Rating: 
Summary: Something old, something new
Review: Before Thomas Edison came along, people went to sleep and woke up according to the daylight. Now, Dr. Maas argues, we are a nation that has to be woken up by alarm clocks and overall, just aren't getting enough sleep. Crazy schedules, cramming more work into our day, and sleep disorders are turning us into zombies during the hours we're supposed to be performing at our peak. Why?
Some of the admonitions given here are nothing new: decrease stress (through meditation, exercise, eating better, etc.) so you'll fall asleep more easily. However, Dr. Maas has opened my eyes to the need for better sleep. Most people, (especially we work-driven Americans)are only averaging 4-6 hours a night- and that's on a good night! The average person actually requires 8-10 hours to feel energized and rested all day long. Yes, Dr. Maas says, you can "condition" yourself to motor through your day on less sleep, but it doesn't mean it's the best for you.
Other subjects discussed are:
* Which mattress is best for me?
* Are naps a good thing or a bad thing?
* Sleep disorders (such as insomnia and sleep apnea)
* Sleep "debt" and how to pay it back over time (despite popular thinking, you CAN make up for lost sleep
* How to cope with jet lag
* Ideal bedroom conditions (light, temperature) for the best rest
Although some advice is nothing new, I appreciate the (no pun intended) wake-up call. Dr. Maas is also author of "Remmy and the Brain Train", a book that helpd childrem understand the importance of a sleep schedule- also helpful for children with ADD). Dr. Maas encourages sleeping on a regular schedule; whether that is Midnight to 8 a.m., 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., it doesn't matter, as long as your sleep time frame remains the same. I myself am now going to bed a few hours earlier than my normal time, am averaging 8 hours, and feeling much more alert from my efforts.
Rating:
Summary: a good overview on the importance of sleep
Review: I don't think it will shock many readers that Americans are at least one or two hours sleep deprived a night -- the author details dozens of horrifying accidents and incidents that resulted from the actions of sleep deprived individuals. The opening few chapters about the various levels of sleep made for great reading. The twenty tips for good sleep were helpful, although most of them I already knew. In short, there is nothing extremely new or cutting edge, but there is lots of usable and easy to read information about all kinds of sleep disorders. I found it very entertaining and well presented although I would have cut out some of the extra stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a waste of money but not what I expected
Review: I liked this book in a lot of ways, but when it ended, I was dissappointed. There is worthwhile information about sleep and interesting quotations from famous people about sleep but there seemed to be a lot of filler in this book. The book throws out many statistics but rarely explains how these stastics were obtained. I also thought the book contained too many horror stories about deaths related to people falling asleep while operating heavy machinery etc.,.
I got this book because I am 19 years old and in college and basically ever since I turned 13 I haven't been able to maintain a normal sleep cycle for more than a week at a time. I always end up not being able to get to sleep at my set bedtime and throw off my whole plan to wake and rise at the same time everyday. Unfortunately, I don't think this book is going to help me change that. I only just finished it today, though, so I'll keep you updated as to how things go.
The books' main suggestion is that you should wake up at the same time every day and go to sleep at the same time every night. This is pretty common knowledge and unfortunately I just don't think this is something I can realistically do because I have tried hundreds of time in the past and just not been able to maintain a consistent schedule.
The book gives some valuable suggestions like "don't exercise near bedtime" and "don't eat any heavy meals before bedtime". The book describes the "architecture" of sleep which is interesting to read about and gave me a better understanding of my sleeping patterns. One valuable piece of information the book gave is that 8 hours of disrupted sleep is not as restorative as 6 hours of deep uninterrupted sleep. The book also suggest that if you are cramming for an exam late at night that you should get a minimum of four hours of sleep. This is a valuable piece of information which I could have used throughout the last year of college. The message about sleeping pills in this book is that you shouldn't take them. I think one good message that the book delivers is that sleep is more valuable than we think. The book says that, when we get more sleep, we function at a higher level and then throws out some sketchy statistics to support this argument.
There is a list of sleep clinics in the back of the book which is great. I think I'll have to check one of them out because I doubt this book's suggestions are going to solve my sleeping problems.
I was very disappointed by the fact that there was no concluding chapter to the book. The book doesn't tie everything together at the end and just ends with a list of suggestions for elderly people on how to get to sleep and 20 pages of appendixes and footnotes. I also felt mislead by the title of this book. I thought the book would include information about how to sleep less or how to get more restorative sleep but it didn't and I found that most of the information presented is stuff I already knew. You could probably find most of this information on the internet but I only paid $1 for the book and it did have some interesting information (although it didn't provide me with the type of information I was expecting) so it gets 3 stars. p.s. I also found the suggestions to "go to sleep now if you're tired and staying up and reading this book" really annoying haha
Rating:
Summary: Not a waste of money but not what I expected
Review: I liked this book in a lot of ways, but when it ended, I was dissappointed. There is worthwhile information about sleep and interesting quotations from famous people about sleep but there seemed to be a lot of filler in this book. The book throws out many statistics but rarely explains how these stastics were obtained. I also thought the book contained too many horror stories about deaths related to people falling asleep while operating heavy machinery etc.,.
I got this book because I am 19 years old and in college and basically ever since I turned 13 I haven't been able to maintain a normal sleep cycle for more than a week at a time. I always end up not being able to get to sleep at my set bedtime and throw off my whole plan to wake and rise at the same time everyday. Unfortunately, I don't think this book is going to help me change that. I only just finished it today, though, so I'll keep you updated as to how things go.
The books' main suggestion is that you should wake up at the same time every day and go to sleep at the same time every night. This is pretty common knowledge and unfortunately I just don't think this is something I can realistically do because I have tried hundreds of time in the past and just not been able to maintain a consistent schedule.
The book gives some valuable suggestions like "don't exercise near bedtime" and "don't eat any heavy meals before bedtime". The book describes the "architecture" of sleep which is interesting to read about and gave me a better understanding of my sleeping patterns. One valuable piece of information the book gave is that 8 hours of disrupted sleep is not as restorative as 6 hours of deep uninterrupted sleep. The book also suggest that if you are cramming for an exam late at night that you should get a minimum of four hours of sleep. This is a valuable piece of information which I could have used throughout the last year of college. The message about sleeping pills in this book is that you shouldn't take them. I think one good message that the book delivers is that sleep is more valuable than we think. The book says that, when we get more sleep, we function at a higher level and then throws out some sketchy statistics to support this argument.
There is a list of sleep clinics in the back of the book which is great. I think I'll have to check one of them out because I doubt this book's suggestions are going to solve my sleeping problems.
I was very disappointed by the fact that there was no concluding chapter to the book. The book doesn't tie everything together at the end and just ends with a list of suggestions for elderly people on how to get to sleep and 20 pages of appendixes and footnotes. I also felt mislead by the title of this book. I thought the book would include information about how to sleep less or how to get more restorative sleep but it didn't and I found that most of the information presented is stuff I already knew. You could probably find most of this information on the internet but I only paid $1 for the book and it did have some interesting information (although it didn't provide me with the type of information I was expecting) so it gets 3 stars. p.s. I also found the suggestions to "go to sleep now if you're tired and staying up and reading this book" really annoying haha
Rating: 
Summary: Really Works!
Review: I recommend this book to all my sleep-deprived customers. Dr. Maas explains in accessible language why how you sleep tonight will determine your performance tomorrow and the rest of your life. Easy to read and POWERful stuff.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable presentation on importance of sleep in our lives.
Review: In the months since I first read Power Sleep, I have referred back to the wonderful information contained in it many times, and each time, have found there is more to remember and to enjoy. Professor Maas' style of writing makes one want to even consider "losing some sleep," just to absorb this book non-stop. It is at once a valuable reference on sleep, both scientifically and practically; a book which is fun and entertaining, but also very challenging to read; and a subject well presented at a time when we all can be reminded of the restorative nature of getting enough sleep to be at our best each day.
Rating:
Summary: Everything you'll ever want to know about sleep
Review: James Maas is not, as another reviewer stated, the author of The One Minute Manager series (that's Ken Blanchard), but he *is* an expert on sleep habits and the debilitating effects of sleep deprivation. This book has everything you'll ever want to know about the subject--what goes on during sleep, how it impacts your productivity, sleep disorders, and much more. While not exactly "revolutionary," as the title suggests, Power Sleep will enlighten you with the facts on a subject so many people know so little about (but *think* they know enough about). Unfortunately, the people who would benefit most from reading Power Sleep (for example, frequent business travelers, or supervisors of night-shift workers) often don't know what they don't know about the subject of sleep, and will therefore never read Professor Maas' very worthwhile book.
Rating: 
Summary: Do you really need 10 hours?
Review: Let me save you some time with this book: the author says you need more sleep. 10 hours in fact. If you fall asleep when your head hits the pillow, you are likely sleep deprived and you need more time sleeping. If you are in this category (as am I) this book won't help much, beyond some good tips on napping. If you cannot fall asleep easily, or wake often, this book has lots of detailed advice, from how to decorate your bedroom and what to do there, to when to eat dinner, what not to drink, watch on TV, and so on. This is probably a useful book for those who cannot sleep. Me? I should have skipped it and caught an extra hour.
Rating:
Summary: Useful
Review: Not having problems with sleeping and appreciating it's importance, this book is not really for me: it soon becomes very clear that the author's two basic thesis for writing this book are 1) that you are so consumed by hectic pace of everyday life that you almost consider sleeping a waste of time, and 2) that you hardly have any idea on how detrimental is such an attitude to you, your energy, mood and success, and the people around you. Even if you did start reading the book, Dr. Maas is concerned that you aren't truly interested and that you might drop it any moment. One has to appreciate his attempts in keeping your interest by writing short chapters with small units, many illustrations (photographs or cartoons), his own attempts in writing wittily (with mixed results), and plenty of repetitions of most important points. I thought that a good part of what is written is common knowledge. On the other hand, there are things that I hoped would be explained which aren't even mentioned. For example, what are the biological mechanisms (and how they work) that affect some peoples' need for sleep when it's full moon, what are the hormonal changes that occur when a very fatigued individual after skipping a night or two feels his/her sex drive has increased rather than decreased (which would be expected)... you will not find anything on such phenomena in the book. The impact of sleep deprivation on one's mood and emotions is mentioned but not really explained. There are two things that I consider particularly good: a short true-or-false test with popular notions about sleep which one can complete in about 5 minutes, and which can be very motivational, and the Peak Performance Sleep Log which a reader is supposed to keep during several weeks. It's a simple record of factors that affect your sleep and even though one can occasionally feel silly keeping the log, it helped in finding a pattern where previously I did not think there was one. I believe Dr. Maas' claim that after a few weeks people may "discover, perhaps for the first time, what it really feels like to be fully alert all day long." As he says "If you're getting less than eight hours of sleep each night, including weekends, or if you fall asleep instantly, or need an alarm clock to wake up, consider yourself one of millions of chronically sleep-deprived people - perhaps blissfully ignorant of how sleepy and ineffective you are, or how dynamic you could be with adequate sleep." To conclude: if I have felt mislead into buying this book it's more because of the way publisher presented it than it is about the book's claim: the author makes it perfectly clear who is his target readership. As other reviewers have noted, there isn't much "revolutionary" about this book. Nevertheless, I did find it useful and consider it a good introduction to the topic. In addition, it contains numerous references, including web-sites, addresses of sleep disorder centers in the USA etc. which one can follow.
Rating:
Summary: WAKE UP!
Review: Power Sleep is a dynamic and lucid book that I highly recommend to any individual who wants to live a more stress free life and maximize his or her daytime performance. As a first year college student, I did not realize the vitality of sleep in my life. Many college students do not realize how the amount of continuous nocturnal sleep they get affects other aspects of their life, including their ability to retain new information; however, Dr. Maas crystallizes these points. Dr. Maas' lucidity and practicality allow the reader to fully comprehend and conceptualize the information presented. For example, instead of Maas using dreary drawn-out language to describe the nightly sleep cycle, he incorporates friendly diagrams and brief explanations. Dr. Maas uses writing techniques which promote reader participation. For example, throughout the book, Maas asks several rhetorical questions, such as, "are you getting enough sleep?" These questions stimulate the reader to have a mental response, and therefore, interact with the book. Dr. Maas, fully achieved his purpose of informing the reader about the importance of sleep and ways of overcoming sleep deprivation. Read the book with intentions to change your life!
|
