Insomnia? Sleep Like a Baby Again…Without a Pill!

Once upon a time, you really did sleep like a baby.  Then, life happens: a period of stress, a change in environment, or a disruption to your routine.  Suddenly, sleep doesn’t seem to come so naturally anymore.  You find yourself awake for significant portions of the night, hoping to fall asleep but only getting more frustrated.  You stay in bed as long as possible because you know you need more rest.  You take longer and longer naps in the afternoon in order to make it through the day.  You try implementing different bedtime routines and sleep aids, with increasing stress and side effects.  Worst of all, you go to bed every night worried:  If I don’t get enough sleep, I’ll have another bad day. I’m so tired; why can’t I just fall asleep?  I wish I didn’t have to sleep.  Maybe I just don’t know how anymore.

In fact, sleep is a biological drive like hunger or thirst.  It’s not that your body ever stops needing sleep or that you just forget how to do it.  Instead, scary thoughts and compensatory behaviors get in the way, creating a vicious cycle of chronic insomnia.  Instead of your nervous system winding down as you prepare for sleep, you get a fight-or-flight response that keeps you awake.  The more time you spend tossing and turning in bed, the stronger the association between your bed and insomnia.  As the day goes on and you finally take a nap, you decrease your sleep drive by the time bedtime comes – like ruining your appetite with a big snack before dinner.  You finally go to bed awake and anxious, and you stay that way all night and day.  Repeat.

The good news is that chronic insomnia can be treated, and the first-line treatment isn’t a sleeping pill.  That’s right:  the first-line treatment for insomnia, as recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the British Association of Psychopharmacology, the American College of Physicians, and the European Sleep Research Society is a non-pharmacological approach called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia, or CBT-I.  CBT-I is designed to break the vicious cycle of insomnia in just 4-8 weeks by resetting the thoughts and behaviors that drive insomnia.  In short- and long-term trials, CBT-I alone or with medication is shown to be superior than medication alone, while avoiding side effects or drug interactions.

Sleep doesn’t have to be a miserable mystery.  With a safe, effective, and supportive approach, you can again go to sleep relaxed and wake up rejuvenated.  Best of all, you will walk away with the tools and confidence to manage insomnia should it ever recur.  Schedule your consultation now!