Do you often spend the night awake and miserable, each passing minute feeling like an eternity? Do you feel like your mind gears up when you are ready to gear down? Do you constantly remind yourself that tomorrow will be awful if you can't get to sleep?
If these questions sound like you, you may be dealing with some form of insomnia.
Seeing as we spend approximately 25 years of our lives asleep, insomnia can be a major player in our health and well-being. More than half of all Americans report having insomnia at any given time, with half of those reporting chronic insomnia.
Chronic insomnia typically takes hold after a bout of acute insomnia, or insomnia that occurs due to some type of distressing event or situation. We attempt to cope with the acute insomnia in ways that seem to make sense. For instance, we may try to catch up on sleep by sleeping in, going to bed earlier than usual, or napping during the day.
Sadly, our well-intentioned adaptations actually encourage acute insomnia to develop into chronic insomnia. The longer we struggle with not sleeping, the more our thoughts become focused on our desire for sleep.
We begin to worry about not being able to sleep, and we focus on our perceived problems resulting from not sleeping. We feel tired and long for sleep, so we repeat the coping strategies over and over in an effort to capture elusive sleep.
Many people turn to sleeping medications to help them achieve a good night of sleep. Although this may be a tool to help in the short term, taking medications for sleep may not be the best the long-term solution. Luckily, for many people there are other treatment options for chronic insomnia. One such option is cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I.
CBT-I is a form of cognitive behavioural therapy that focuses solely on chronic insomnia that is not attributed to a medical condition, including untreated depression and anxiety. CBT-I is often a helpful adjunct treatment for those already being treated with cognitive behavioural therapy for depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues.
CBT-I has been shown to significantly improve sleep and reduce or eliminate dependence on sleeping medications in 75 percent of people who follow through with the treatment. The treatment is completed in approximately five sessions after a thorough assessment of symptoms.
Why does CBT-I work so well? It is effective for several reasons.
First, it teaches about the different types of insomnia and about our sleep cycles. Understanding these basic concepts makes it easier to see how the treatment works. Secondly, CBT-I teaches us how to strengthen our sleep system and how to make adjustments in our wake system — putting them both back in balance. CBT-I includes a plan to reduce and possibly eliminate sleeping medications.
And finally, CBT-I helps to address our negative sleep thoughts while also offering behavioural techniques that support healthy sleep. Negative sleep thoughts are thoughts we have about our insomnia, such as "I'm going to feel miserable today," or "I won't be able to get through the day without a nap."
As it turns out, much of what we think we know about sleep may not be accurate. One of the fallacies we have come to accept is that we need eight solid hours of sleep to stay healthy. Numerous research studies have demonstrated that this is not the case for everyone. There is actually significant variability in individual sleep needs.
CBT-I helps to identify how much sleep you actually need each night. Knowing this can make a significant difference in how you look at sleep.
Research has also shown that moderate sleep loss may not impair daytime performance as much as we think, particularly in chronic insomniacs. However, sleep loss does tend to negatively affect our mood, which may be exacerbated by the negative sleep thoughts we have when we don't sleep well.
Interestingly, sleep loss due to pleasurable activities such as late-night socializing or vacations is not seen as stressful and therefore does not typically cause impaired daytime mood.
http://www.gosanangelo.com/lifestyle/health/sound-of-mind-calling-all-insomniacs-3b612fd5-06df-6545-e053-0100007f4d83-392478971.html
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