How does CBT for Insomnia Work?

If you’re reading this post, I’m assuming you’re a somewhat savvy individual who likes to do their research before they plunge right into something new. Maybe you’ve been dealing with sleep troubles for awhile, and maybe you’ve tried a number of things–but to no avail. Then somewhere along the way you heard about this CBT-I thing and you said to yourself, “wait a second, therapy can help with sleep problems!?” If that question has been knocking around in your head, check out this post about how well CBT-I really does work.

So what is this CBT-I thing people have been talking about? What will it actually entail?  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I for short) is a structured treatment protocol that has two main components: stimulus control and sleep restriction. These two components are what has been found to be super effective to get your sleep back on track. Let me explain each of these in turn:

1) Stimulus Control: do you know how when you walk by the fridge in the middle of the day, and your brain begins to think “food” and then you begin salivating and dreaming of your next snack, even if you’ve just eaten and aren’t hungry? Well that’s because you’ve associated the kitchen and the fridge with eating, and those cues in your environment (cue = fridge, kitchen) tell your brain to expect food. The same is true of our beds. If we spend a lot of time in our bed doing awake things, be it reading, looking at our phones, stressing about tomorrow, arguing with our partner…our brains are going to associate our bed with those things. Stimulus control helps us to tighten up the association between our bed (and our bedroom) and sleeping.

2) Sleep Restriction: this one might sound a little scary, and I’ll admit it’s not a walk in the park, but it’s foundational to what makes CBT-I really work. If you haven’t already, go read my pizza dough post. With CBT-I we’re trying to tighten up your pizza dough so that it doesn’t have any holes in it. In order to do that we have to restrict your sleep window for a brief period of time (2-3 weeks). This helps us to build up your sleep pressure again. Once we’ve done this, we can then add more time to your sleep window until we reach the sweet spot of total sleep time for your body’s unique composition.  Think about it like “sleep efficiency training” or a clever hack for your circadian rhythm. 

Now to be clear, CBT-I does have other components. But these two behavioral components–stimulus control and sleep restriction–are the two that sleep researchers believe are the most vital to repairing one’s sleep. And what’s great about it!? In just 6 to 8 sessions you can have the sleep of your dreams and be feeling like your old self again!

So, if you’re interested in learning more about whether CBT-I can help you, contact me here to set up a free 15-minute consultation call today!