Sleepless in America

Another important CBT technique is to set aside some time during the day or early evening when you do all your worrying. In this manner, you can stop your mind from racing/worrying when you lie down to go to sleep. Body scanning is also another useful technique in which you concentrate on different parts of the body one by one until your whole body is relaxed.

Wendy Aron, author of Hide & Seek: How I Laughed at Depression, Conquered My Fears and Found Happiness
http://www.wendyaron.com

Sleeping pills are not the solutions for insomnia ....the drug cannot prevent you from waking in the middle of the night, because it doesn't prevent the cause of such awakenings, or the drug does not improve sleep quality, because it does not remove the sleep quality problem you suffer from.. CBT is good coz it treats the cause of the insomnia itself - and not just the symptoms as medication does...

It is indeed a valuable approach, which I hope will become more widely known.

I've recently begun to offer CBT for insomnia in Washington, DC, where work and other stresses promote sleeplessness.

Please visit my website: www.sleep-dc.com

For those of you suffering with insomnia and other sleep disorders go to http://www.insomnia123.com/ to get tips on how to talk to you doctor about your symptoms, take the sleep quality quiz and write a sleep diary.

Also, become a member of Insomnia123's sleep community and share your story!

http://www.insomnia123.com/community.html

For additional Insomnia Tips see http://www.sleeppsychology.com/insomnia-tips.html

more resourceas about psychotherapy and logopedics
http://www.logopedics.info/psihoterapie.php

hello ,

thank you for this post

Thank you for posting this article. Insomnia may be caused by a host of different reasons. These causes may be divided into situational factors, medical or psychiatric conditions, or primary sleep problems.

Many people resort to sleeping pills and other medication only after CBT has failed. Sometimes insomnia can have a more serious cause, such as bipolar disorder or major depression, circadian rhythm disorder, physical pain, as in fibromyalgia, etc., and therefore CBT is not helpful on its own.

The cause of a patient's insomnia needs to be examined thoroughly. It should not be assumed that it is simply a matter of not being relaxed enough to sleep.

I agree with marcia dream. Mania/hypomania can cause a person to sleep very little, but feel fully awake in the morning and function fine during the day. They will probably not even report their lack of sleep, nor feel they need CBT or medication. Even when hallucinations and/or psychosis are present, the person may not believe that sleep deprivation is the cause. Been there, done that.

I have not tried CBT, but I am skeptical about whether it is a solution for many people, maybe for some, but for many others, not a solution. It is like telling people with diabetes or cancer to use CBT. For many people insomnia is a change in the way their brain functions, especially for post menopausal women, and doing CBT does not affect their brain.
Doctors and researchers need to realize that insomnia is a real medical disorder and stop trying to treat it as if it is an emotional disorder.

I had sleeping problems for years after having my second child. I tried everything from aromatherapy to sleeping pills without any result.

Then a friend recomended me a CBT-therapist and after only five sessions I was sleeping like a baby. It really works and that does not mean that sleeping problems are the same thing as emotional problems...

Find a therapist, buy a self-help book from amazon (there are several) or try it online (www.cbt-tree.com etc.).

This book helped me hugely in overcoming my insomnia
Insomnia Self Help Work Book

I am trying CBT for the second time. I have to say I have not had really positive results from it. I have had insomnia for 30 years, and it really started out when I was working the 3rd shift, and would use alcohol to sleep on my off nights. I finally couldn't sleep in the daytime either, so I got a script for Florazapam which worked well for about 15 years. Finally I couldn't get it anymore and I have had terrible problems ever since. I know this is a problem that I have built up myself by first using alcohol, then pills, so I thought CBT would help me. My therapist has reduced my sleep to 2am to 7am, which at first worked, but now it is like my body is used to those hours and I can't go to sleep then either. I have no where else to turn but alcohol or drugs because of the other non-drug relaxation methods, i.e. yoga, meditation, bio-feedback do absolutely nothing for me.