Hello Goodreads community. I'm not sure what a real author blogs about on here. Forgive me if I miss the mark...here goes.

I got a call from an earnest magazine writer some time ago seeking help for an article she was writing. The topic was bran, and how new research showing a diet rich in bran could help people with sleep problems.

So here we are; an educated reporter asking me about how people struggling with sleep around the world can harness the power of insoluble fiber to sleep better. What am I supposed to say here? "Yes it's true. To the millions of insomnia sufferers, you have now been liberated from the prison that is sleepless nights. Choke down that Metamucil and meet us all in the streets where we will be dancing, our celebration interrupted only by occasional restroom breaks." I told her that the use of the fiber seemed to help improve some aspects of sleep. She wrote it down. We moved on with our lives.

I appreciate the reviews I get on here. I truly believe they help me become a better author and physician. I am particularly appreciative of a reader named Madonna who gave my book 3 stars ("Like it"), said she found it interesting (thank you Madonna!), and that it was silly at times (agreed). She then made the comment that it "really didn't tell me much about how to get better sleep".

For many people, they want the bran. They want the item/food/device/pill that they can pick up in the store today and be sleeping the sleep of angels tonight. That "thing that makes you sleep better" rarely exists. Sleep is so much more complicated than that. This book is written for the person who has tried the muffin, tried the pill, tried the hypnosis, tried the acupuncture, tried the "one weird trick" and has failed miserably. The text is meant to serve as a reboot of the way you think about and approach sleep. It's not meant to diminish the tips that we see every day. Rather it is meant to say to the reader, sometimes a tip is not enough; you must start again and fundamentally rebuild the way you think about sleep. You might even need to address a problem that can't be fixed with an article or a book. The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How To Fix It is hopefully a fun (okay silly) first step in that process.

I dedicate this post to Madonna and sincerely hope that an extra bran muffin or two helps you sleep well tonight.

Sleep well Goodreads community!

Chris