Sleep Interrupted

SUPERANNO Disrupts conventional and alternative perceptions about health and disease by proposing a revolutionary new sleep-breathing paradigm; challenges popular beliefs about how and why we age; and provides explanations and solutions for a broad range of common and serious medical conditions such as ADHD, depression, anxiety, weight gain, menopause, heart disease, snoring, stroke, and more. Original.

Sleep State Interrupt centers around Waylee Freid, an unemployed journalist and musician with ever-worsening bipolar disorder, and her countercultural friends in the decaying city of Baltimore. Frustrated by the injustice of a system that benefits only a few, and the apathy of a population content to lose themselves in a virtual reality called BetterWorld, the group busts a notorious teenage hacker out of jail and sneaks into a closed election fundraiser at the Smithsonian castle, where they record incriminating admissions by a corrupt president and a power-mad CEO. Hunted by Homeland Security, Waylee and her friends must reach a substantial audience by broadcasting their video during the Super Bowl. But to do so, they will have to break into one of the most secure facilities ever built.

Inspired by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher’s book Wild America, recent high school graduate M. Ralph Browning embarked on a tightly budgeted, year-long trip in the US looking for birds. The year was 1962. His 1955 VW Beetle broke after nine months, which forced a premature end to the journey. In 2005, after matters of military duty, college, a family, and a career in birds at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the author resumed the interrupted trip. This time, he was with the girl he’d left behind in 1962, and they birded Texas, the Southwest, and California. The author chronicles the trip with observations on birds while touching on history, geology, and conservation. The cost of keeping alive includes periodic notes on the price of gasoline (about $0.33/gallon in 1962) and food. The author had earlier written to numerous birders for information about birding particular locations, and many of those individuals across the country showed him birds and invited him into their homes for a gratefully appreciated warm bed and home cooking. The 2005 leg of the journey was assisted by bird finding guides and the help of the legendary Jon Dunn and numerous motels.

According to all accepted criteria, Israel has developed a refined universe of social science research, yet the sociology of war, in a society whose brief history is described by "rounds" of war, is utterly lacking. Baruch Kimmerling's monumental work is an effort to correct this glaring omission. He does so by calling upon the best in survey research along with a deep reexamination of the classical social science literature on conflict and consensus. Israeli society is characterized by a large army of reserves, citizen-soldiers mobilized into military service during an emergency. One such emergency was the 1973 war; another the 1982 war. Kimmerling's approach is to treat such conflicts as temporary but powerful interruptions in many social processes. These episodic events not only lead to changing conceptions of mobilization, but higher risks stemming from potential loss of life and injury, shortages, and conceptions of disaster. This is a work which takes seriously both institutional requirements and personal traumas, and is thus very much in the mainstream of social analyses. Kimmerling and his research assistant Irit Backer have come up with most unusual data to measure stress and strain, occupational background of these citizen-soldiers, relationships between normal work and military tasks, the impact of such conflicts on migration patterns--among other truly unusual ways of getting at the topic of an "interrupted" system. This is a book written with a controlled passion, and no mere data-mon-gering activity. The author understands the high costs which Israelis pay to be part of the "club." He sees interruption as an integral part of a chronic conflict situation. Curiously he sees the special features of the Israeli system, when viewed in tandem with external pressures and conflicts, as enabling Israel to strike a balance which enables it to persevere. This is "a "critical work, but spares the reader fatuous policy recommendations.

In 2011, Philip Zimbardo gave a TED Talk called “The Demise of Guys,” which has been viewed by over 1.8 million people. A TED eBook short followed that chronicled how in record numbers men are flaming out academically and failing socially and sexually with women. This new book is an expansion of that brief polemic based on Zimbardo’s observations, research, and the survey that was completed by over 20,000 viewers of the original TED Talk. The premise here is that we are facing a not-so-brave new world; a world in which young men are getting left behind. Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Coulombe say that an addiction to video games and online porn have created a generation of shy, socially awkward, emotionally removed, and risk-adverse young men who are unable (and unwilling) to navigate the complexities and risks inherent to real-life relationships, school, and employment. Taking a critical look at a problem that is tearing at families and societies everywhere, Man, Interrupted suggests that our young men are suffering from a new form of “arousal addiction,” and introduce a bold new plan for getting them back on track. The concluding chapters offer a set of solutions that can be affected by different segments of society including schools, parents, and young men themselves. Filled with telling anecdotes, results of fascinating research, perceptive analysis, and concrete suggestions for change, Man, Interrupted is a book for our time. It is a book that informs, challenges, and ultimately inspires.

Clinical practice related to sleep problems and sleep disorders has been expanding rapidly in the last few years, but scientific research is not keeping pace. Sleep apnea, insomnia, and restless legs syndrome are three examples of very common disorders for which we have little biological information. This new book cuts across a variety of medical disciplines such as neurology, pulmonology, pediatrics, internal medicine, psychiatry, psychology, otolaryngology, and nursing, as well as other medical practices with an interest in the management of sleep pathology. This area of research is not limited to very young and old patientsâ€"sleep disorders reach across all ages and ethnicities. Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation presents a structured analysis that explores the following: Improving awareness among the general public and health care professionals. Increasing investment in interdisciplinary somnology and sleep medicine research training and mentoring activities. Validating and developing new and existing technologies for diagnosis and treatment. This book will be of interest to those looking to learn more about the enormous public health burden of sleep disorders and sleep deprivation and the strikingly limited capacity of the health care enterprise to identify and treat the majority of individuals suffering from sleep problems.

We spend more than 200,000 hours sleeping in a lifetime, the equivalent of more than 8,000 days. Yet research has only just begun to decode the mysteries behind what can go wrong. Here, Dr. Carlos H. Schenck, one of the most prominent sleep doctors and researchers in the country, takes us on an incredible journey into the mechanisms of sleep, and the spectrum of disorders that can occur when these mechanisms go bizarrely awry. Dr. Schenck discusses the causes and treatments for common problems-insomnia, restless legs syndrome, sleep apnea, and more. But what sets this book apart is the rare glimpse it offers into the cutting-edge science that he and others have pioneered in identifying, understanding, and explaining the realm of "parasomnias"-the mysterious, more extreme sleep disorders,such as dream enactment, sleep-related eating disorder, sexsomnia, sleepwalking, sleep terrors, sleep paralysis, and even sleep violence, which affect at least 20 million Americans. Comprehensive, engrossing, and backed by the latest medical research, Sleep is a groundbreaking work about what continues to be one of our most mysterious medical puzzles-making it an indispensable guide for sufferers of all sleep disorders and their families.