Hello Sleep

The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications

By: Jade Wu

Narrated by: Susannah Mars

Hello Sleep is a practical and compassionate guide to having a better relationship with sleep and overcoming insomnia from Jade Wu, an experienced expert in behavioral sleep medicine.

For many people who have trouble sleeping, each night is an anxious odyssey where getting a good night’s sleep feels like a battle to win rather than a basic biologic process. Hello Sleep is a guide for people with insomnia to help them shift their relationship with sleep, so that it stops being a battle and starts being enjoyable and natural again. It is a practical, self-guided tour through evidence-based interventions for chronic insomnia, including cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), phototherapy, chronotherapy, mindfulness-based approaches, and medication tapering.

Jade Wu is a behavioral sleep medicine specialist and researcher who has helped hundreds of patients over a period of ten years. She provides in-depth but down-to-earth scientific explanations of how sleep and insomnia work; anecdotes about real patients’ experiences with overcoming insomnia; rationale for why the evidence-based interventions help; and tips for how to problem-solve common pitfalls, along with tailored recommendations for special circumstances (e.g., pregnancy/postpartum, menopause, chronic pain, depression, older adults etc.). Wu’s practical recommendations support a philosophical theme: Sleep is a friend, and it’s the nurturing of our relationship with this friend—rather than an anxious nightly battle—that will give us sustainable sleep health.

Hello Sleep is not a rigid set of rules or a one-size-fits-all approach. Wu believes this can make things worse for those with insomnia issues, making what was once easy and intuitive into something effortful and elusive. Instead, this book treats insomniacs with respect, by giving them knowledge and empowering them to trust themselves and their own sleep.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Essentials.

©2023 Jade Wu (P)2023 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“A compassionate guide to combating insomnia…Readers struggling to get enough sleep will find a welcome resource here.”—Publishers Weekly

“Hello Sleep gets at a fundamental truth about insomnia that is often overlooked—overcoming insomnia is not about trying harder, but rather repairing your relationship with sleep. This book provides concrete, science-based advice, and Dr. Wu writes with insight, compassion, and humor that will help readers regain a sense of wonder and appreciation toward their sleep.”—Jennifer Mundt, PhD, DBSM, Director of Behavioral Sleep Medicine at Northwestern Medicine, Assistant Professor of Neurology (Sleep Medicine)

“An easy to read but factually dense guide that will take its readers from the darkness of insomnia to a new-found confidence in their own sleep. Insomnia can be fixed, and the steps are here in the pages that follow.”—W. Chris Winter, MD, author of The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

So good.

If you have trouble sleeping or know, anyone that has trouble sleeping, I highly recommend this book.

Insomnia Bible

Jade Wu is a God send and her book is the Bible to recovery. I had a mental break down in the spring and it came with Insomnia, anxiety, and depression.
I have been using her book consistently for 4 weeks. I have had drastic improvement and understand sleep way better. I have improved and continue to improve. Praise to Jade for writing this and giving hope and saving insomniacs from hating sleep.

Best book on insomnia ever

This book was informative, clear insightful, and I would recommend it to anyone suffering with insomnia, or who knows someone suffering with insomnia.

A good guide to insomnia

The book provides a generally thorough review of potential causes and solutions to insomnia. It should be used as a guide and while it offers a program, in most cases, medical treatment should be pursued for severe situations.

Best possible book for desperate insomniacs

I love this book. If you have insomnia, it will change your life - the techniques and concepts helped me with my chronic insomnia immediately. Might be the best self help book I have read on any topic actually - definitely the most helpful. Very pleasant to read as well - well written, well structured, delivered with empathy and humor. Cannot recommend it enough

Preliminary thoughts on this new book

This review is quite preliminary as I have not yet finished the book, but since the book is new and I have not yet seen any reviews, I thought I would offer some early thoughts. I have struggled with insomnia for 3 to 4 years. I have tried all sorts of things like eliminating caffeine, cutting out evening TV or electronics, melatonin (but I do not do sleep meds), meditation, etc. none of these really help. After reading just the prologue of “Hello Sleep”, the author debunked most of the things I have tried to cure my insomnia, and she opened my mind to a whole new way of thinking about sleep. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but the past 3 nights since starting to read this book, I have had good to very good sleep!! I’ll keep reading and try the author’s ideas and recommendations, and see if I can have long term success with sleep, but so far I am quite impressed and thankful for the ideas and approach in this book.

Highly Recommend!

This book has helped my relationship with sleep tremendously. I look at it in a new light and no longer feel the burden of sleeplessness. I started falling asleep much quicker only a few chapters in. Many nights it would take me hours to fall asleep. Sometimes I wasn't sure if I even slept, because my mind felt like it was "buzzing with thoughts" the whole night. It was like I couldn't shut my brain off even when I felt completely relaxed! Jade Wu explains sleep in a way that makes a lot of sense to me. Mind over matter is huge. That's only part of it, but this book has been a big eye opener for me. I am so grateful to have found it!

Just finished listening - Very good

I can’t say it works because I just finished the book, but it has given me a clearer view of what works and doesn’t work. I’m excited to start implementing what it suggests.

Incredibly informative and relatable

I didn’t expect a self help book about insomnia to be so interesting. This is a totally different approach than what I’ve read elsewhere about sleep, and it makes so much sense the way the author explains it. She really nails the experience of having insomnia… you can tell she has seen a lot of patients and knows our fears and frustrations. I’m halfway through and already feeling much better with my sleep. Looking forward to finishing up so I can start trying to get off my sleeping pills.

Best authority to date

Like the intro, I have weighted blankets, a CPAP machine, don’t work out in the evenings and do everything to try to sleep. This is the best long-term solution I have found. I bought the actual book in order to read it slowly and implement the process to fixing my sleep for good. This is not a quick fix book and insomnia is not a quick fix problem for must. Grateful I stumbled upon this book randomly!