Having difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep is very common these days. If this happens fairly consistently you may be struggling with Insomnia, a condition where people have significant and regular difficulty with sleep. Currently 30% of adults in the U.S. report having these struggles.
Sleep difficulties can negatively impact people in a variety of different ways. For some, it may lead to feelings of exhaustion during the day, at times making it hard to get things done. For others, it may cause irritability and fatigue to the point where they start to give up activities that they had always found to be of value.
If sleep difficulties have been happening for awhile it may also lead to lots of worry about sleep. “I have to sleep tonight,” tomorrow will be awful if I don’t sleep,” and “I won’t be able to function if I don’t get to bed” are examples of common sleep related worries.
Behaviorally, people will often develop coping strategies to deal with sleep difficulties (e.g. staying in bed longer, drinking more caffeine).
While these worries and behaviors are completely understandable responses to poor sleep they tend to make sleep difficulties worse overall.
The good news is that insomnia is very treatable. Cognitive Behavior Therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is a skills based treatment that has proven to be very effective for the treatment of insomnia.
So what is CBT-I? Generally speaking, CBT-I addresses sleep habits and behaviors. The cognitive part of CBT-I focuses on how to recognize and change beliefs and worries that negatively impact the ability to sleep. This may include learning how to modify, control, accept, or eliminate negative thoughts and worries that keep people awake. The behavioral part of CBT-I helps to develop good sleep habits and avoid behaviors that interfere with restful sleep.
When it comes to treatment evidence, comparative effectiveness studies reveal that sleep medications are not the best treatment. Instead, several clinical trials have found that the most popular sleep medications, such as Ambien and Lunesta, have been outperformed by CBT for insomnia (CBT-I). Currently, the American College of Physicians recommends CBT-I as the first-line treatment for insomnia.
