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cognitive behavioral therapy

Dec 03
Love0

How Is Insomnia Treated?

By cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, insomnia treatment

Why a Gentler Approach to Insomnia Might Be Just What You Need

Arie, a 38-year-old father of two, never thought he’d struggle with insomnia. But after a demanding six months of sleepless nights, his search for answers led him to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). At first, he was hopeful. CBT-I promised a structured path to better sleep. Yet, when he tried stimulus control and sleep restriction—the cornerstone techniques of CBT-I—things didn’t improve. In fact, they felt worse.

“It was so rigid and controlling,” Arie shared. “Instead of helping me relax, it made me even more anxious about sleep. I started to dread bedtime.”

Arie’s experience is not uncommon. If you’ve struggled with sleep, you might have wondered, “How is insomnia treated?” While CBT-I is often the first recommendation, it isn’t the only path to finding rest. Let’s break down what CBT-I involves and explore why a gentler, less controlling approach may be just what you need.

CBT-I: The Basics

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is widely regarded as the gold standard treatment for insomnia in mainstream medicine and psychology. It’s a structured program that addresses the thoughts and behaviors surrounding sleep.

There are two key components of CBT-I:

1. Education: This involves understanding how sleep works. For example, it’s perfectly normal to wake up a few times during the night. Learning this can reduce anxiety about minor sleep disturbances, helping you feel more at ease when they occur.

2. Behavioral Changes: CBT-I introduces strategies to improve sleep, including:

  • Sleep Restriction: Limiting the amount of time spent in bed to build a stronger connection between being in bed and feeling sleepy.
  • Stimulus Control: Leaving the bed if you can’t sleep and only returning when you’re ready to fall asleep.

For some, like Arie, these strategies can feel like they’re adding pressure rather than alleviating it.

The Challenge with Behavioral Approaches

Arie described how focusing on controlling his sleep felt counterproductive. “It’s like trying to grip a bar of soap,” he said. “The tighter I held on, the more it slipped away.”

That’s the paradox of sleep. It’s a natural, effortless process, yet trying to force it can backfire. While CBT-I works for many, the behavioral components may inadvertently intensify the anxiety and hyper-focus on sleep that often fuels insomnia.

A Gentler, Less Controlling Approach

After a few weeks of trying CBT-I, Arie decided to try something different. Instead of rigidly adhering to schedules and rules, he began focusing on reducing the pressure around sleep.

This gentler approach emphasizes letting go of control and trusting the body’s natural ability to sleep. By stepping back from the constant monitoring of bedtime and wake-up time, Arie discovered something remarkable: his body knew how to sleep—it just needed space to do so.

“I stopped trying to force it,” Arie explained. “Once I let go of all the rules, I started falling asleep without even thinking about it.”

Finding What Works for You

Arie’s journey highlights an important truth: there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to insomnia.

Whether you lean toward CBT-I or a gentler approach, the key is finding a method that helps you feel more at ease with sleep. Some people benefit greatly from the structure of CBT-I, while others find that taking a step back and relaxing their grip on sleep is more helpful.

Whatever journey you take, may it lead to where we all want to be: a place of peaceful sleep and peace of mind.

Jul 23
Love0

Where did my sleepiness go?!?

By cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, healthy sleep, insomnia

Have you ever wondered how something that was right there, something that felt so tangible and strong, could simply vanish into thin air?

You were literally forcing yourself to stay awake just another hour, head bobbing, eyelids heavy but the second you decided to turn the lights off, your sleepiness went poof. 

This is one of the most common phenomena that seem weird when you have trouble sleeping.

In reality, there’s no mystery as to what happens.

Let’s start with another example of when a feeling disappears very suddenly.

Imagine that you’re out camping with your friends. It’s been a long day and you feel tired. You’re just hanging out around the campfire waiting to have one more hot dog before calling it a day. Suddenly, a Grizzly bear charges hops out from behind a tree and charges at you. At that very moment, your fatigue is no more. It has vanished.

The reason you don’t find this the least surprising is that you expect the experience of a charging Grizzly bear to have a very alerting effect on you. Going to bed, well that’s an entirely different matter. Isn’t it?

Not really it turns out. 

Our brains have one core mission – to keep us safe and alive. Identifying threats is one way it does just that. And when a threat is identified, it deploys a fight or flight response to make sure nothing happens to us. The only problem is that it can get confused.

When it comes to insomnia, the misunderstanding that has occurred is that sleeplessness has been incorrectly tagged as a threat. Something that can harm you and should be avoided. And the brain treats all threats with the same approach: the fight or flight response. 

When you’ve had trouble sleeping, the mere act of going to bed, turning the lights off or even thinking about sleep makes the brain go into the mode of self preservation. It’s gearing up for an anticipated struggle and that, that’s the reason why your sleepiness disappears the moment you want to sleep. 

This is an important illustration of the most basic truth when it comes to sleep – the more you want it the less you get. When you want to stay awake on the other hand, in the evening some hours before bedtime, sleep comes easy. 

So what to do?

Education is the key.

When you understand how sleep works the mystery starts to unravel. When you see that sleeplessness is a perceived threat that cannot actually harm you, you stop worrying. When you have no doubts whatsoever, when it’s completely clear to you why you’ve had trouble sleeping, sleep will come your way. 

And a great start is understanding why sleepiness seems to vanish at night!

 

Jun 04
Love0

3 things to do when you are awake at night

By cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, healthy sleep, insomnia

Out of all the questions about sleep, perhaps the single most common one is this – What should I do when I wake up at night? And this is no surprise. You could argue that insomnia at its core is about being awake when you should be asleep. And you typically want to be asleep a night.

So what are these three things you should do when this ain’t happening? Before we go there, we need to spend a few moments on sleep physiology to make sure the answer makes sense.

Think about that person you know who sleeps fantastic. Your friend/spouse/family member who’s asleep before their head hits the pillow. The one you’re envious of. Imagine asking them what they do to sleep so well. Most likely they’d simply reply with a shrug and a confused look. And that response is super important.

Sleep is a passive process. Sleep only happens when there’s no effort. The more you try/want/hope to sleep, the less you get.

That covered, let’s get to it!

1. Accept reality

When you wake up and become aware of being awake at night, yet again, your instinct is naturally to do something to make yourself fall back asleep. Perhaps listen to a soothing podcast, close your eyes and still your mind or count down from 100 in steps of 7.

This may seem like a sensible thing to do. Your brain is awake and active, and you want it to become relaxed and sleep. The only problem with this approach is that you’re trying to make yourself sleep. And the more you try, the more awake you become.

The first thing to do when you are awake at night is in fact a what not to do. And a very important one too – do not do anything that you hope will make you fall asleep.

This includes obvious ones like closing your eyes hard and trying to force your brain to shut down but also more camouflaged attempts like reading a boring book. You can’t fool your brain. If you’re picking up the most boring book you know, you’re trying to make yourself fall asleep.

2. Take an inner journey

If you’re awake in bed, but feel comfortable under those warm blankets and don’t want to be anywhere else, then go somewhere nice using your imagination.

Think of a pleasant memory or a tropical beach or anything else that makes you feel good.

If this comes easy to you, then just stay in bed and enjoy the imagery you’re creating. If your thoughts easily drift off, so will you soon enough.

3. Do something fun!

If taking that inner journey isn’t actually taking you anywhere, if you keep thinking of how you’re awake when you should be asleep, then you have to do something else to redirect your thoughts. What is most important when you decide what to do is this – you have to do something enjoyable!

Read a page turner. Listen to a podcast you’ve been dying to catch up on. See what happens in the next episode of that Netflix show.

You think that this would wake you up even more. But it will do the opposite. Because when you’re not afraid of waking up, your brain stops treating awakenings as something to get excited about.

In fact, when you get to a point where you genuinely look forward to waking up – you no longer do!

There you have it. This is your playbook. Now you no longer have to wonder what to do when you’re awake at night, which is in itself super important. Because the deliberation and ponder of whether to do this or that in itself produces so much anxiety and insomnia.

So go ahead and pick that activity you’ll get to enjoy when you’re awake. Customize your playbook. Start using it today and sleep better in no time!