How to Use CBT to Cure Insomnia
- 1). Keep a sleep diary. You will need to keep a sleep diary for at least the next six weeks. In your sleep diary, note the time you went to bed and the time that you awoke, how long it took you to initially go to sleep, whether or not you woke up during the night and how long you were awake for. You must also note whether or not you took any kind of medication to get to sleep.
- 2). Practice sleep restriction. The key to CBT is not how much you sleep you get, but the quality of your sleep. If you are lying in bed for eight hours and only sleep for about four hours, then that’s not the best quality of sleep. With sleep restriction you will be instructed to not take any naps, particularly after 3 pm, when it can most have an effect on the following night's sleep. If you find yourself in bed for 20 to 30 minutes without falling asleep then you will be required to get out of bed and go elsewhere. Read a book or better yet, sit in the dark until you feel drowsy again. Your bed must only be associated with sleeping, not for lying awake.
- 3). Practice sleep hygiene. The idea behind sleep hygiene is that your bedroom is strictly for sleep and sex. While you practice sleep hygiene, you will learn not to watch TV in your bedroom and certainly not to work or surf the Internet in your bedroom. You will also make sure that your room is quiet. If it isn’t, you may have to buy ear plugs or a white noise machine. Is your bedroom completely dark? If not, you may have to get an eye mask. You will probably also look into your food and alcohol consumption to see if anything there might be affecting your sleep.
- 4). Review thought Modification. A large part of insomnia comes from thought processes. You lie in bed thinking that if you don’t go to sleep right now, then you won’t get eight hours of sleep and won’t be able to function the next morning. CBT takes these negative ideas, and gives you alternative thoughts. In the above example, you might respond, “most people do not need eight hours of sleep to function properly.” Both a therapist and a good website can give you more information on alternative thoughts.