Insomnia: What to Do About It

Well I think the first thing you need to do about your insomnia is look and see if there's anything that you could be doing to contribute to it. Is your bedroom a good environment for sleep? How much caffeine are you drinking? Uh, what is your stress level or anxiety level and are you doing things to reduce that, like exercise, proper nutrition, things of that nature. If you've looked at all of those areas, of what I call disordered sleep and everything seems to be working pretty well, I think the next step is to talk with your physician about what are some of the different things that can be done for people who have insomnia. And I don't want people to think that the only thing you can do is take a sleeping pill for insomnia, because that's really not the case. The data is very consistent that cognitive behavioral therapy is just as effective as many of the medications on the market and actually lasts longer.

And what would that be?

Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is where you're taking a look at people's thoughts surrounding insomnia, their cognitions, what do I think about sleep and changing those thoughts to be more positive as opposed to negative and thereby allowing people to have a better experience sleeping and knowing and understanding enough about their sleep to know that everybody has a bad night of sleep once in a while and that's an okay thing. That thereby allows you to reduce your anxiety and oftentimes fall asleep.