8Insomnia is a major problem for many people, and a minor one for most. In the author's 22 years of herbal practice, at least half of the people seen have had some kind of sleep issue. It may be waking at 5am, when they would rather not, or it may be impossible to get to sleep, or if they do go to sleep they wake every hour.

Sleep problems are inextricably linked with whole body health - fix one and the other gets fixed too. The way to fix it will vary from one person to another and requires detective work to establish the problem which will then offer the answer.

Read a magazine article, or an internet feature, or most books on sleep, and you will learn all about sleep hygiene and also maybe about a few sedative herbs such as valerian or chamomile. However, most people with sleep problems are very well aware of all these things and they just haven't worked for them. There are also the books on sleep where one person has found the way that works for them so they evangelize this one way for everyone else.

Sleep: The Elixir of Life is different from all the rest because it looks at all the many reasons for poor sleep - such as stress, pain, digestive issues, urinary problems and hormones - and goes through ways to treat them and hence solve the sleep problem. The methods used to treat them include herbal medicine, dietary and lifestyle changes, flower remedies and essential oils. This book is all about finding a way through an individual's health problems to fix sleep in the best way possible, by actually treating the cause of the problem.