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#Insomnia help now how to#

( 5) “Some people have this misunderstanding that if I can’t sleep, then I should spend more time in bed to try to get myself to sleep,” Aouad says. The therapy also involves sleep restriction.

#Insomnia help now how to#

Think of it as reteaching your body how to sleep. “Really, the basis of it is providing education, talking about sleep drive and teaching people things like stimulus control and avoiding anything stimulating around bedtime,” Aouad says. ( 4)Ĭognitive behavioral therapy focuses on teaching techniques to help you relax, control your breathing and mood, slow down your racing mind, and get to sleep. ( 3) “The benefits of cognitive behavioral therapy, a specific type of counseling to help with the anxiety around sleep that comes with chronic insomnia, have been shown to far outlast medication,” Aouad explains.Īccording to a 2012 study, cognitive behavioral therapy is better at improving sleep efficiency than common drugs, and led to an extra 30 to 60 minutes in sleep time when the two treatment strategies were compared. While there are some appropriate uses for prescription sleep aids (if they are used correctly), they can come with extremely dangerous side effects, and they tend to be highly addictive. “Medication will help you as long as it’s in your system, so that’s a day or two,” she says.

Aouad says it’s a better option than medication. If improving sleep hygiene and other lifestyle changes alone don’t help with your sleep, the next step is cognitive behavioral therapy to improve sleep and reverse chronic insomnia. “Leave the bedroom and do something boring,” she says, such as washing the dishes or folding laundry until you start to feel tired. You can start to work yourself up and associate the bed with not sleeping, making it tougher to fall asleep like you want to do. “If it’s been 20 minutes and you’re frustrated you’re not asleep and you’re thinking, ‘Why am I not asleep yet?’ or ‘I need to do this, this, and this tomorrow’ - that’s counterproductive,” Aouad says.

Creating a Sleep-Promoting Environment That’s Quiet, Dark, and CoolĪnd if you’re doing all that and still have trouble sleeping, keep a few tips in mind, such as don’t lie in bed for hours if you can’t sleep.

Reserving the Bed Solely for Sleep and Sex.

Turning Off Electronics At Least One Hour Before Bedtime.

Limiting Daytime Naps to No More Than 30 Minutes Aouad suggests this.

Not Exercising Too Late in the Day Ideally, you’ll hit the gym more than three hours before bedtime, Aouad says, otherwise the activity can stimulate your body and make it tougher to fall asleep.

“Some people think alcohol can help with sleep onset, but it actually fragments your sleep,” Dr. Aouad says.

Avoiding Anything That Could Mess With Your Ability to Fall Asleep This means substance as caffeine and tobacco, for instance, that can stay in your system for eight hours.

Sticking to a Sleep Schedule This means going to bed and waking up around the same time no matter if it’s Wednesday or Sunday.

Good sleep hygiene - practices that promote healthy sleep - includes: Rita Aouad, MD, a psychiatrist and former assistant professor of sleep medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, says she always starts with tweaking a person’s sleep hygiene, the daily habits and routines you follow that affect sleep. Here are some of the treatment options your doctor or a sleep specialist might recommend if you have insomnia.įor a mild case of insomnia that’s only been a problem for a few days or weeks, doctors will first likely recommend making a few lifestyle changes to promote better sleep. Lifestyle changes, therapies, and other treatments do exist to retrain your mind and body to get the sleep you need to stay not only happy but healthy, too. What’s important to know is whether you’ve been having sleep trouble for just a few weeks or if it’s been for as long as you can remember, you can (and should!) get help. ( 2 ) What’s more, those periods of short-term insomnia that last just a few days or a week ( acute insomnia), can turn into longer-term insomnia, which is known as chronic insomnia, meaning that your sleep troubles last beyond the initial stressor. There are many reasons why you might be struggling to fall asleep or stay asleep throughout the night, ranging from stressful life events, like getting fired from a job, to health issues.

Estimates suggest between 1 in 10 and 1 in 3 people suffer from some degree of insomnia, which is having trouble with either falling asleep, staying asleep during the night, or waking up earlier than you intend to in the morning (or a combination of the above). You feel like you’re cursed, but you’re not alone. You lie awake at night staring at the ceiling.