Book review

Sleep is one of the basic needs for leading a healthy life. It is a general conception that our brains rest while we sleep. The recent developments in sleep medicine, however, tell a different story. Our brain works during sleep to process and assimilate the information it caught during waking hours. Connections are made and remade, and the body goes into repair mode. Not everyone, however, can boast of a good night’s sleep. In the book “The Twenty four hour mind”, the author Rosalind Cartwright”, a pioneer in her field, details about what could be predispositions and triggers for NREM sleep parasomnias.

It makes us aware one on how our waking life, our behaviour during waking hours, affects our sleep patterns and quality.

She also talks about recognizing signs of early neurodegenerative conditions and depression through changes in sleep patterns.

Clues as to how dream imagery changes in response to stressful events in one’s life and how new information is entwined with the old one, giving our dreams their colourful, bizarre, vivid, outlandish and distinct individual flavour, are scattered throughout the book. To a homoeopath, it will take you into the world of sleep, and would push you towards reading our own repertories and materia medicas in a new light, finding out new meanings and insights.

Shivangi Jain
BHMS, MD, PGDMLE, PGDHHM
drshivangijain79@gmail.com
https://drshivangihomoeopathy.com/

I recently read a book ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Bessel Van Der Kolk. A beautifully written heart touching book, it takes the reader into the world of people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and those who suffered trauma during developmental years.

As a homeopath I found the book fascinating, prompting me to revisit some of my cases to find out if there ever was any traumatic experience in their lives. It gave me a new insight into the search for causation to the presentations we might often see in our clinics. Any homeopath would easily connect to the book, given the details into which one delves into histories of patients.

Not only does it define the problem but also enumerates various non-pharmaceutical methods of dealing with PTSD, which though may not be within the ambit of a homoeopath, will expose the physician to a whole new world of supportive therapies that can be advised and extended to patients through professionals. It is a must-read for anyone who deals with such cases and is interested in the multitude of ways in which our brain processes adversity.

Shivangi Jain
BHMS, MD, PGDMLE, PGDHHM
drshivangijain79@gmail.com
https://drshivangihomoeopathy.com/