Cognitive Therapy for Insomnia

Not exactly insomnia, but not exactly N ~= 8 hours of restful  sleep each night. The pattern is more like this:

• I go to bed, can’t sleep and get up for while; or
• I go go bed, go right to sleep, wake up, and can’t sleep; or
• I can’t sleep, eventually get to sleep, but then wake up in the middle of the night.

In an article in Psychology Today, John Cline writes:

The major components of a cognitive behavioral treatment of insomnia are stimulus control, sleep scheduling, sleep restriction, cognitive therapy, relaxation therapy and sleep hygiene education.

Stimulus control and sleep hygiene education prepare the ground. Stimulus control means avoiding those things that trigger sleep problems—like exciting video games just before bedtime; sleep hygiene education means learning those things that are unhealthy for good sleep: alcohol, naps, stress.

Sleep scheduling means: going to bed each night at a set time and—more important—getting up at a set time.

Sleep restriction means: no naps.

Things that are unhealthy for good sleep include associating bed with things other than sleep (and sex, if you’re into that). So no television, discussion, reading or video games. If you don’t go to sleep in 20 minutes get up to avoid associating bed with “not sleeping.”

Cognitive therapy includes disputing obstructive thoughts like—I’m never going to go to sleep; or I’m going to be really tired tomorrow; or this is not going to work. This just raises stress and helps prevent or disrupt sleep.