Category: Uncategorized
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CBT Self-Help Guide For Treating Insomnia Based On Sleep Science
Insomnia disorder is sleep problem defined by difficulty falling and/or staying asleep that happens at least three times a week and has persisted for at least three months. Additionally, these nighttime problems are combined with daytime symptoms, like exhaustion, irritability, and difficulty concentrating. The problems also happen even if you give yourself enough time to…
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The Beachball Analogy On The Power Of Letting Go: Acceptance And Commitment Therapy
Many people often think of acceptance as the same as giving up or staying stagnant in our lives. They view acceptance as bad and the enemy of change. However, there is a lot of power in acceptance. In fact, acceptance has formed the core of more recent ‘third wave’ therapies, such as acceptance and commitment…
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Should I Leave Or Stay In Bed When I Cannot Sleep?
In insomnia, people have high anxiety about being unable to sleep. Moreover, they often spend a lot of their time in bed awake and feeling distressed. Over time, their brain begins to make an association between the bed and wakefulness (known as conditioned arousal). If you have ever had the experience of going to bed…
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Treating Insomnia Naturally Using Science-Based Strategies (Without Drugs)
Chronic insomnia is a troubling sleep problem which is defined by difficulty falling and/or staying asleep, as well as daytime exhaustion. Most physicians and mental healthcare providers are not very well-equipped to deal with chronic sleep problems. They will usually provide sleep hygiene recommendations or prescribe medication. The problem is that sleep hygiene does not…
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How Sleep Problems Stick Around: The 3P Model of Insomnia
Bad nights versus insomnia disorder Everyone has a bad night from time to time. However, for some, the one bad night turns into a steady stream of bad nights. Suddenly, you are not having a bad night anymore. You have insomnia. The question is: why do sleep problems sometimes stick around? In this post, I…
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Simple Ways To Get Better Sleep If You Have Insomnia Based on Sleep Science
Introduction The world is full of myths, misconceptions, and misinformation about how to treat insomnia. For example, people talk about sleep hygiene as a solution to insomnia; in reality, sleep hygiene is not an effective strategy to treat insomnia. Even physicians tend to immediately jump to sleep medication, which most people do not prefer because…
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Optimizing Your Sleep: Six Components Of The Sleep Health Framework
The Sleep Health Framework (Buysse, 2014) helps us to understand sleep health in a multidimensional way, in which the sleep-wake cycle is broken into six important components that together optimizes our health and functioning. These sleep components include: In this post, I discuss each of these components in turn and provide strategies to optimize these…
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Examples Of SMART Goals For Sleep
Sleep is arguably one of the most important parts of our life. When we sleep well, we feel much happier and more effective in our day-to-day life. Work comes easier, conversations flow smoother, and things are just a bit brighter. It comes as no surprise then that improved sleep is a goal for many people.…
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Getting Over Your Fear Of Being Awake At Night
People with sleep problems, such as an insomnia, tend to be particularly afraid of being awake in the middle of the night. Specifically, they find this situation to be quite dangerous and they are filled with thoughts about the implications: Unfortunately, these thoughts tend to ramp up our anxiety and make sleep even less likely…
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Everything You Need To Know About CBT For Insomnia
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is considered the frontline, gold standard treatment for chronic insomnia. However, people are generally less familiar with CBT-I compared to other available treatment options, such as sleep medication. Therefore, it can be helpful to understand more about what CBT-I is and how it works. In this post, I discuss…