Best-selling author Annabel Abbs-Streets talks about her new book SLEEPLESS: Unleashing the Subversive Power of the Night Self (On-Sale February 13, 2024), a remarkable blend of memoir, science and history that traces women's relationship with the darkness, grief, insomnia and the productive, creative opportunities waiting in wakefulness. Lyrical and meticulously researched, SLEEPLESS is groundbreaking in its focus and depth on the subject of insomnia and disrupted sleep.
“This book asks one of the most beautiful questions a Big Soul can ask herself: What if our insomnia was a wondrous, life-thriving thing? As a reader, we answer it together with weary but deeply fulfilled relief, yes, yes, it is!” —Sarah Wilson, author of This One Wild and Precious Life
“Sleepless is a multi-faceted book: part memoir, part cultural history, part popular science…If you, like me, have berated yourself for your inability to go back to sleep, this book will inspire you to get up, light a candle, and experience your own Night Self.” —Financial Times
Best-selling author Annabel Abbs-Streets is the first to admit that the personal journey revealed in her new book was not something she planned or prepared for, nor was it a journey she ever expected to make. In the winter of 2020, after a trio of sudden painful losses left her reeling, she was hit by a persistent and alarming bout of insomnia that would change her life.
Tossed into an emotional storm with no guide or map, Abbs-Streets spent months plagued by crippling anxiety and even paralyzing fear as she sought balance, understanding, and self-acceptance. Within a year Annabel had found a place of sanctuary within the dark of night and emerged with a fresh new perspective on life after midnight.
Now she’s ready to share illuminating truths and lessons learned, particularly regarding the power of women, phases of grief, and a surprising upside of insomnia. The result is SLEEPLESS: Unleashing the Subversive Power of the Night Self (G. P. Putnam’s Sons; On Sale February 13, 2024), a fascinating and inspiring guide to making peace with what often derails us.
Part memoir, part science and history retrospective, SLEEPLESS traces the uneasy relationship women have had with the darkness for hundreds of years. It’s unsafe. It’s unknown. It beckons. But across generations many women figured out how to navigate sleepless nights to mine creativity, wisdom, and courage. Like Annabel Abbs-Streets they learned to recognize the brain’s nocturnal shape shifting that allowed brilliance to appear. From sculptors and painters, novelists and poets, to astronomers, photographers, and others who came fully alive in the deep of night, their contributions to the world were well documented. These intrepid women laid the groundwork for those who followed.
SLEEPLESS weaves their exploits with Abbs-Streets’ dizzying descent into the black hole of insomnia after the startling deaths, in quick succession, of her father, stepfather, and beloved family pet. Like many women the author believed she’d simply power through the grief and pain, but she soon discovered that tenacity was not the key to healing. Instead she refused drugs and sleep aids and stopped fighting her internal demons. She eventually learned to embrace what she calls her Night Self, where her wakeful, naturally altered night brain offered solace and serenity.
· It is the first book to consider and share the latest science of how circadian rhythms—especially in women—change the awake-at-night brain and what it means for those who cannot sleep at night.
· It’s the first to introduce the novel idea of a Night Self, an alter ego of sorts that frees us to tap into the benefits of sleepless periods during the night.
· Many famous women appear in SLEEPLESS, including Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, and Lee Krasner, as well lesser known artists, such as Katherine Mansfield, Louise Bourgeois, Daphne du Maurier whose sleeplessness sparked remarkable contributions to art, science, and culture over centuries.
· In an age of unprecedented insomnia and sleep anxiety, the book introduces an utterly new way of seeing one’s wakeful nights—not as dementia-inducing doom and gloom, but as an opportunity for reflection, creativity and wonder.
SLEEPLESS stresses that we need to learn to love the darkness again, as our ancestors once did. According to experts, this current age of round-the-clock LED light and sleep anxiety is damaging female health. It also presents the latest data on the negative effects of light pollution and what it does to productivity and mental health around the globe.
For Annabel Abbs-Streets embracing her Night Self was a revelation and a relief. She was able to conquer fears, restore her balance, and nourish herself. She was also reminded that what we need isn’t always what we are prescribed. More important, there are many ways to sleep. In SLEEPLESS she delivers a gentle and comprehensive blueprint for disconnecting from the anxiety of insomnia to recapture strength, imagination and, finally, the ability to sleep.
Suggested Interview Questions:
1. In SLEEPLESS, you trace your year-long journey through grief. How did you first make the connection between devastating loss and the later onset of persistent insomnia?
2. What was the most powerful lesson you learned in the process of writing this book?
3. In doing research for the book what surprised you the most?
4. SLEEPLESS addresses how trauma can affect sleep patterns and well being, particularly in women. Are women more susceptible to sleep disturbance? How do women’s experiences differ from men’s?
5. SLEEPLESS reveals that a woman’s brain works differently from day to night. Are men’s brains similar?
6. What are the most common causes of sleeplessness?
7. How did you first discover the Night Self?
8. What is a Night Self and how do we recognize it?
9. Does everyone with sleep difficulties become aware of a Night Self?
10. You traveled extensively and took on intrepid adventures in the quest to conquer your fears. How did you prepare for the challenges you faced?
11. Many famous women experienced severe sleep disturbances including Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Lee Krasner, as well as more obscure women whose contributions to art, science and culture were invaluable. How did their experiences differ from women going through it today?
12. You lived through it and learned to embrace the dark of night. What advice would you offer someone struggling with night fears, sleep disruptions, or insomnia?
13. You’ve written international bestsellers in two genres, non-fiction and fiction. Which comes more naturally to you? How is your research and preparation the same or different for each genre?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Annabel Abbs-Streets is a writer of highly researched, award-winning fiction as well as both narrative and practical non-fiction. Her non-fiction includes Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women, 52 Ways to Walk, and The Age Well Project. Abbs-Streets also wrote the novels The Joyce Girl, the story of James Joyce’s daughter Lucia, and Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen, an international bestseller optioned by CBS Studios. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She lives in London and Sussex with her family.
