Given the acute distress often associated with sleeplessness, it's not surprising that so many of us respond to it with limited stop-gap, band-aid type solutions. In my practice I've found that so much of what we do to manage sleeplessness simply makes it worse.

I'd like to share a brief bedtime story -- actually, it's a story about a character in a bedtime story. It's about one of Dr. Seuss's enigmatic little creatures, the Chippendale Mupp, who is featured in his classic "Sleep Book." The Mupp is a sharp-toothed furry fellow with...

When it comes to conversations about insomnia, one might think we were at war. This isn't all that surprising, since we generally approach health problems as adversaries. We fight disease, combat infections, kill germs and go to battle with our symptoms.

These kinds of fighting words are integral to...

I believe that dreaming is among the most critical misunderstood and overlooked factors in our health, well-being and spiritual development. In contrast to waking, which is typically about an intentional, concrete and active relationship with the world around us, dreaming is more about a receptive, expansive and ethereal relationship with...

Ask insomniacs why they can't sleep and they'll likely tell you its because they're just not sleepy enough. But, how could this be? Given their chronic sleep loss and typical diligence about doing all the right things, surely they must be sleepy. But, they're not. In fact, they are even...

I believe the main reason we struggle with epidemic sleep disorders is our failure to examine fundamental misconceptions that inform our understanding of and approach to sleep. These misconceptions are rooted in a tendency to define sleep negatively -- that is, in terms of what it's not. Like our conception...