Can Make You Sleep by Paul McKenna is this absolutely amazing book I just read about a month ago.  Let me give you a bit of background.  Ever since I was an infant, I never slept well.  I’d torture my poor mother at all hours of the night with crying and then when I got older, I’d just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling.  For as long as I can remember, I would stay awake tossing and turning for 3 or more hours every single long, boring night.  I hated sleeping because it was so boring!  You just have to lay there wishing you could do something else for hours upon hours.  Then I’d wake up during the night many times and not be able to get back to sleep for hours again.

Of course the hardest part was getting up in the morning.  Yeah right!  I may go to bed at 9 and then get up the next morning at 9.  Twelve hours of sleep, right?  Ha!  Let’s say it took my four hours to get to sleep-that’s already 1AM before I even lightly drift off to sleep.  Then I wake up numerous times losing another 2 hours and a big wake up where I’m wide awake staring at the ceiling again for another 2 hours. That means I only got 4 hours of sleep by the time 9am hit.  A sleep study I did said that I was sleeping at a 60% efficiency rate.  So for every 10 hours I was in bed, I was only getting 6 hours of sleep.

Absolute torture.  One day, however, my madre was walking into Barnes and Noble and here’s this little book “I can make you sleep!”  Yea right, she thought, but bought it anyways…it was on sale!  She gave it to me and I thought yea right, but I read it anyways…it was worth a shot.  It was an interesting and short book on how sleep works and on some relaxation methods.  What to do if you’re worried, etc.  One exercise that really got my attention was from a research study.  Researchers found that if people express what’s going on in their mind verbally it raises their IQ.  For example, you’d say out loud “Right now I’m thinking about magic ponies and pink butterflies and now I just thought of a shoe and I wonder if my chickens have food left or if I need to fill up their container and do I have any homework…” etc.  Get the point?  Whatever pops into your mind, you just say it out loud.  That actually raises your IQ-go figure.

Then researchers wondered, does the same thing happen if you just think it out loud in your mind?  You’d do the same exact thing, but you don’t actually say it, you just think it.  The problem was the researchers all fell asleep and couldn’t finish the study.    I decided I’d try it that night and sure enough, I was asleep within ten or so minutes. I couldn’t believe it!  The next night, lights out immediately again.  A miracle!

The book also comes with a hypnosis CD, which I started using the 3rd night.  It’s very relaxing and gives you suggestions like you’ll sleep well and wake up with energy and when you hear little sounds that aren’t important during the night, you’ll just ignore it and keep sleeping.  Now I turn that on every night when I go to sleep and I’m almost always asleep before it’s over (it’s a 20 minute CD).

This little book has been a lifesaver.  I can sleep well and I can get up hours earlier than usual (like 7AM instead of noon) and I get up with a lot more energy.  It’s wonderful!  If you have trouble sleeping, then read this book.