Psychological Treatments Available For Insomnia
There are various psychological techniques which have helped some in the past to deal with their insomnia. These are non pharmacological in nature.
- Cognitive therapy also known as cognitive behavioral therapy(CBT) is a body of therapy which also encompasses ways of changing unhelpful ways of thought processing and seeing the world, which can lead to higher levels of anxiety and blocking of a restful nights sleep. At it simplest form it is questioning the internal monologue, for example when an unfortunate occurrence happens, rather than blame it on oneself, see that it is not necessarily your fault.
- Controlling stimulus is another psychological technique - there are two main branches to this, either weakening the stimulus response or strengthen it. Weaken the link between bed and doing any thing other than sleeping, so avoid watching or doing work in bed, or by worrying in bed, instead get up and worry somewhere else. In conjunction with this, it works well to strengthen the link between bed and sleep, so only get into bed when real tiredness is felt.
- Sleep restriction is a bit counter intuitive, but this is essentially when the amount slept is reduced this can actually promote a better nights sleep, as then when going to bed tiredness is felt.
- Muscle relaxation is also a technique which may help some, this is where muscles are deeply relaxed one by one. The technique is fairly simple to implement, lie down and close your eyes, go through each part of the body, tense it then relax the muscles.