing. Also, some of the advice is ambiguous and misleading if misinterpreted…

If you are looking for a book with scientific detail and rigour, this is not it.

If you want a shallow introduction on how to start thinking about sleep, this might be for you.

It just feels like the author has taken a bunch of other peoples ideas and tried to make a framework out of them, but has no true understanding of sleep and sleep science.

[Amro Magdi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dont see any neuroscience here. Basic.

[Isabelle]

There are a couple of chapters of this book talking about sleep in children, which is not one of the reasons why I picked this book up in the first place. Felt a bit bummed by that.

[D'face · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very technical, focused on children’s sleep issues. This author should not read their own work.

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were portions of this book that I really enjoyed and intend to try to incorporate in my routine, but there were also portions that I vigorously disagreed with.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book didn't teach me anything new. Most of it seems common sense to me.

[madz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book on sleep, explores the sleep stages, how sleep works, and tips for falling asleep for adults. Also talks about sleep intervention strategies for infants, kids, and adolescents. I listened to the audiobook and found it enjoyable on 1.5-2x speed.

Would be a good book to recommend to clients as it is informative, digestible, and provides a range of practical evidence-based strategies for improving sleep.

[Stacey 📚📚 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating this four star, as I have a health care background and studied neuroscience and found it easy to understand!

However, I can see how people who do not have the neuroscience background may find it difficult.

It gave great ideas on how to get your body to rest, and I am really keen to try the 7 minute colouring in/herbal tea/bineural sounds/alpha sounds hack to see if it works.

It's also a great read for parents who are struggling to get their children to work

[Victoria Arrowsmith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is poorly written, initially engaging, but doesn’t provide justifications or citations for many of the claims or studies referenced. Nor does it elaborate on the exercises proposed such as explain how they are helpful. Just not totally clear or well supported. Also, if I wanted a book of coloring exercises, I would have bought a coloring book.

[DonutKnow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot about how the brain is still actively working as we sleep. This book made me appreciate the importance of sleep for survival, but also for increasing a person’s potential to solve problems 💪

[Dawn S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually really liked this book. It reminded me of my days in psychology. I liked the ideas for sleep and mindfulness. I intended to DNF because I didn't need 80 pages of info on children's sleep, but it was interesting enough to read through it all.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was some interesting ideas in here that I hadn’t seen in the trillion other sleep books I’ve read, including some for children

[Halime]

DNF at 1:35:05 audiobook

[Eliza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read as audiobook

[Gonzague Kuttemann · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[JJ Balisanyuka-Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

ok, not enough citations and not the best writing style