Rubin Naiman

Thank you, Saga, for this importrant piece. I’d like to add a comment about the critical importance of tuning into bodily messages about the need to slow, rest, sleep and dream. These messages are commonly overridden by hyperarousal and disentrainment from circadian rhythms. Healthy sleep, of course, delivers us to REM dreams, during which the typical domination of mind over body is temporarily eased by a disconnection between executive and limbic system functions. This is characterized by autonomic nervous system “storms” – which have historically been thought of as a wild and weird dysregulation of respiration, heart rate, and core body temperature. This dysregulation, however, may well...

Thank you very much for this important article.

Although articles like this one (and there are many of them) are mostly accurate, they are misleading and ultimately not helpful. As a psychologist and sleep specialist who has treated thousands of insomnia patients over the last three decades I am familar with the data and recommendations Chris James discusses. There are three major problems here: 1) CBT-I is indeed the gold standard for treatment, but it fails about 25-40% of the time, especially with more chronic and severe forms of insomnia. It also fails to produce significant changes in quality of life measures. And it tethers one to waking consciousness. 2) These laundry lists of recommemndations can be overwhelming and frequently ...

This question seems to presume that humility and self-confidence are mutually exclusive. I believe humility can offer us another kind of “Self”-confidence – one that doesn’t rely on our personal, egotistical, little self, but rather confides in the larger, archetypal Self Jung described. Thank you for this important essay.

Thank you for this important piece. I’d like to add that hard boundaries between the indoor and outside world are a critcal factor in the epidemic of insomnia. Disentrainment from the natural modulation forces of light and darkness as well as temperature rhythms have severely damaged our circdian rhythms and, consequently, our sleep and dreams. Restoring permeability in architecture is essential both our environmental and public health.