Can’t Sleep? How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Help Reverse Insomnia
What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine or AASM, around 9 percent of the population has chronic insomnia, which occurs at least thrice a week for at least three consecutive months. Symptoms of insomnia include increases in fatigue, loss of memory, the inability to concentrate and focus on anything, mood swings, loss of motivation and low energy, and depression. Insomnia is known to make it harder to get to sleep, more difficult to stay asleep, and cause disruptions in the sleep cycle that will evidently cause you to wake up frequently, wake up after very little sleep, and not allow you to fall back asleep once you have awoken. CBT-I, or cognitive behavioral therapy, is a treatment that is recommended by most doctors as the very first type of treatment for insomnia termination.
How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Help Reverse Insomnia
This insomnia treatment is a step by step program that starts with you identifying negative thoughts that keep you awake and replacing them with happier thoughts. You also will identify behaviors that prevent you from sleeping, like phone and television usage before going to sleep.
Cognitive behavioral therapy works hard to aid you in sleeping better at night, learning a healthier sleeping schedule. Your therapist such as the Therapist Great Falls locals trust will probably have you keep a sleep journal documenting what time you sleep, how often you awake, any thoughts on your mind before you lay down, and what you ate before you slept.
This will give you a better grasp on what is impacting your sleep schedule. Sleep restriction methods, environment improvement, biofeedback, passive awakeness, relaxation training, sleep hygiene and stimulus control are all methods used by CBT-I therapists. Stimulus control fights to take out any factors that prevent you from sleeping. This can include only using your bedroom for sex and sleep, and not going inside of it unless you are doing one of these two things. Relaxation training includes muscle relaxation, yoga, and meditation. Restrictive sleeping decreases the time you are allowed to spend laying in bed awake. If you have been laying down and cannot sleep for over 20 minutes after going to bed, you are advised to get up and do housework or something productive. This will cause you to be more fatigued the next day, and in turn help you sleep better. Biofeedback is a method that allows you to watch your heart rate and identify any patterns that negatively affect your sleep.
Sleep hygiene is a method that prevents you from engaging in excessively drinking, doing recreational drugs, or drinking caffeine. Environment improvement prompts you to keep your bedroom cold, dark and quiet so that you have no extraneous distractions. Staying passively awake is also a method used because and involves ridding yourself of the worry over not falling asleep early enough.
Contacting a Lawyer
If you have been involved in an incident that is causing insomnia and believe another party is at fault, then you may be entitled to compensation. These damages include mental and emotional distress that may have occurred as a result of the accident. Because the counseling, prescriptions and other treatment for such psychological trauma can be expensive, pursuing a personal injury claim can be beneficial in handling these expenses. An experienced personal injury lawyer can help you file a claim, as well as protect your interests and rights during a case.
Thanks to authors at Lindsey Hoskins & Associates for their insight into Family and couple’s therapy.