What Is CBT-I?

You toss and turn in bed all night, willing sleep to come. You know the average person needs at least 7-8 hours of sleep to maintain optimal daily functioning. At this point, you feel you’ll be lucky to get 4 hours of rest.

This isn’t the first night you’ve struggled to fall asleep or remain asleep through the night. In fact, these struggles have been going on for weeks or months. You’re tired of being tired and just need some relief.

Unfortunately, many people throughout the world experience sleep difficulties. Many of these people might even have insomnia. Even though experiencing insomnia is frustrating, improving quality and quantity of sleep is possible.

What Is Insomnia?

It’s possible you’re experiencing insomnia if you have one or more of the following:

  1. Difficulty falling asleep,

  2. Difficulty staying asleep,

  3. Early-morning awakenings with an inability to return to sleep.

For people with insomnia disorders, symptoms are present at least 3 nights per week and for a minimum of 3 months. If you meet these criteria, you may have noticed insomnia becoming so prevalent and impairing such that it negatively impacts your behaviors, relationships, and performance in academic or professional settings.

While there are many causes of insomnia, a leading cause is anxiety. Chronic anxiety comes with challenges that can make everyday life difficult. From intense fears and worries to uncontrollable negative thoughts, the impact of anxiety can significantly burden your life. Thus, controlling anxiety is important to treating insomnia.

Controlling anxiety and treating insomnia may look different from person to person. However, we will further explore CBT-I or cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.

What Is CBT-I?

In a previous blog post, we discussed cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT is a therapeutic approach that explores the connection between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. CBT can be very effective in treating anxiety by helping individuals identify how negative thoughts impact emotions and behaviors and by helping individuals break the cycle.

On the other hand, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia helps individuals improve the thoughts, habits, and behaviors that contribute to sleep difficulties. CBT-I focuses on changing negative thought patterns about sleep, in turn rewiring the mind to have a healthier relationship with sleep. CBT-I also focuses on promoting healthy and sustainable sleep practices.

How Does CBT-I Work?

CBT-I works by targeting factors that contribute to insomnia. Some of these factors include anxiety (including anxiety and stress about sleep), misconceptions about healthy sleep practices, and poor sleep hygiene. Below are some components of CBT-I that you can incorporate immediately.

Set A Sleep Routine

Setting a sleep routine is an important step in alleviating poor sleep and insomnia. A healthy sleep routine involves eliminating stimuli at least 1-2 hours before bed.

While browsing our phones or watching television near bedtime is common for many of us, engaging in these activities inevitably worsens insomnia by keeping our minds active. Instead of using your phone or watching television, engage in a relaxing activity such as reading a calming book, taking a warm bath, or drinking a warm caffeine-free tea. Avoid caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol at least 4-6 hours before bed. Caffeine and nicotine can disrupt sleep by being stimulating or energizing. Alcohol can cause or worsen insomnia by reducing quality of sleep.

In addition, train your body to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Establishing a concrete schedule can help your body recognize that you are settling down for the night by a specific time. For this to be effective, maintain your schedule even on weekends.

If you are not able to fall asleep within 20-30 minutes of laying down, get out of bed and try another relaxing activity. After engaging in the relaxing activity or when you begin to feel sleepy, lay in bed again.

Limit Your Time Asleep

Bear with us for a minute because you’re trying to sleep more, not less, right? Improved sleep quality and quantity is the goal. For some individuals with insomnia, taking nonconventional approaches may be key. If you’re one of those individuals, limit your time asleep. For example, if you regularly only sleep for 5 hours at a time, you should set your bedtime to 5 hours before you wake up. Being able to sleep the amount of time allowed will help develop positive thoughts and emotions around sleep and will help you feel more encouraged. You should then gradually increase the set time until it matches your preferred sleep time.

Reach Out

We discussed just a few ways that CBT-I can help alleviate sleep difficulties. If you are struggling with insomnia, know it’s possible to overcome this struggle. Reach out to learn more about CBT-I, other therapy approaches, and anxiety treatment, at Mindful Mental and Behavioral Health PLLC.

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